Holiday Fantasies Come To Life

Spectacular Halloween Yard Haunt Display

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Hollywood Gothique Says:

Holiday Fantasies Come To Life offers an amazing display of props, settings, and figures, which do indeed seem to bring fantasies to life. There is little in the way of mechanics or motion, but the sheer scale of the presentation (which over the years has depicted everything from a pirate ship to a castle facade) overwhelms the sense.

1505 N. Valley Street, Burbank 91505
facebook.com/holidayfantasies

2021 Update: We are awaiting word on whether Holiday Fantasies will return to full form this Halloween. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Holiday Fantasies Come to Life scaled down its Halloween yard haunt in 2020 but “but not by much.”

Dates: Usually starting mid-October and continuing through Halloween Night, possibly beyond.

Holiday Fantasies Come to Life: Overview

Pirates of the Caribbean 2018 — Halloween 2018

Holiday Fantasies Come To Life is, as the name suggests, not limited to Halloween. Rather, proprietors Tina Schaefer and Arnulfo Padilla decorate their home for both October and December, utilizing a different theme every year.

Halloween 2018 offered a spectacular take on Pirates of the Caribbean. Far more than a few skeletons and some skull-and-crossbones flags, this stupendous Halloween yard haunt resembles a pirate galleon parked where a house should be, with a skeleton at the helm, ghosts peering down, alligators lurking in a “swamp,” and numerous blood-thirsty scalawags posed to recreate memorable images and scenes from the Disney ride and the feature films.

Beyond the ship facade, the Pirates of the Caribbean yard haunt is filled with cleverly arranged mannequins, props, and decorations: a gangplank leads to the entryway of the captain’s cabin, with decor not visible from the sidewalk; audio snippets from the ride echo through the night; red light glints in the cannon barrels as they “fire.” These small details create an amazing cumulative effect. (The basic facade was retrofitted with new decor to create a Peter Pan theme for Christmas 2018.)

Halloween home haunts do not get much better than this.