British Couple Transforms Home into Elaborate Halloween Attraction

Darren Mackenzie, 56, and his partner Karen Pearce, 54, have transformed their Yardley home and its 100-foot garden into an extensive Halloween attraction. The project, now in its second year, has escalated significantly, with Mackenzie describing it as having gone "all out" this time.

The elaborate display includes a variety of frightening elements, such as zombies, 12-foot skeletons, screaming corpses, Dracula, a sinister nun, and a Headless Horseman. Visitors navigate a route through the garage and garden, encountering a haunted asylum and a spooky church, with actors recruited to provide scares. This year's additions include an eight-foot pirate ship and an eight-foot dragon on the garage roof.

Over six weeks, the couple, with the help of 35 local volunteers and a colleague, constructed the attraction. Mackenzie, who runs a garden center, noted that their transition from being uninterested in Halloween to fully embracing it has been a significant shift. "We used to be the sort of people who closed the curtains and turned off the lights so nobody would knock on the door for trick-or-treating," he said.

The attraction has already drawn substantial crowds, with over 1,100 visitors in its first two nights. The event is raising money for CALM, a mental health and suicide prevention charity, and has generated approximately £1,000 so far. However, Karen Pearce acknowledged that the intensity of the scares has led to some younger visitors leaving in tears.

"Families come along and children are welcome, although we do warn people that some parts are quite scary and we've had some children in tears," Pearce stated. "I do the door and can hear the kid's screaming inside but it's all part of the fun."

The couple has amassed a considerable collection of Halloween decorations, which they estimate would fill a 50-foot shipping container. They utilize storage space in an adjacent shop to manage the extensive equipment. Despite the scale and cost, the attraction is designed to be energy-efficient, costing only £1 to run for three hours.

Darren Mackenzie's home is open as the haunted attraction every Friday and Saturday evening in the lead-up to Halloween, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. The couple has not received any complaints from neighbors, though Mackenzie mentioned that parking can become challenging due to the event's popularity.