Halloween Haunts:
Joe and Christy Del Regno
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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
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“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
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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
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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