Halloween haunt

PENNVILLE –– Candy and costumes aren’t the only Halloween perks for Jay County trick-or-treaters.

Local residents can also visit “Lord Grimsley’s Chamber of Horrors,” a haunted walk-through hosted by Andy and Rose Kern in their yard at 565 S. Washington St., Pennville. Visitors will meet the ghouls Lord and Lady Grimsley along with a few other spooky characters through the walk from 5 to 8:30 p.m. Saturday.

Andy has always loved Halloween. He grew up watching the Indianapolis-based horror host Sammy Terry on “Nightmare Theater.” He and his brother built a model of Frankenstein’s laboratory in their parents’ garage when they were young.

Andy decided that someday he would host a haunt. He volunteered for the Haunted Basement, a haunt located in the Elwood Opera House, in the 1990s and early 2000s, but it wasn’t until about four years ago that he began pursuing his dream of spooking.

Andy and Rose (formerly Rose Jacobs of Dunkirk) moved to a house in Pennville and married in 2013. Rose explained she bought some Halloween inflatables for the yard on clearance.

One of her inflatables — a dragon she bought from Bluffton — received a lot of attention. After their yard started attracting others, Rose and Andy decided they should take it a step further to give kids in town something else to do on Halloween.

In 2016, the couple started with two canopy tents filled with decorations in their driveway and an animatronic werewolf. The Kerns’ spooky collection has grown through the years, with each Halloween bringing new decor.

The couple has added an animatronic grim reaper with a crystal ball — nicknamed “Morbid Morty" — and an animatronic Michael Myers –– the masked character from the “Halloween” movie franchise –– to their haunt. They also hope to have a Frankenstein actor this year along with a zombie area.

Small children who are afraid of the haunt are welcome to visit for candy and leave, but the Kerns like to keep their attraction open to all ages with a “simple and family friendly” atmosphere. Andy said Michael Myers is about as far as they’ll go with the slasher horror content, as they prefer to stick with the classic horror stories. He explained the zombie area this year isn’t too graphic, either.

“You won’t see blood and guts and gore,” he said. “It’s just going to be your run-of-the-mill zombie, ‘Night of the Living Dead’ type deal.”

Visitors can park alongside the front yard and walk up to the driveway, where Lord Grimsley will give candy to trick-or-treaters and share rules for the walkthrough, including COVID-19 safety measures. Visitors will have two canopy tents to explore and then enter into a small crypt and the cemetery in the backyard.

Andy explained that his inspiration for Lord Grimsley came from three different classic horror characters.

Grimsley’s top hat and black clothes originate from the main character in the 1920 German silent horror, “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.” He also took inspiration from actor Lon Chaney’s “vampire-like” character design in the 1927 lost silent mystery, “London after Midnight,” and, of course, Sammy Terry. He added a British accent and some personality, and Lord Grimsley came to life — or, as ghouls do, rose from the dead.

Last year, the high winds, cold temperatures and falling snow forced the couple to cancel the haunt. Rose recalled how decorations started flying around in the wind.

“You would think when you have a cemetery in your front yard or your back yard, and the wind blows, you wouldn’t have to go chasing the headstones — but sometimes you do,” she joked.

They’re hoping for good weather this year because the event is one night only. The Halloween weather forecast looks promising, calling for mostly clear skies in the evening with temperatures in the high 30s. Rose Kern hopes their haunt becomes popular enough they can extend it through a few weekends in October.

In the future, she would like to ask attendees to bring canned goods as their admission and then donate to local food pantries.

Part of Rose’s love of Halloween, she said, is that she gets to be someone else for the night.

“It’s Halloween time. You get to dress up… let all your cares and worries go, and just have a good time — if it’s a haunt in your back yard or going to somebody else’s haunt,” she said.