Halloween on the Hill

 A couple weekends ago, Mrs Dex and I went to check out Halloween on the Hill in Beverly, MA. She's not the biggest fan of haunted attractions so this year I tried to find more family friendly things.

 

Long Hill is a 114 acre estate and for most of the year, you can visit the public gardens and walk trails through the woods. For October, it's transformed into Halloween on the Hill!

The trails are populated by hundreds of carved funkins and Halloween decorations.

This pumpkin portal was there as a photo op backdrop but there was another one as you enter the walking trails.

The first area didn't have any pumpkins but instead had scarecrow figures of famous movie characters.

There were a few that took a minute to figure out but it was easy to see with this couple, they were the one each other wants.

 

The next section was pirate themed, complete with a large ship and Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me) playing. Just before this, there is a Jack Sparrow scarecrow so it did kind of feel like you were heading into Pirates of the Caribbean.

After a small spider themed area, it's off to Hogwarts! On the left, you can see Harry and Ron in the flying car trapped in the "Whomping Willow".

In addition to an assortment of traditional pumpkin faces, there were plenty of pop culture icons to find.

I had to hang out in this area for a while. They had a couple of songs on loop: a Spooky Scary Skeletons remix and LVCRFT's Skeleton Sam which I was shocked to be hearing out in the world!

Next is a little graveyard scene presided over by the ghost with the most himself. There's an assortment of skeletons staged throughout having their own misadventures.Check out that sand worm ground breaker in the front.

At the halfway point is a little market area where you can get snacks. I like Pumpkin Spice as much as the next person but give me all the hot apple cider and donuts!

Earlier on the trail, we could hear the Star Wars theme in the distance.

This is the way (to more pumpkins).

This is mostly Marvel but they did sneak Flash and Wonder Woman pumpkins in here.

More John Williams greeted us as we approached the dinosaur pumpkin era, complete with smoke spewing volcano. The lights also "streamed" to make them look like flowing lava.

To get back to modern times, you had to brave the vortex tunnel, a large spinning cylinder with a railed walkway through it. It was maybe only 20' long but if you've ever experienced one of these, you know how disorientating it can be. Maybe I'm weird (not really in question), but I enjoy that odd feeling where I know I'm firmly on the ground but seem to be spinning.

The vortex drops you off in a witchy area.

And what's that I hear?

Good thing someone called the Ghostbusters, this next area is full of em! From a distance, I thought they had an actual ECTO-1 parked here but it's just a very well done cut out with Slimer riding shotgun.

This is one of my favorite shots. With the eerie green lights, it's got a party vibe.

Someone working here definitely has my sense of humor. Too soon, indeed! 

 

And that was the end of the walk. It was a lot of fun not only hunting out the pop culture references but also seeing families with kids enjoying the sights.Many of the kids were dressed up and I don't blame them. If you have a Halloween costume, you take any opportunity you can get to wear it!

I only posted about 25% of the photos I took! There's plenty more featuring the various pumpkins. You can check them all out below of if you want a bigger, better view, over on Flickr.

Don't forget to visit the other Countdown to Halloween sites!

You can find a list at the link below.