These Philly-area homeowners spend $5,000 or more to transform their yards into Halloween haunts

A six-foot animatronic dragon blows smoke out of its mouth. Zombies crawl across the ground, as a giant skeleton towers overhead.

This isn’t a professional haunted house. It’s the West Chester front yard of Mike Kane, a 40-year-old software engineer, father, and Halloween enthusiast.

He’s one of thousands of Pennsylvania and New Jersey residents — according to his haunt-tracker app FrightMaps — who’ve recently gone all in on Halloween decorations, pouring time, creativity, and lots of money into increasingly elaborate displays.

For his “Cul De Sac of Terror,” Kane said he’s spent about $5,000, a number that is relatively low in the spooky community.

“If you’re a home haunter and not just an average decorator … $5,000 is the entry cost,” said Kane, who in 2022 started FrightMaps, a free app that allows users across the country to find professional and homegrown haunts and to list their own displays for the enjoyment of fellow Halloween lovers.

» READ MORE: Looking for Halloween displays in your neighborhood? This Delco dad made an app for that.

While some home haunters accept donations to defray the cost, most use their own money to fund the setups, which often include not just decorations but also lighting, fog machines, speakers, and projectors. Home haunters say the displays, which typically run daily from dusk to 9 or 10 p.m., increase their monthly electric bills by anywhere from $30 (for those who use more energy-efficient LED-lit items) to more than $100.

For some decorators, “Halloween is somehow becoming bigger than Christmas,” said Sheri Connolly.

For the past three years, she and her husband, Chris, have turned their lawn into “Light Up 394″ for both holidays at their Yardley home. So far this October, they have seen twice as many Halloween visitors as last year.

“There is such a need in society right now for community,” Connolly said. When it comes to Halloween, “I think people all feel included.”

More U.S. consumers have gotten into the spooky spirit in recent years, as over-the-top pandemic decorating habits held strong.

“Since COVID, people got crazy,” said Thomas Oakes, a 56-year-old contractor who runs the “Tilford Terror” at his home in Somerdale, N.J.

While most Halloween fans are no longer stuck at home with extra cash on hand, like they were in 2020, they’re still shelling out to create scary spaces. This year, $3.8 billion is expected to be spent nationwide on Halloween decorations, according to the National Retail Federation. Since 2019, Halloween-decor spending has increased 42%, while overall spending on the holiday has risen by only 32%.

At the same time, the market has gotten more intense and accessible for everyday consumers, with pandemic supply-chain issues a problem of the past. Anyone can go online and order a wide array of lifelike animatronics, including a $500 talking clown, a $600 “terror dog” from “Ghostbusters,” and a $3,000 thrashing corpse to put on their lawn.

Customers who prefer to shop in-person have been able to pick up 12-foot skeletons at Home Depot since April. Other retailers such as Michaels, Target, Lowe’s, and Costco unveiled their Halloween sections in the middle of the summer, earlier than ever before, according to Axios. Almost half of Halloween enthusiasts told the National Retail Federation they had planned to shop for the holiday before October, up from only 32% a decade ago.

“People are dropping $300 to $1,000 per trip to get these animatronics,” said Kane, the FrightMaps founder and West Chester home haunter.

Haunted Hill Farm, a Philadelphia-based Halloween-decor brand, spun off of its Christmas counterpart, Frasier Hill Farm, in 2019. Since then, it has seen growth on e-commerce platforms, including Amazon, Lowe’s, Home Depot, and Walmart, said marketing manager Monica Bhalla.

While Haunted Hill first focused on more traditional Halloween decorations, its best sellers in recent years have been in the “premium animatronics” section, where prices range from $100 to $700.

“We’re seeing across the board that people are going bigger,” Bhalla said. “They want larger decorations every year. They’re willing to pay more.”

On their lawn in Somerdale, Oakes and his partner, Shana Schrager, have about 200 animatronic pieces, including the Headless Horseman, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, Krampus, Chucky, and Frankenstein. The animatronics alone cost about $8,000.

“It’s all of Home Depot,” Schrager said with a laugh, “and most of Spirt Halloween.”

The transformation from casual decorator to full-on home haunter can start with a single purchase.

That’s how it worked for the Connolly family in Yardley.

Before 2021, “we had a wreath on our door and a couple of things in our yard,” said Sheri Connolly, a vice president for a retail-display company and a longtime Halloween lover. “It was more like what normal people do.”

Then the couple walked into Home Depot one day and saw the popular 12-foot skeleton was in stock.

“We put the skeleton up, and he looked so lonely,” she said. So they soon added some more skeletons, pumpkins, and a giant werewolf. Last year, they reimagined their skeleton as Beetlejuice.

» READ MORE: Delco’s Monster House morphs into the Upside Down, Ghostbusters headquarters, and much more

The Connollys reuse most of the decor from year to year, but had to replace their 12-foot skeleton this year due to the wear and tear of three seasons of use for Halloween and Christmas. Chris Connolly, the Christmas enthusiast of the pair, transforms the skeleton into festive figures like the Grinch.

While the annual attraction is self-funded, the Connollys accept donations that they pass along to service-dog and dog-rescue charities.

As for how much they’ve poured into their passion project, “It’s probably an embarrassing amount to say out loud,” Sheri Connolly said. “I would guess $4,000 to $5,000 sitting in the yard.”

Scott Laffredo, a 39-year-old field service manager, said he’s probably spent a similar amount of money on the “Frederick Street Cemetery” display at his King of Prussia home. Last year, he constructed a homemade pirate ship, and added a 17-minute, narrated show, with a storyline involving pirates searching for a gold and a giant animated skeleton that talks and moves.

In Blackwood, N.J., longtime Frank Cwikla said he’s spent at least $100,000 on Halloween decorations over decades. This year alone, the 42-year-old produce specialist said he’s probably spent $5,000, much of which has been on lights, screws, paint, fog juice, and other materials. The display, which they call “Psycho Trail,” has its own Facebook page, where 9,500 followers get updates, such as weather-related closures.

The cost is “more than just the actual decorations,” said Cwikla. His 6-year-old son, Guy, helps, donning a mask and scaring passersby at night.

Cwikla has accumulated so many pieces over the years that he has to rent a 26-foot U-Haul truck to cart the items to his mother’s home at the end of each season.

But the time, effort, and money are worth it.

“I enjoy people,” Cwikla said. “It’s a good way of meeting neighbors.”