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All year long, Buster Delouise and Kelsey Lutz dream up nightmares.
They envision monsters to summon, tombstones to plant and new ways to bring their Halloween display to life. For months, they’ve packed the basement with skeletons while planning and crafting for their favorite night of the year.
Since Labor Day weekend, the Patchogue couple has worked around their careers as tattoo artists to transform their Laurel Street home into a Halloween spectacle.
With about $2,500 in store-bought animatronics, homemade props and accessories, the display recently received its finishing touches.
“It’s nice seeing all our weird creativity come together,” Lutz said. “We put in a lot of hours and effort and love.”
As cars stopped for photos and videos — a nightly occurrence through October — Delouise smiled.
“That makes it all worth it,” he said.
After 6 p.m., songs such as “Monster Mash” and “Dragula” play through outdoor speakers while a custom machine sends thick, low-lying fog across a makeshift graveyard beside the house.
Green, purple and orange solar-powered lights illuminate a giant Grim Reaper wielding a scythe, Gremlins, a gargoyle and a machete-swinging Jason Voorhees that Delouise built using PVC and a windshield wiper motor.
Nearby, a skeleton mows the lawn, running over another skeleton whose leg sticks out beneath the mower. Ghosts hang overhead, and handmade headstones dot the yard. One reads “Paul Tergeist.”
The couple is constantly running across the street to get a better view and make adjustments. Their dog contributes, too, knocking over pieces, barking at Jason and coming inside with fake spiderwebs stuck to his face.
On the way to the front door, trick-or-treaters will pass skeletons stained to look decayed and sprayed with glow-in-the-dark paint, pop-up ghouls and a towering pumpkin king.
“There’s something to look at all the way around,” said Lutz.
Her newest creation is a hand-painted wooden sandworm inspired by “Beetlejuice.” Its sections are spaced to look as though the creature is emerging from the ground beside a tree Delouise gave a creepy face.
“Not a lot of people decorate for Halloween,” Lutz said. “It’s fun to make an effort and show kids that your house is a safe, happy place.”
Delouise wants the experience to be memorable.
“I want it to be thrilling for them,” he said. “We keep going crazy with it…soon we’re gonna have to buy another house just to store it all!”
Love at first fright
Since moving to Patchogue in 2023, Delouise has made it his mission to become “the Halloween guy,” starting by painting his entire house black.
His enthusiasm grew out of a childhood with few Halloween celebrations and a strict Catholic upbringing.
“We had maybe a ‘Happy Halloween’ sticker on the window, but that’s it,” he said.
As a teenager, he gravitated toward horror movies and developed a passion for art.
After more than a decade working as a mechanic, fabricator and welder, Delouise began apprenticing at a tattoo shop in 2009. He specialized in horror portraits, from Michael Myers to Pennywise, and eventually opened his own Halloween-themed shop in Medford.
Last September, a colleague introduced him to Lutz, a tattoo artist based in West Babylon who grew up in a Halloween-loving family of creatives.
“My parents used to dress up head-to-toe, with prosthetics on, and scare my friends,” she said with a laugh. “My dad was letting me watch Chucky movies when I was five.”
The two soon discovered they both made their own Halloween props.
Their first real hangout, naturally, involved spending the night setting up decorations in Delouise’s yard. Among them were the Grim Reaper now standing in the graveyard and a 6-foot coffin Lutz built.
“When I saw his house was black, that was the moment I knew I was in it for the long haul,” Lutz said. “For our anniversary, I bought him the gargoyle.”
Delouise credits Lutz with helping make this year’s display their best yet.
“If it wasn’t for her, I’d be like ‘Forget it.’ Now I have a second set of eyes,” he said. “Granted, we’ve bumped heads a couple times, like ‘I think this coffin should be over here.’”
More scares in store
Even with Halloween approaching, the couple is already thinking about next year.
“I always want to do more and push it to the next level,” Delouise said.
His ideas include a “Tunnel of Fear” through the side yard and a flying ghost rigged to move using wheels.
Lutz, meanwhile, has plans for the coffin.
“My friend, who owns a salon, was getting rid of mannequin heads,” she said, “and I’m like ‘Don’t throw those out. I need those. They look like real people.’”
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