(Photo: Sky News)
Since 2009, James Creighton of Stevenage, UK has decorated his house for Halloween. He’s very serious about the work and uses it to raise funds for a charity. This year, he re-created a scene from classic horror movie The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, complete with disemboweled corpses that you can view here.
It was, perhaps, a bit much. Police informed him that they had received a complaint that it was too horrifying for neighborhood children. The officers asked Mr. Creighton to put a black tarp around his fence to block the line of sight of children passing by. He’s annoyed:
"I was shocked - more to the point that the parent couldn't come to the door themselves and speak to me personally, but had to get the police involved and waste their time.
"Police have asked me to put black tarpaulin along the fence so the kids can't see it, but why should I do that? It ruins the whole rest of the display for everyone else.
"All the other kids love it. It is just this one who doesn't like it.
"It is a bit gruesome, it's a bit gory, but that is Halloween, it is meant to be fun and scary. It is all for a good cause."
I can understand his frustration, but perhaps Mr. Creighton should take the complaint as a mark of pride. It’s not easy to create a Halloween display that terrifying.
-via Dave Barry
And the kid's parents should take this as an opportunity to teach the youngster that movies and haunted houses aren't real.
When I was a kid there was a house in town that put on a huge display (back before everyone decorated.) the whole town went every year. The donation box was actually a coffin with a hand that would grab your money from you. (I suspect it was spring loaded but I was too afraid to get close.) Every year I begged to go, and every year I'd get so scared out of my little kid mind I'd wind up crying. Add that to the neighbor who had a flying ghost that attached you as you walked past (while he laughed at us whole time) or the guy who had the loudest, pee your pants inducing, buzzer, ever, in the window that he would set off when you walked up the path to his house and THAT is Halloween. That is why it's called TRICK-or-Treat not "let's decorate everything cute and go begging for candy handouts."
I miss that Halloween.