Welcome to the Halloween fright house! (From Thurrock Gazette)

Welcome to the Halloween fright house!

3:00pm Friday 2nd November 2012 in News

A FRIGHT fest awaited lucky trick or treaters in one street in Grays onWednesday.

The Johnson family, in King Edward Drive, are well known locally for going all out at Halloween, but this year was bigger and better than ever.

Eerie music played from the front garden where a grisly graveyard scene awaited those brave enough to enter, complete with skeletons, gravestones, a headless zombie, a coffin, and a pumpkin display.

The now annual display started a few years ago when the family took a trip to Tesco and ended up getting a few bits for Halloween, and then just kept adding to it every year.

Dad of three Kevin, 38, who dressed as the crypt keeper for the occasion, said they’ve spent around £600 on scare ware this year.

He said: “It started out as a bit of fun but it’s got bigger and bigger over the years and it’s sort of become our niche now, we keep and adding and adding to it.

“People drive here to bring their kids, I don’t know how far they come from though.

“The children love it, my son is at school now and all his friends come to see it.”

Of course with the trick or treaters, come the sweets, something the family was also well stocked up with, buying bags and bags of multipack goodies.

When asked if they also go to town in a similar fashion at Christmas, Kevin said: “We put up a few lights, but nothing on this scale, Halloween has definitely taken over.”

The family decided to put all the attention their house gets to good use this year, and raised £200 in donations for the charity Alzheimer’s Research UK, in memory of a loved one who passed away from the disease last year.