Go ahead. Ring the doorbell. What’s the worst that can happen at Hawkesbury’s Haunted House?
Patrick Labre is looking forward to Halloween this year. He is hard at work turning his front yard into the biggest and best “haunted house” to give every child in Hawkesbury, and quite a few adults too, the best Halloween fright night fun possible.
“It’s all good fun for the kids, and no one gets hurt,” Labre said during an afternoon break from work Saturday on Haunted House Spectacle project.
Every year for the past few years, with help from family and friends, Labre has set up a guide-yourself haunted house tour outside his home at 525 boulebard Cecile.
Part of the inspiration for his project comes from Labre’s own profession as a tattoo artist. For more than 30 years his clients’ arms, legs, backs and other parts of their bodies have served as canvases for his exotic ink sketches. Skull motifs and monstrous fantasy figures have always been popular tattoo subjects and one day Labre decided to devote the same passion behind his tattoo artistry into creating a larger-than-life fun-filled Halloween haunted house treat for the children in his neighbourhood.
“I liked the idea of seeing that kids have a good time on Halloween,” he said. “We’re losing Halloween now. It’s like it used to be when I was a child. »
The first year Labre set up his Haunted House, it occupied a 20-foot-by-25-foot on his driveway and part of the front yard. He estimated maybe a hundred children and their parents visited. Last year he had a crowd of 432 pass through the exhibition and this year he hopes to break the 500 mark for visits. He’s also added another 10-foot-by-25-foot addition to the premises, providing room for more frightful fun for everyone.
Who screams the loudest during the tour? It depends.
“Sometimes it’s guys, sometimes it’s girls,” said Labre, with a chuckle. “You never know.”
To avoid giving away any secrets about the self-guided tour, all that we can say is that visitors need to follow the little strings of LED lights through the misty maze-like corridors. Also, while shrieks and screams are welcome, Labre asks that visitors avoid resist the temptation to touch any of the exhibits.
Helping Labre with setting up the show are his wife, Marie, sons Maxime and Matheo Labre and Aquene Portealance, friend and neighbour, Ozzy Campbell, and a few other volunteers.
At the end of their tour through the haunted house, children can expect some Halloween treats.
For previews of past “residents” of Labre’s Haunted House in past years, see some of the videos on his Bloody Art Studio page on Tiktok.
The Haunted House welcomes all visitors brave enough to enter on October 31, from 3 to 11 p.m.
