For Tarpon Springs resident Kathleen Barbiere, Halloween is the most wonderful time of the year.
One October, about 25 years ago, Barbiere decided to turn her home into a haunted house. With the help of her husband, Barbiere pushed all the furniture to the back of the house and began anew. The couple was frustrated by their inability to have kids at the time, and you could say that the haunted home was a coping mechanism, or at least a welcome distraction.
At first, only friends and family visited Barbiere’s homegrown haunted house, but then the neighbors started showing up too. Now, the house raises close to $2000 for charity each year — in donations. This year, Barbiere’s House on the Hill will raise money for Shriners Hospitals for Children, which has a location in Tampa.
The couple was busy setting up this year’s haunted maze in their backyard, with family and friends, when I visited mid-September. The front yard already looked like a demented cemetery. As a member of Haunter’s Hangout, a Facebook group of like-minded scarers and haunted house creators, Barbiere receives advice and help from professional haunters. So this isn’t your average homegrown haunted maze.
The family often crafts their own Halloween accessories from found items rather than buying the usual stock items in stores. The tombstones in their front yard were made from foam boards, and that sign out front was once the headboard for someone’s bed.
These are the things we expect to see come Halloween — spooky displays and fake cemeteries in people’s front yards. But the really scary stuff, says Kathleen, is the unexpected. This is why Barbiere has invited about 15-20 creepy characters, aka scare-actors, to jump out at people as they walk through the maze.
One year, Barbiere asked her son’s friend, Christopher, to play a dead little boy. On Barbiere’s test walk through the maze, Christopher jumped out in front of her, and asked, “Do you want to play hide and seek?” in a super creepy voice. Despite already knowing he’d be there, Barbiere says it still spooked her.
Another year, Barbiere asked her niece Meagan to dress up in a ghillie suit.
“Some guy punched her in the face, he was so scared,” says Barbiere.
What people really hate, says Barbiere, are clowns. One year they had two clowns in the maze, and a woman ran out “hysterically crying,” she says.
But these are the anomalies. What they get to see every year, says Barbiere, are men hiding behind their wives. Seriously, guys?
This year, Barbiere asked the people around her what terrified them. The theme is “fears & nightmares,” and Barbiere has a special surprise waiting for you. Try not to hide behind your wife.
House on the Hill might be too scary for young children. If you bring your child to the house, and they appear to be in any distress before entering the maze, Barbiere won’t let you bring them in. As she puts it, “I like to scare people, but I like to scare consenting people.”
