A few gravestones started the journey to a corpse-packed frightfest in Kenwick
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Michael Cronk and neighbors built an annual DIY Halloween compound on Lincoln.
- Show runs daily in October and into Nov; hundreds attend; donations aid tornado relief.
- Creators use car-wiper motors, foam board and heat guns to animate props.
It always starts with just a few gravestones.
You think, that’s pretty scary, right? But then you get some more, and then you add some yarn spiderwebs. You see a wall of skulls and say, I could make that. And then you do.
Then one morning you wake up five years later, and you’ve built an entire Halloween compound for anyone who wants to be scared, complete with gravestones, spiders, a furry bat-skeleton, a blood fountain, some vampires, and your very own fog machine.
That’s what happened at 128 Lincoln Avenue, the home of Michael Cronk and Sara Constantine, who, with friends and neighbors, have created a community project out of DIY fright.
“This year, the castle walls are new, and the fog machine was a birthday present,” Cronk explained as he walked the small but dense front yard.
Because he works on the plan all year round, he doesn’t really have a budget, but it’s fair to say that he’s a very good customer of hardware stores and Amazon.
“I love to challenge myself to do something bigger and better every year,” he said.
This year, “A Haunting on Lincoln Avenue” has a Dracula theme, complete with his bride, but totally made by hand. The mannequins, wigs and masks came from Amazon, including the homage mask to Christopher Lee’s three Dracula films.
The show is ready to go for three weeks in October, and is open from 12-9 p.m. every day. Hundreds of people show up every year, and they kept wanting to pay him, so Cronk and Constantine decided to turn the voluntary donations into a fundraiser; this year it’s London-Corbin tornado relief.
“It’s very much a neighborhood collaborative,” Cronk said. “I can’t do it without everyone’s help.”
The key to a lot of the moving parts, like say, a shaking coffin, or a twitching body, is car wiper motors, which are small and inexpensive, but have a lot of torque, Cronk said.
Other tricks include a lot of foam board, and say, wrapping a skeleton in plastic wrap, then turning on the heat gun until it melts. Then a little paint, and you have a suitably gruesome corpse.
Cronk thinks the thrill of Halloween, and of walkthroughs like his, is that people love jump scares when they know it’s not real.
“You kind of suspend disbelief,” he said. “I just enjoy the spirit and spookiness of Halloween,” but not something so full of horror that it gives people nightmares.
It’s a lot packed into a very small space. People walk through on their own, but Cronk can keep tabs through his ring camera.
“We enjoy the occasional shrieks, but really don’t want to terrify people.”
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“A Haunting on Lincoln Avenue” will be up through Nov. 2 from 12-9 p.m. every day. Voluntary donations will go to London-Corbin tornado relief.
This story was originally published October 28, 2025 at 12:17 PM.
