Home's Gruesome Halloween Decorations Have Prompted Multiple Visits From Police
Some people take spooky season to the extreme, and that's especially the case with East Dallas [...]
Some people take spooky season to the extreme, and that's especially the case with East Dallas resident Steven Novak. Novak is an artist that took a gruesome approach in dressing up his house for the occasion this year. Using mannequins, special effects makeup, and gallon after gallon of fake blood, the artist staged a series of gruesome murders around his front yard. The decorations are so bloody and lifelike, the Halloween fiend has had police stop by more than once due to complaints he's received from neighbors and passers-by.
The decorations include a fake body dangling off the roof, with a machete gorged through the dummy's head. Laying in a pool of blood on the steps is another fake body, with its head crushed by a safe. A short stroll down the sidewalk and you'll see another "body" that's been dragged across the walkway leaving a blood trail. That body's impaled right through the abdomen. Then there's the wheelbarrow and garbage bags full of bloodied body parts.
Puts those big inflatable spider yard decorations to shame.https://t.co/VFNnBA7pnQ
— Dallas Observer (@Dallas_Observer) October 27, 2020
"I've always been up to hijinks like flying ghosts or 7-foot tall snow sculptures of myself, so if I was gonna do Halloween, it was obvious that it should be hyperreal," Novak tells the Dallas Observer. "No lights, fog machine, or camp … something that would really freak people out walking by in the dark. So I whipped up some dummies and slung 20 gallons of blood all over."
He adds an anecdote about "watering" his work with a hose as confused neighbors jogged on by, "It was raining a lot and washing the blood away so I indefatigably 'watered' the bodies every morning for a while to the dismay of early dog walkers and joggers saying as they passed 'Watering the bodies!'"
But what part of the gory outfit does he like most? The wheelbarrow — most definitely the wheelbarrow.
"I'm most proud of the wheelbarrow tipped over by the street full of Hefty bags, looking like a failed attempt to dispose of the dismembered bodies in the middle of the night," Novak says. "A kid walked by and asked me what happened to them; I said they ate too many Skittles."
Cover photo by Romy Arroyo Fernandez/NurPhoto via Getty Images
