With only 15 days until Halloween, many Orillia neighbourhoods are decorated with ghosts, ghouls, tombstones, and pumpkins. Some local residents have gone the extra mile this year to give trick-or-treaters a unique Halloween experience.
Derick Lehmann, an Orillia man known for putting on various Halloween events in the community each year, has mapped out his family home on Dale Drive using light projection technology to put on a Halloween light show each Friday and Saturday night in October from 7 till 11 p.m. on those nights
“This all started when I saw a light projection show at Disney World down in Florida a few years ago,” Lehmann explained.
“I thought, 'Man this is pretty cool.' So I started doing it myself with a projection on the arts sign in Downtown Orillia last summer during one of the patio nights, and it got me thinking that this would be really fun to do for Halloween.”
The light shows feature characters from Stranger Things, Disney theme parks' The Haunted Mansion ride, Beetlejuice, and Ghostbusters. Lehmann spent three or four hours on the project and had help from animation professionals located in the United States.
“The animations are really professional, each show is a little different, and the possibilities are endless. There are lots of scary movies we could do in the future,” he said.
The response to the light show has been unbelievable, Lehmann says. During Thanksgiving weekend, the street was jam-packed with hundreds of people.
“It was nice to see the kids coming out and you hear them react to the specific parts that they really like,” he said.
“I’m surprised by the number of people that have shown up, but I’m excited that people are here and enjoying it.”
Lehmann expects the light show to bring more trick-or-treaters to Dale Drive than ever before.
“Last year we had six kids. We don’t know what to expect this year, but we are excited about it,” he said.
Lehmann encourages people that come by to tune into 88.1 FM to hear music and sound effects in sync with the lights.
Over on Ashton Street, Bill Griffin and his wife Lindsay are once again prepared for the ‘Haunted Street’ that attracted more than 1,000 kids to the neighbourhood on Halloween night last year.
“We have made 400 goodie bags for the first kids who show up this year. Last year we had about 1,200,” Griffin said.
People flocked to Ashton Street last year from places as far as Hanover and Sudbury, according to Griffin.
“It was like a scene out of a movie, I’ve never seen so many people and so much activity on one street for Halloween. It was a combined effort between our house, Daryl (Carstens) from the Orillia House of Horrors down the street, and him sharing all his decorations. We are looking forward to seeing it be just as good this year, if not better,” he said.
Griffin has decorated his yard once again this year to pay tribute to the 1980s-era Ghostbusters cartoon.
“We’ve added to the display, and we have a 15-foot-movie screen that we will be playing Ghostbusters on in the driveway,” he said.
The inspiration for the Griffins to make their street the liveliest in Orillia during Halloween night comes from their long-time love of the spooky holiday.
“We remember when we were kids and how much fun Halloween was growing up and we want to pass that tradition along,” he said.
Over on Dufferin Street, Larry Cooper has turned his home into a giant pirate ship for the fifth year in a row.
“We’ve always liked pirates, my kids’ room is a pirate theme from when they are younger, so it kind of made sense to do a haunted pirate theme,” Cooper explained.
“The idea was to turn the whole house into looking like a pirate ship, I put sails up, built the crow’s nest, built Coopers Gambit, I got myself a couple of skeleton pirates, came up with Crazy Captain Cooper, and the whole thing was born.”
Cooper says his pirate-themed home has become a destination for trick-or-treaters over the years.
“In Orillia, the weather can be bad, with COVID some people have the idea that it’s better to not go to as many houses as before. So we wanted to make sure that if kids are going to at least go to one place that they would have a destination where they could go and experience the whole Halloween bag in one shot,” he explained. “We try to make sure that the bags of loot that we give out are worth it, too.”
Cooper says the number of trick-or-treaters who visit his home has grown each Halloween.
“This end of town is more of an industrial and commercial area, so when we first started it wasn’t great and we would see maybe 30 to 40 kids. But then as word started to get around, we’ve started to see people just piling out of their cars, even with COVID,” he said.
“We gave out well over 130 well-tailored loot bags last year. It was almost to the point where we were going to have to break into my kids' candy when they got home.”
Cooper says the main attraction of his show is coming out to meet Crazy Captain Cooper.
“I’m out there all dressed up and I take it the whole nine yards. I try to never break character the entire time I’m out there, I’m shaking my fist at people walking by, I get on the people who don’t give me a reaction, and I just try to make it fun for everyone who walks and drives by,” he said.
“I was an acting major in university, so I’m able to alter and tailor my act to what the age group is. My aim is not to scare kids but instead get them comfortable with spooky stuff and realize it’s not all scary," Cooper explained.
