One Halloween enthusiast was determined to paint the town red this year — with fake blood, that is, and lots of it.
Unsatisfied with merely scaring kids with the old trick-or-treat standby, one Texas resident went overboard on Halloween gore, mounting a faux crime scene worthy of a particularly dark “CSI” episode. He successfully freaked out the nauseated East Dallas neighbors, who apparently have the police on speed dial.
Artist Steven Novak deployed a dummy with a pulverized head, one garbage-bag-wrapped dummy and one unlucky dummy whose noggin was nailed by a safe — with 20 gallons of blood to round out the scene.
“I’ve always been up to high jinks 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 told 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.”
The ghoulish Novak, who’s not winning any points for child sensitivity, added, “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,” he said. “A kid walked by and asked me what happened to them; I said they ate too many Skittles.”
His rendition of a haunted house on steroids has earned him new fans: the approving Dallas Police Department. “Neighbors told me cop cars were in front of my house a lot during the day,” he told the Observer. “I was only home twice to receive them. They told me they thought it was cool and that they were only there because they were required to reply to complaints from the sergeant.”
Still, even with the manifold bloody bodies, it’s never enough for a true artist, who vowed to out-gore himself next Halloween. “Honestly, though, I think I could’ve used more. [My plans] were way worse on paper. Next year, though!”