Inflatable Skeletons Boning and 9 Other Ways to Over-Decorate for Halloween

Once the calendar hits October 1, it's time to take your house from homey to haunted.

Gif: YouTube - YoYo Gaming, YouTube - TheHorrorDome, YouTube - Jayden the haunter, YouTube - TekkyToys

Halloween is a mere 45 days away, but there’s no reason to panic and start throwing fake cobwebs on the windows and covering the porch in decorative gourds. You’ve still got plenty of time to put together a haunted house that will drive trick-or-treaters to your door and fill your mailbox with passive-aggressive notes from the neighbors.

You might not have enough time to make your own styrofoam tombstones, or build an authentic looking coffin to leave on the front lawn, but if you’re willing to throw some money at your decor—lots of money—there are plenty of animatronics and other over-the-top decor ideas that will make your home the one all the kids want to flock to.

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Betty Sharpe

Betty Sharpe - Spirit Halloween

Clearly based on Laina Morris’ ‘Overly Attached Girlfriend’ character, this 3.8-foot tall blood-splattered animatronic brandishes a giant knife while clutching a blood-soaked sack that wriggles and writhes with her last supposed victim inside. The $170 animatronic also speaks, with unsettling phrases like, “My sister used to be mommy’s favorite…but I took care of that! (giggles).”

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Giant-Sized Inferno Pumpkin Skeleton with LCD LifeEyes

Home Depot’s 12 ft. Giant Inferno Pumpkin Skeleton | The Home Depot

Respect where respect is due, The Home Depot has been really bringing it the past few years when it comes to Halloween decor, starting with a towering 12-foot skeleton that was all the rage as the pandemic was getting under way, which is now joined by this 12-foot tall alternative featuring a more detailed sculpted skeletal body with a glowing chest and a pumpkin head with a glowing mouth. Like the original, the $380 Inferno Pumpkin Skeleton uses LCD displays for eyes, making it look like the towering trick-or-treater terrorizer is scanning your yard for its next victim.

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Animated Hovering Witch

NEW FOR 2022 Home Depot 12ft Hovering Witch Life Size Animatronic Halloween Prop

‘Tis the season to go big or go home with your yard decor, and The Home Depot is delivering another towering terror with an animated witch who appears to be floating 12-feet above the ground. In reality, she’s held up there by the supporting broom in her hand, but the effect is convincing, and made even more terrifying with animated LCD eyes, LED lights illuminating her face, and a moving jaw synced to several different spoken scripts. The whole setup is $300, but you might want to add a fan to blow her hair around and further sell the effect.

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Monty the Musical Monkey

Monty - Spirit Halloween

There are lots of toys that already feel straight out of a horror story, like those little wind-up cymbal crashing monkeys. But when you super-size them to a six-foot tall animatronic, that’s pure nightmare fuel. For $300, Monty opens and closes his mouth while making screeching monkey sounds and banging a pair of cymbals together (with accompanying sound effects). Place it right on your porch and make those trick-or-treaters really earn those treats.

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Creep Show Clowns

Creep Show Animatronic Clowns

There are few things as unsettling as clowns, but this animatronic ups the ante with a pair of demonic creep show performers. The shorter of the two balances upside-down on the the taller one’s raised hand while kicking in the air, and after a short while, the taller clown nods its head towards an unsuspecting victim. Then, both leap forward for a satisfying jump scare, accompanied by flashes and sound effects. With a price tag close to $5,000, this animatronic is for the true Halloween decorating devotees.

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Soul Sucker

Tekky’s Soul Sucker™ demo

If you need to demonstrate to the local kids what happens when they won’t stay off your lawn, the $370 Soul Sucker animatronic should be the perfect deterrent. The cloaked reaper has a small child in hand, and after a brief threatening spiel, it raises her and begins to suck the soul from her body thanks to a clever use of LEDs and a hidden hose that can be connected to a fog machine. Unfortunately, you’ll need to connect your own fog machine, as one isn’t included, pushing the price of this animatronic even higher—but the effect seems totally worth it.

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Sitting Scare Clown

Tekky’s Sitting Scare Clown

There’s no better way to spend Halloween night than sitting in a chair with a bowl of candy in your lap in a costume that doesn’t look like there’s someone actually inside it, and then terrifying unsuspecting trick-or-treaters. If you can’t make that happen, this $230 Sitting Scare Clown animatronic will do all the terrorizing for you. The clown looks like it’s fallen asleep with its head down, but when a piece of candy is taken from its bowl, it suddenly wakes up, flings its head up, and screams “surprise!!”

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Seven-Foot Tall Inflatable T.rex Skeleton Eating a Person

Inflatables are a great solution for outside decor, because they can be massive when all set up but deflate and fold away into a tiny box for easy storage the rest of the year. All kinds of inflatable monsters and pop icons are available, but we’re partial to this seven-foot T.rex skeleton munching on a random person. We have so many questions here. How did it come back to life? Would a skeleton without a stomach still hunger for flesh? Where can we buy one? The answer to that last question is the easiest to answer, as Amazon’s got these for $65.

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Pop Out Trash Raccoon

Tekky’s Pop Out Trash Raccoon™ demo

Preying on existing fears is the best way to terrorize the neighborhood during the Halloween season, and most home owners are already afraid of raccoons getting into attics, crawlspaces, or trash cans, making this animatronic effect an ideal choice for suburbia. A toppled trash can reveals a zombie raccoon leaping out of one end when someone gets too close, along with some ear-splitting scream sound effects and glowing red eyes.

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5.5-Foot Tall Inflatable Skeleton Lovers

You could fill your lawn with some of the most unspeakably horrific Halloween decor imaginable, and your neighbors probably wouldn’t bat an eye. Instead, they’d probably bring the kids by to check it all out. But stick this 5.5-foot tall inflatable skeleton couple who appear to be caught up in a haunted hookup on your front lawn, and you’ll undoubtedly have the neighbors and the homeowners association banging down your door. If you really want to ruffle some feathers this Halloween, this is the way to do it.

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