Bonzart the 20ft Skeleton
7th Street and Washington Avenue in Loveland
When Nick and Nadia Sullivan moved into a two-and-a-half-story Victorian home near downtown Loveland five years ago, they shared a thought: “This house would be really cool for Halloween.”
Nadia, who “sells body parts” for a prosthetics company, and Nick, who is in construction supply sales, combined their skills to build an anatomically proportionate, 20-foot-tall wooden skeleton affectionately known around town as Bonzart. He plays a pipe organ on the roof, accompanied by his friends, Debbie Jellinsky, a 40-foot spider on the drums (named after The Addams Family character), and Johnny the bat playing an eight-foot-tall string bass.
“Our kid is a programmer and added music, so the organ actually plays,” Nadia says. “Bonzart likes to invite people to come and play with him in the band. When trick-or-treaters play the cowbell, they receive treats.”
Bonzart has become a fixture in the community, Nadia says, and not just because of his towering frame, which can be spotted down the street. He stays up from the beginning of October to Easter and dresses up for each holiday before traveling to the storage unit for summer vacation. People can see what he’s up to on his Facebook page, which has 500 followers.
“He has so many friends who want to know what he’s going to be doing for different holidays,” Nadia says. “After such a big concert on Halloween, he gets hungry. You know those inflatable turkeys? Well…he’s big enough to put one inside.”
Battle under the sea
Collindale neighborhood in Fort Collins
While cruising down Mansfield Drive east of Lemay Avenue, a comical underwater scene might entice you to pull over. Inflatable ships, octopuses and pirate skeletons took over Dan and Erika Michalski’s front yard last Halloween, and the battle between the creatures continues this month.
The Michalskis’ love for Halloween runs deep. The two met on the holiday in 2010, when Dan bumped into Erika on a crowded street in St. Louis, Mo. She was dressed as Paddington Bear and wore a shirt that read, “…from darkest Peru to the front porch of an attractive single man,” a play on the bear’s journey in the children’s book.
Today, they share their Halloween obsession with their tween daughters by coordinating costumes and “intensifying” the battle between skeleton pirates and sea monsters. They play sea shanties on a speaker, fog out their cul-de-sac and have sword fights in the driveway. Last year, they even dressed their dog as the captain of one of the ships.
“We made sure anyone who came over got a show,” Erika says.
Dan and Erika both hold doctorates and have high-intensity jobs, so they see Halloween as a way to let loose.
“There is a misconception that people who are passionate and driven cannot also live lives full of abundant, authentic, enthusiastic joy,” Erika says. “We both often say, ‘We take our work seriously, but not ourselves.’”
Daycare of horrors
4378 Lacewood Lane, Johnstown
Valerie Owen has to warn her in-home daycare families about her “severe obsession” with Halloween. She fills her front yard with creepy dolls and mildly gory horror movie props for the holiday—and that’s her exercising restraint.
“I tell them, ‘If this isn’t cool, let me know, and I can leave something out,’” she says. “I try to keep it not super scary, but it’s also not the cute little pumpkin inflatable-type thing.”
Owen loves spooky season so much that she watches horror movies year-round, though she doubles down during October, which is also her birthday month. She recreates the “Pet Sematary” graveyard every year and builds many of the props herself. Last Halloween, she replicated the staticky TV from “The Ring” by covering an old TV with aluminum foil and splattering it with black paint.
This month, Owen is replicating the bathroom from “Saw,” with tile walls, a toilet and sink on her porch. Others participate in the decorating too, including her kids, her husband and their neighbors.
“The street we live on goes all out for every holiday,” Owen says, explaining that the wives have their own group chat to decide on different themes. “We tell the husbands what we want to build. They’ll get together and complain about it, but the rest of us are like, ‘Whatever, it’s gonna be awesome.’”
Haunted tunnel
3804 W. 8th St., Greeley
With the last name Bugh (pronounced “Boo”), Doug and his wife, Sarah, have no choice but to celebrate Halloween. But Doug is the one who takes it to another level.
“He transforms our front yard into a haunted tunnel that people have to come through to reach our door,” Sarah says. “Because it’s so immersive, one year while we were waiting for trick-or-treaters, our front door opened and people walked right in.”
Doug starts building the tunnel in mid-September out of pallets, cornstalks, tree branches, leaves and 100,000 square feet of webbing, then he takes the day off of work on Halloween to install animatronics. The result is a 25-foot-long structure filled with jumping spiders, a lifelike scarecrow, fog machines and strobe lights. At the entrance, a 12-foot dark angel opens its wings and talks to visitors who are brave enough to step inside.
“It’s not gory in any way,” Doug says. “It’s all your traditional fright, just jump scares and stuff.”
He also puts up a graveyard around the tunnel with spooky props. This year, he’s adding floating ghouls that talk to kids as they walk underneath.
“I love making people scared,” he says. “We had a grown man crying once. The wives love it. You should hear Sarah laugh when somebody is really screaming in the tunnel.”
Inflated frights
1996 Day Spring Drive, Windsor
Mitch Gilchrist didn’t experience his first Halloween until he was 21. Now he’s making up for lost time.
Gilchrist grew up in Australia and met his wife, Megan, while she was studying abroad in 2005. He followed her back to the U.S., where he developed a love for the holiday that eventually resulted in 20-foot inflatables towering over their family home.
“I really got into it with my son, Rylan,” he says. “He was born in 2013, and around 2016, he started to get clued into these inflatables and wanted one for himself. We bought him a witch inflatable, and it snowballed from there.”
Every year, Gilchrist and his son spend a day in early October setting up dozens of inflatables for Halloween, then they do it all over again for Christmas. The highlight is a haunted Harry Potter castle that extends halfway out of the garage. Every year, hundreds of trick-or-treaters enter through it for candy.
Though Rylan is older now, the two still love coming up with new ideas together. Depending on the weather, they might put a 15-foot monster hand on the roof this year.
“One thing Rylan and I always do is drive around and look at other decorations,” Gilchrist says. “That has spearheaded his inspiration to go bigger and better every year.”
Spooky silhouettes
Bellwether Farm neighborhood in Fort Collins
On the southwest corner of Vine Drive and Taft Hill Road, Bill Kellow transforms his home into a different theme each October using wooden cutouts he designs and paints to look like silhouettes.
Kellow, a construction superintendent, collects scrap wood from jobsites and starts on the design in early September. He sketches his concepts on the boards, then he cuts them out with a jigsaw, paints them and affixes a stand to each one.
In the past, he modeled his displays after “The Wizard of Oz,” with a rotating tornado; “The Addams Family,” with a replica of the family’s house on his roof; and the “witches of Bellwether,” an eerie nod to his neighborhood.
“I wish I was as good as some of the homes you see on TV that are crafted into a whole production,” he says. “At 66, I’m not sure if I’m going to get that far.”
Still, his effort pays off. Hordes of families check out his creations each year, and he’s inspired many of his neighbors to decorate as well. This time, he’s planning a haunted Rocky Mountain National Park theme with giant trees and maybe even Bigfoot.
“The adults will be dressed up as different animals and park rangers,” he says of his friends, who hand out candy in costume. “One of the best things is seeing kids freak out about my setup…that brings me a ton of pride.”
The neighborhood arachnid
Clearwater Drive on the northeast side of Boyd Lake in Loveland
When people drive by Tony Brooks’ house in mid-October, they’re greeted by a nearly 20-foot-long spider in the front yard, surrounded by its giant skeleton friends.
“It’s a good thing my house is the last one in the row because cars slam on the brakes,” Brooks says. “People are like, ‘What did I just see? Was that a creature?’”
The idea came about during the COVID-19 pandemic when Brooks looked at his grown kids’ old swing set and thought of ways he could repurpose it. It wasn’t in good enough shape to give away, but he didn’t want to trash it. So, he turned it into a giant arachnid for Halloween.
“I used to build houses, so I got out my graph paper and came up with a ‘floor plan’ for it,” Brooks says. “It took me 30 days to build.”
He wrapped the swing set with chicken wire, then he spray foamed it, painted it brown and gave it beady, red eyes. The legs move, and a doll’s arm can fit in its mouth.
The display was such a hit that the neighborhood kids now know Brooks as the guy with the massive spider who hands out full-size candy bars on Halloween.
“People will show up at my house, jump out of their cars and take a selfie with the spider,” Brooks says. “It’s absolutely priceless.”
Cretaceous Crematorium
5922 Neptune Drive, Fort Collins
Just north of Trilby Road and U.S. 287 is one of NOCO’s most famous homemade haunts.
Marked by two nine-foot T. rex skeletons that sit in the yard year-round, Cretaceous Crematorium was named for owner Aubrey Putnam’s obsession with dinosaurs. They add to the 600-square-foot haunted house she sets up in her driveway every October—each time with a new theme.
“I started this in 2020 when I heard people say they weren’t doing Halloween, which made me sad because it’s my favorite holiday,” Putnam says. “I started with a single 10-foot by 20-foot tent with dollar store props, and it’s grown every year.”
Past haunts have featured monsters, mummies, dinosaurs and carnival characters. This year, Cretaceous Crematorium will transform into “Grimmwood,” a fairytale forest inspired by stories like “Hansel and Gretel,” “Snow White,” “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Rumpelstiltskin.”
An electrical engineer, Putnam builds many of her props with motion sensors that trigger as visitors weave through the tents. She starts designing in January, then the build begins in June. This year, she recruited high schoolers to help construct the haunt or act inside of it.
“If they want to play certain roles, I’ll swap out the animatronics for volunteers,” she says.
The haunt is a fundraiser for Animal Friends Alliance, an idea Putnam had because parents kept trying to give her money. Every dollar donated to the rescue enters visitors in a raffle for a chance to win prizes from over 60 local businesses.
Cretaceous Crematorium opens at 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 23, 24, 30 and 31, with free entry for all ages (donations welcome). For more information, visit the Cretaceous Crematorium Facebook page.
