Masters and Novices of Terror: Halloween Saint John NB 2022

Halloween is absolutely terrifying in Saint John, NB.  In no way is this a competition but this man on the west side of town has the coolest display of all.  I was just asking him if the scarecrow by the door would be substituted by a real person in costume to spring a surprise on the big night when his son demonstrated that it was animatronic.  That surprise was already covered.  

Just imagine what this place will look like on Halloween night.  These pictures were taken 3 weeks early and he was just beginning to assemble everything.  Check out the video of his animatronic horror in motion!

https://youtu.be/FUOdhcRTySg

Landing in Fredericton, I quickly got in the mood for Halloween when I popped into Dollarama and got myself a warm hat. They had lots of cheap scary toys.  

And lots of rubber vermin.

Flying vermin.

Mutant vermin.

I hadn't seen anything yet.  Home Depot had these truly enormous evil skeletons.  With something this large, you can't help but wonder how you could possibly get them home.  The answer is they come partially disassembled in a box. 

Dad humored me and stood between them to give a better perspective of just how large these things were. 

Some houses have mutant spider problems.

This is a wonderful display on Douglas Ave.

The coffin below is handmade and the severed hands crawl around on top.

Bat houses.

After all these wonderful decorations on people's front yards, I was excited to check out the Haunted Campground event at Rockwood Park.  Sadly, it was a disappointing affair.  When I'd first heard about it, the information posted on the net was contradictory.  Originally the post said the terror would begin on the 19th and later, without deleting the first mistake, it would begin on the 26th.  I should have taken that as a bad sign. That's exactly what it was. 

 

6 pm was scheduled as Scary-Lite, a toned-down version of the adventure for small children.  The real horror would begin at 7 pm.   It was all Scary-Lite. 

This odd figure in the trees might have been intended as Bigfoot.  It was barely visible off in the dark distant trees and only this much was seen by the flash of my camera.  Bigfoot?  Big deal.     

Um, seriously?  A balloon ghost? That is rather low end.

I suppose a little work went into the giant spider but you had to look a few times to make sure that's what it was.

This poor woman's job was to lie on that cold cold ground and startle people as they walked by.  But you couldn't see her, just some dark shape going Rahhhhh.  Whether a zombie or rabid meth addict, she was the scariest thing in the whole park and nobody could see her without flash cameras.

Look out for that scary witch, if you can even see her.   Nothing was lit very well and I believe they were counting on that to hide how lame and lackluster everything was just as monster movies from the 1950s wouldn't show the goofy monster until the end. 

So, out of 5 stars, I give the Rockwood Park Haunted Campground a zero.  That's right.  Zero stars.  The shame of it is that there is a demand for this type of thing in Saint John.  There was a long line when I entered and a longer one when I was leaving.  That is a lot of people to disappoint.  A father with three children decided at the gate that the 14-dollar admission was too steep and turned right around.  He was so right!

From the park, I headed downtown, riding up Waterloo Rowe (significantly scarier than the whole park fiasco) past meth addicts pimping out the one woman in the gang for a fix, past the sketchy bars on Union Street and down to the newly gentrified downtown core for something much more wholesome, Saint John's first Day of the Dead celebration.  

By the time I arrived, any ceremonies or events were finished.   Even so, more real effort was apparent here and there was no admission fee.  This spectacular altar spanned more than half of the short block.  An alley to the left had Mexican music where a few Catrinas were still dancing. 

Carving pumpkins up and sticking candles in them overnight condemns them to an early grave in a compost heap so I hope this idea of painting faces on pumpkins catches on.  When the night is done, they are still edible.