October 2020 | Page 120

Halloween Haunts: Joe and Christy Del Regno | | CONTINUED FROM PAGE 50 But all the hard work and hours spent are worth it when he sees people’s reactions. “It’s become something I am very passionate about because it gives people a lot of joy,” Del Regno says. “I have seen that firsthand. One year, during the recession in 2008, I had a family tell me, ‘We can’t afford to go to Disney World; would it be okay if you give my kid a private tour sometime?’ I said, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s why I do the display.’ ” He has guests who have been coming to see the Walkway of Terror since they were kids, now viewing it as adults. “They’ve told me they still have nightmares about the spiders jumping out at them.” Halloween Haunts: Bob Carroll and Scott Knoll | | CONTINUED FROM PAGE 55 “Scott pulls it out and we make it work.” Carroll started getting into decorating for Halloween back in 1999, when he created a small graveyard for his dad who died that same year, and the display evolved in later years. Knoll teamed up with Carroll three years ago to do most of the work, since Carroll is disabled, and they work together to come up with a concept for each season. “I was just going to do a graveyard and Scott decided to go all in,” Carroll says. “He said, ‘We go big or go home.’ ” This year, they’re planning to do a Sleepy Hollow theme featuring the Headless Horseman traveling across the bridge. Even though they may not be able to feature the walk-through maze as usual, they will still decorate the front yard. Carroll even plans to use a safe way to hand out Halloween candy, using a PVC pipe. “You can just put the candy down it, and it can slide into the bag,” Carroll says. Halloween Haunts: David Bates | | CONTINUED FROM PAGE 56 in there as static props, including Michael Myers, Bob, Judith, Laurie, Loomis and young Michael. I am trying to keep it as original as possible.” While he’s bummed he can’t invite people to wander around his yard in the dark, he hopes this drive-by attraction will make up for it. “The bottom line is Halloween is still going to come and people can celebrate, it’s just going to be different,” Bates says. “We are taking the original Halloween movie, which is probably the biggest Halloween movie ever released, and saying it doesn’t matter if COVID is here, you still can’t cancel Halloween.” Halloween Haunts: Peter, Nancy, Christopher and Alexandria Souza | | CONTINUED FROM PAGE 58 He teaches himself how to build the displays by watching YouTube videos. Last year’s new addition was an austere wooden black carriage that Souza built him- Joe and Christy Del Regno’s Walkway of Terror in East Greenwich. self. Instead of horses, the wagon is pulled by four skeletons in bowties and top hats. “I made it so all the panels come apart and I can store it flat. Everything is labeled so I can put it all back together,” he says. Previous years, he created a Wizard of Oz theme complete with a yellow brick road that traveled through the cemetery, and then an Addams family scene with eight characters from the television series. This year, he’s been working in his woodshop to get some new ideas. “I set up a full woodshop in my garage to get me through this quarantine because I was bored out of my tree,” he says. It takes two weeks to put the whole display together, and it goes up between the end of September and the first weekend of October. He’s setting up the display and hopes people will social distance by his yard or take a look at his work from their cars. “I don’t want to just make it a drive-by display,” he says. “You can see everything from your vehicle or standing outside. COVID or not, Halloween is coming.” � Bates has already spent hundreds of hours and around $5,000 to create the setting for the 1978 classic horror movie, Halloween. “I am building Michael Myers’ house from the first scene of the movie,” says Bates. “I will have a bunch of mannequin characters 118 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l OCTOBER 2020