Ghoul house rocks

S kulls on sticks line the sidewalk.

Gravestones dot the yard, covered in wet, rotting leaves.

Hairy spiders creep in the shadows.

Oh, and don’t forget the zombie emerging from the ground with dirt on his head and hands.

The Herald / Michael V. Martina The Amancios use sound and have animatronic items, including a fog machine, eerie laughter and a dancing ghost.

He’ll get you.

Yes, there are more than a few ways to say “Happy Halloween” to passersby and trick-or-treaters this fall, especially at the home of Kimberly Johnson of Everett, whose rambler is also home to a gun-toting pirate skeleton, a wart-faced witch and a string of glowing ghosts.

Johnson’s intricate display is just one example of the nation’s growing fancy for elaborate Halloween decorating inside and out.

“I do Christmas big, but this is probably tops,” Johnson said of her front yard spread including bargain decorations as well as handmade creations. “You have a bigger opportunity to do so much more.”

Johnson, who loves to dress up in elaborate Halloween costumes, has decorated her Dogwood Drive home for about a decade. In recent years, she has used her Halloween decor to raise funds for the Volunteers of America Food Bank in Everett by accepting nonperishable food donations. Trick-or-treaters receive special Halloween goodie bags.

“I bring out many items that really make it a haunt so the yard really comes to life,” said Johnson, who entertains family and friends every Halloween. “We try to make it a special treat.”

Battery-operated flying bats, motion-activated noisemakers and a faux flaming cauldron are all part of the mix.

Halloween, not surprisingly, is the second biggest decorating holiday of the year, second only to Christmas, with 47 percent of consumers expected to decorate their homes or yards, boosting the nationwide Halloween spending total to an estimated $3.29 billion, according to the National Retail Federation.

“I think it’s creativity for people,” Johnson said of the increase in Halloween purchasing as well as products available. “I think it’s the ’80s kids, the Generation Xers. It allows people to be kids again for a night.”

For Joe and Lisa Amancio of Stanwood, Halloween presents a perfect opportunity to play.

They’ve dressed their historic, two-story home in orange and purple lights, spiders large and small, tons of white webbing and an archway accented with fake blood.

Unlike Christmas, Halloween needn’t be quaint or peaceful, quite the opposite, really.

Halloween displays are supposed to be crooked, rotting and ugly, giving decorating enthusiasts a unique freedom to be whimsical, kooky and macabre.

“On this holiday, anything goes,” Lisa Amancio said. “Joe likes to scare the kids.”

Frankenstein’s head, bones and severed glowing hands set the scene at the Amancios’ restored 1908 home, ideal in terms of architecture for creepy decorating, including a second-story widow’s walk where a skeleton peers from one side and holds a glowing corpse’s head in his bony hands.

The Amancios work as a team with Lisa in charge of draping webbing, lights and spiders around the inside and outside of the house. Joe jumps in with scrap wood and his carpentry skills to fashion major focal points, including a full-sized coffin as well as wooden cemetery crosses, engraved with a router.

The Amancio kids, Brielle, 12, and Jake, 10, love to get involved, too, by filling in the cross crevices with white paint and draping webbing in curious places.

“We don’t go out and pay tons of money,” Lisa Amancio said of their decorations purchased at a wide variety of retail outlets and thrift stores.

“He was only $12,” Lisa Amancio said of a sound-activated ghost that howls and haunts the length of the 25-foot front porch thanks to a line fastened at each end. “When he hits the end, he turns around and comes back at you with his noises.”

At the Amancios’ place, sound and animatronic items are important elements in Halloween decor, including a fog machine programmed to startle guests, a fake rock that emits a rumbling, low laugh, and a ghost that breaks into a little dance when you come to the front door.

Joe Amancio admits that some of the more elaborate Halloween toys can be expensive. At one store, he found a creepy remote-controlled torso that can crawl across the floor.

“On linoleum you can make it go wherever you want,” Joe Amancio said of the device, selling for more than $200. “These Halloween party stores are just phenomenal.”

The Amancios’ creations are a point of pride on their friendly block, where they playfully compete with their neighbors across the street for the best displays. Though the neighbors usually blow them away at Christmastime, the Amancios usually rule on Halloween.

“We add something new every year,” Joe Amancio said. “Last year we had a lady who said it was worth the trip into town just to see our house.”

Reporter Sarah Jackson: 425-339-3037 or sjackson@ heraldnet.com.