A Halloween Display You Have To See To Believe
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Halloween is around the corner.
Two Staten Island brothers get in the spirit year after year with a life-like display, a display that spooks their New Dorp neighborhood.
It's a tradition that spans generations.
A nightmare on Steele Avenue. There's Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Hannibal Lecter and creepy clowns. It looks so real, it's scary.
"Can't have a Halloween display without the headless horseman," Jason Leavy told CBS2's Jenna DeAngelis.
If you get spooked by this display, blame brothers Jason and Michael Leavy.
"We also added the child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," Michael Leavy said.
While most kids are scared on Halloween, for as long as they can remember these siblings have been thrilled by it.
"We had a passion when we were little for horror films and we grew up watching them, so that's why we love Halloween so much. It's one of our favorite holidays," Jason Leavy said.
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Their love of the spookiest holiday they inherited from their grandfather. They made their first life-size character with him about two decades ago -- a "Scream" replica.
"Once he passed away, me and Michael decided to honor him. We wanted to build one each year for him, so it turned into this madness," Jason Leavy said.
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No mannequin is the same. Some masks they buy, some they make, but they take time to find different items to piece them all together.
They have about two dozen full-size characters that live inside most of the year.
"We've basically taken over our parents' basement," Michael Leavy said.
Halloween runs in the family blood. Costume after costume, decorations and masks. They estimate having as many as 100 of the latter.
It's a mix of the brothers' passion for Halloween and horror films. They actually make movies with their own company, Fuzz on the Lens Productions.
"That's what we do in film. We get dressed up. We play characters. On Halloween, you get dressed up and play characters," Michael Leavy said.
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And they'll keep sharing their love for the holiday on the screen ... and on their front lawn. When their display gets too big, don't worry, their grandmother lives next door.
"We just wan't to make Halloween great again is the whole thing," Jason Leavy said with a laugh. "We want to have kids come by and look at the house and just feel the way me and Michael felt when we were kids."
If you want to come check out the display, the lights turn on every day at 7 p.m. If you stop by on Halloween, who knows, you may get a bit of an interactive experience.
The brothers said they want to eventually open up a museum so that their display can live well beyond just the holiday.
