# Halloween display badly recieved



## SKAustin (Dec 12, 2009)

I'm on the fence with this one.. Where does one draw the line at what's acceptable for a halloween display?

http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2010/oct/08/1008_ween/


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## Haunted Bayou (Feb 16, 2007)

dunno


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## Terrormaster (Sep 27, 2007)

Something like that is ok within the confined walls of a walkthrough haunt. I remember in on scene in New Orleans' House of Shock HH there was an actor holding a bloodied doll upside down licking the crotch. Distasteful definitely but you paid to go in, and it was part of the attraction.

This on the other hand is on public display. I'm on the fence on that as well. I think what it really comes down to is knowing your target audience which it sounds like they don't.


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## sickNtwisted (Sep 29, 2010)

Ooooo! Baby dolls hanging from a tree.
People need to get over it and pull the poles out of their butts.


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## jaege (Aug 23, 2009)

Sort of stupid looking, if you ask me. I guess you have to be considerate of your neighbors though. I would say that the licking the dolls crotch is in the lowest taste. Not scary so much as sick and perverse.


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## Frighteners Entertainment (Jan 24, 2006)

I don't know either, it's not something I would do in my yard for public view, though would if they were going through my walk through for the right scene.


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## hpropman (Jul 27, 2008)

I agree with every one - I would not do it myself but in walk through maybe I can see it.


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## Terrormaster (Sep 27, 2007)

@Jeff: exactly... Front yard is iffy because it depends on your neighbors (target audience) - if they're cool, it's cool. But inside a walk through its definitely fair game.

@jaege: the crotch licking thing was very tasteless. But for a HH with "Shock" in their title it's not much of a stretch. Most all of their scares and scenes were more "shock, disturb, discomfort" than "scare the bejesus" oriented. IMHO House of Shock and any HH that uses shock over scare was and is a total waste of money. If I'm ever back in Nawlins during October we're hitting 13th Gate instead.


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## HalloweenZombie (Jul 22, 2007)

If they looked like real babies, it might be over the line, but they are obviously dolls. I don't see what the big deal is.


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## Kaoru (May 6, 2009)

Hmm....think it looks silly but thats up to the neighboor. It's not a big deal
And yeah I hated the house of shock. Especialy the perverse crap like crotch licking. Any sexual pervesion like that does not deserve or should be in a haunt at all.


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## Just Whisper (Jan 19, 2009)

I think it is rather tasteless and I agree that a display like that should be saved for a backyard haunt or walk thru type haunt. And last time (sickntwisted) I checked I had no poles in my ass.


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## PirateLady (Jul 23, 2010)

Inside or in the back yard on this kind of display...no sense in letting your neighbors get upset with you over something like this...Kinda consider other people in your front yard displays... Halloween or not at least give it some class....


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## Dixie (Feb 18, 2009)

I personally don't like it - because I have lost a baby - (which I don't think puts a pole up my ass either) but I DO understand it, and have never complained about it.... as a Halloween person I have learned just to look away from the Zombie Baby playground at Spirit and other such displays.

But I can definitely see how someone in my situation might really be hurt by that, if they were NOT into Halloween 24/7, and so I wouldnt put this in my yard, just like I don't put life size men in noose's in my yard - I don't want to upset anyone that lost someone to suicide that way.

There's a fine line between being overly sensitive and not sensitive enough. In my opinion, you can just try and hit the major common things that might bring up sad feelings - (common suicide methods, babies, etc). But you can't go overboard and not use zombies in case someone lost a loved one in a fire, or something like that. Thus the fine line - but common sense helps here, a lot.

Nothing will **** off a New Yorker faster than a large airplane flying too close to a building - it is said to be in bad taste - insensitive to all the people that lost loved ones that way... if you lived in a town with high gang violence and showed a zombie shoot out it might be in bad taste, etc. Just don't use something that will hurt a large group of your viewers, because it will come out in lashes of anger - at YOU. I have never set up a haunt in order to outrage the community, I want to scare them, and bring excitement and happy thoughts, not anger.

The licking the crotch thing? I would have complained to the person about that myself, that is just so over the line, I can't believe it. Halloween should never be about sick, twisted, and perverse actions towards kids. That is what will give us ALL a bad name, and have City Councils all over America cancelling Trick or Treating altogether.

So sorry to go on so long, I guess I was a bit opinionated.


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## sickNtwisted (Sep 29, 2010)

@ Just Whisper and Dixie: I'm sorry you were offended by my pole in the ass comment. Dixie I'm sorry for your loss, I can't even begin to imagine what that's like.


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## Dark Angel 27 (Sep 11, 2008)

this is a delicate issue. but i think that the haunter should use his/her best judement. i agree that the baby dolls in the tree is stupid looking, especcially when those dolls could be modified for much better props.

Dixie, may i offer my condolances also *sending virtual hugs*

there are a lot of little kids in my area so i have to tone down everything to fit the target audiance.

and the person who came up with licking a dolls bleeding crotch is sick and distateful..and those people should be shut down. that's just gross and wrong. don't give a damn if they're going for shock value. ew.


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## Bone Dancer (Oct 7, 2005)

I agree with most of you. Your front yard is open to "all" the public not just those who like Halloween and so some limits should be observed. In an enclosed area where people are entering of there own will with the foreknowledge of it being scary then the limits can be expanded. Babies generally are at the edge of the limits for most folks. If your setting up your display just for yourself and nobody else will see it then you can go as far as you want to. But when you allow others to see it then you need to consider thier limits too.


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## Murdock (May 17, 2010)

Hmmm I'm torn on this one. I love the story of the island of the dolls and have always wanted to do an island of the dolls room. It's a true fun story and the dolls in the trees remind me of it, so I thought it was funny. 

On the other hand.....We're doing a creep nursery this year, I was going to do a coffin shaped jewelry box with a ballerina doll spinning in it with music. Then my dear friend asked me to help make her still born daughter a coffin. It ended up looking like a jewelry box. No way can I make that prop now, it would kill me to hurt her. I couldn't make that prop after seeing her daughter in the one we built anyway. Had a good dose of reality. She is spinning in a wicker trunk now.

An acquaintance lost her son and expects her neighbors to not decorate for Halloween anymore. My good friend lives across the street and loves Halloween as much as most of us here. But she has refrained from any decorating outdoors for years now not wanting to hurt her neighbor. 

Hmmm interesting thread. Very thought provoking.


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## Denhaunt (Aug 18, 2006)

I feel like I'm sticking my neck waayyy out on this one but I'm still gonna say my piece.

I don't see what the big deal is with any of the above mentioned. I don't see it as any different than most other things we see in haunts? Would I put out that display...nope - but if I didn't like it I still wouldn't go to the guy and ask him to take it down. The simple reality is that people get "offended" way too easily and (while everyone's entitled to their opinion) they don't get to dictate everyone else's lives by what they do or don't like. If this were true no one would get to put out a Halloween display at all.

It's all so subjective. I mean seriously, (purely hypothetical) if my mother had just been in a fatal car wreck where she was beheaded then wouldn't a guillotine scene make me really uncomfortable? Well, yes, as a matter of fact it probably would but this doesn't give me the right to make a moral judgment on what is or isn't acceptable. 

At some level all of what we (haunters) do revolves around shock-value. We do our best to stir up strong emotions. Looks like both of the above mentioned did a pretty good job of doing just that.

That's all I have to say about that...


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## Lunatic (Oct 3, 2006)

I can understand everyone's point. In a walk-through yes but it's not my style to place it on my front lawn. A hangman prop is cool but hanging babies....mmmm, that might be a little too much for public display. Unless we here at HF all lived on the same street then that would be quite acceptable. Ahh hell yes. You know its true you sick bastards! And when I say bastards I mean friends of course.


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## sickNtwisted (Sep 29, 2010)

Thank you Denhaunt, thank you.
Halloween, the heart of it, is about paying tribute to those who have gone before us. I ALWAYS put up an altar dedicated to those I've lost. Halloween serves as a reminder of our own mortality and for the things we take for granted!!! If something makes you uncomfortable, then good! It means you still have a heart and that you should face what bothers you head on. Everyone on Halloween should face their fears.


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## austenandrews (Aug 22, 2010)

I think it's cute. In bad taste, but it's Halloween. Heck, I've seen more tasteless decorations in Austin year round. Baby doll heads in particular are a classic.

I wouldn't have them in my yard, but then I've never been big on corpses and whatnot in my stuff.


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## TheOneAndOnlyKelly (May 7, 2009)

I dunno. I, personally, draw the line at anyone(thing) hanging by a noose. Too many collective bad memories...


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## slightlymad (May 25, 2006)

Halloween is like that other holiday what you and yours make of it. We each and all have something that disturbs us or in our opinion is in bad taste. But as has been said our displays are built to arouse emotions of shock, fear, gross etc. So in my opinion its about what you wish to accomplish combined with your own tolerance to offend. I retired my favorite costume after a tour in the Gulf because it became far to real for me but I would never ask another to remove or alter a display because it bothered my own sense of sensibility.


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## Acid PopTart (Oct 29, 2007)

Hrm, I can see trying to be respectful of your neighbours (despite the fact mine don't seem to care about being such to me and my *ahem* eccentricity) but I think I just sort of find this boring. For some reason reminds me of when people put those plastic eggs in a tree for Easter? Never got that either.

If you're going to do it, go for gold, I would attempt something more along Isla de las Muñecas!
http://www.everywheremag.com/places/5452


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## sickNtwisted (Sep 29, 2010)

Now that's the way to put on a doll display!!!! LOVE IT!!!!


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## jaege (Aug 23, 2009)

slightlymad said:


> Halloween is like that other holiday what you and yours make of it. We each and all have something that disturbs us or in our opinion is in bad taste. But as has been said our displays are built to arouse emotions of shock, fear, gross etc. So in my opinion its about what you wish to accomplish combined with your own tolerance to offend. I retired my favorite costume after a tour in the Gulf because it became far to real for me but I would never ask another to remove or alter a display because it bothered my own sense of sensibility.


The hanging thing is just foolish, and I suppose titillating to the lowest common denominator. I would not label it poor taste so much as boring, blase' and showing little imagination. To each his own.

Suggestive sexual situations with (dead or mutilated) children is not an "opinion" of bad taste, or offensive. It IS in bad taste and offensive.

Now acid pop tart is showing something that had some imagination to it.


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## biozyme47 (Oct 11, 2010)

Yeah, the whole hanging of Baby dolls is in bad taste, and frankly a very poor attempt at decoration in my opinion. I have a 2 person gallows that is set in my back yard where the T&T's will get their goodies. I have 2 30 inch skeletons that have new skulls to represent child skeletons, that are dressed in old musty costumes. The original thought was to have missing children signs on them, that lasted for about 30 seconds when it occurred to me how bad that was gonna be.

We now have them listed as the past cutest costume winners for 2008 and 2009. So my question to you all is, Is this "costume winners" in bad taste, or does it seem like harmless fun? I don't wanna offend my neighbors.


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## debbie5 (Mar 2, 2007)

Well, the bottom line is that Halloween has pretty much turned into a holiday for thumbing your nose at death. My first tiny Halloween display was quickly put together, & I had dismembered and **bloodied life sized baby dolls **, hanging from the porch. And I never made the paper! The display lasted about 5 days 'til I realized it was not being interpreted in the way *I* interpreted it..I had no money and only had these dolls to gore up, so I did. It represented Halloween creepiness, possible lurking danger & gore. Others saw it as disgusting & offensive. Kinda like hanging dead puppies from a tree. I still don't know how I feel about these types of displays, cuz shock value does have its place. But I don't do them them cuz I want to make sure my creative idea comes across and isn't mistinterpreted. Skeletons are "offensive" cuz they remind us of what we are journeying towards everyday. But corpsing innocents is disturbing on a visceral level. (I DO have a baby doll pickled in a bottle, but it's painted grey and has alien eyes..somehow THAT"S not disturbing....). I don't want to ruin the effect and scare/pleasure my haunt gives someone by potentially nauseating them with a bloodied baby corpse. It's a gut reaction: you either are highly grossed out & offended or you are able to ignore it to a certain degree. But I do agree: it's a low brow, 6th grader's attempt at creepy.


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## debbie5 (Mar 2, 2007)

Plus, the rope is too big and the babies don't hang right.....

Now where else would you find a comment like THAT!!?? LOL..

And who would complain about a snowman on a toilet?? I think that's pretty cool.


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