TURNERS FALLS — Nearly every Halloween since 2001, Mark Courtemanche and his wife Katrina have decorated their home to celebrate a holiday they’ve always loved — although Katrina had a different answer when considering why they keep up the tradition.
“I was just going to say we’re sick and twisted,” she quipped, laughing.
In the more than two decades since the Courtemanches began decorating their home at the corner of Dell and Elm streets for Halloween and opening up their space to visitors, they’ve kept their motivation to make the displays thanks to consistent community interest.
“It’s not just the kids that love it,” Katrina said. “People really do seem to enjoy this.”
In 2024, the couple took the year off for their 25th wedding anniversary, but they are back this year with a transformed front yard that features a haunted house, a 12-foot scarecrow, multiple creepy baby dolls and an animatronic skeleton, among other spooky decorations that they try to make themselves.
Come August, Katrina said, they begin thinking about what they’d like to do for a theme. In years past, they’ve had crowd favorites, like a “Stranger Things” theme in 2022 for the fifth season of the show and another setup based on “The Walking Dead.” This time, the theme of a haunted house developed naturally, eventually incorporating a zombie baby motif, with plenty of skeletons that Katrina said are her “specialty.”
New to this year’s display is an animatronic zombie that Mark created. It uses a windshield wiper motor to make the skeleton move while it’s hung by its arms on a wooden post. The skeleton itself has spray foam and paint to create the viscera of the corpse.
“It’s a windshield wiper motor, a power cord and a speed controller, so I could make him look like he’s dancing, but then that looked ridiculous, so you can turn it way, way down so he’s going slow, like he’s trying to get away,” Mark said about his creation, adding that he plans to make another one in the future.
The largest part of the display is the haunted house structure built off the garage, and Katrina said the theme began to develop based on that installation. Between the garage build-off and the types of decorations purchased, neighbors tried to figure out what they were conjuring this year.
Katrina pointed out that some guessed a “Beetlejuice” theme based on the purple colors of the display, but that’s because they used decorations that were on clearance to keep the budget to around $1,000. They often repurpose items and rely on do-it-yourself creations, while also accepting neighbor donations.
“Even though we spend what we spend every year, building your own stuff is a third of the price,” Mark said. “If you can get the same result for a third of the price, if you have the time, why not?”
This year, their biggest expense may be the full-size candy bars they plan to give out on Halloween. In years past, the display has attracted more than 100 trick-or-treaters, but also people of all ages who appreciate the effort Mark and Katrina put into decorating their home.
“When we were setting up this year, some older woman from the street pulled over and she says, ‘I am so glad to see you guys are OK, you didn’t do it last year,'” Katrina said, explaining they were away for their anniversary. “She’s like, ‘I was just saying to my husband, I hope everything’s OK.’ … We look forward to this every year.”
Admittedly, there have been times when Katrina and Mark felt it was time to stop the tradition, but the support from the community keeps them going.
“We’ve had a couple parents say to us, ‘Thank you so much for doing this, for making Halloween special,'” Katrina recalled. “As long as they want it, we’re gonna do it.”