Halloween turns houses become mazes, haunted houses and magical landscapes

On a quiet street in the northwest part of the valley, something wicked and wonderful is ready for your arrival.

"We go over the top, a little," said Jim Fielding, the main man behind the morphing of Hollywood Park Avenue.

More than half a dozen houses turn their desert landscaped front yards — and backyards — into mazes, haunted houses and magical landscapes for Halloween. In addition to Fielding's haunted house, this year's attractions include homes with "Star Wars" theme; Harry Potter theme with a maze and moving vortex, all hand built; a "Nightmare Before Christmas" theme; and a ghoulish graveyard with creepy crawly zombies and the grim reaper that is sure to put a little fun fright into Halloween fans.

"It's like Disneyland, only a little smaller," Fielding said.

Nearly $8 billion will be spent on Halloween decorations this year, according to the National Retail Federation, up $850 million from last year, and nearly half of American households will decorate for Halloween.

"There's something about Halloween that's more fun because you get to share it with everybody," Fielding said. "Other holidays are for families; Halloween is for everybody."

This year, Fielding has installed a devil mask, nearly 5 feet tall, that welcomes guests to his three-car garage turned haunted house for the holiday.

A handmade guillotine with a lifelike head nestled in the basket below the shining blade warns guests they are in for a ghastly delight if they like a little thrill with their treat.

"It's spooky but it's not scary," he said as he adjusted the legs of a mannequin that kicks and struggles in the dark of his faux mad scientist lab.

There is also homage to his friend Kadar Brown, who died last year in an accident on U.S. Highway 95 that runs close to the neighborhood. Each year Brown would play Jason (a character from the "Friday the 13th" horror series) and sit in a wooden electric chair Fielding built.

"I keep his (hockey) mask on the wall because he was such a big part of this every year," Fielding said.

The community has come together to plan, build and delight crowds for five years.

They had 75 percent of the neighbors on the street sign their permission to get a permit from the city to close off the street for Halloween night. The trick-or-treaters begin ringing doorbells around dusk. By 9 p.m. nearly 3,000 trick-or-treaters and their accompanying adults will have cycled through the elaborately decorated houses.

An area grocery store donated hot dogs last year, and the neighborhood provided cotton candy, spun right there at the beginning of Hollywood Park Avenue.

"We're hoping to do that again this year," Fielding said.

It takes him 40 man hours to set up his house, the first on the tour. For him, it's personal. His mother, Cathy, who passed in 2009, began decorating the house more than a dozen years ago. He joined her in her hobby in 2003.

"Every year we would add something new," he said.

He holds on to the big items that his mother enjoyed, such as the gentleman in the top hat popping up from his coffin and the elaborate pirate bar that tickles the trick-or-treaters after they've passed through the eerie mad scientist lab with buzzing electric chair with its surprise inhabitant.

"We want people to have fun, that's why we do all of this," he said.

Shandra Wendel and her husband, Tom, turned to Hollywood movies for inspiration for their decorations this year.

"We start in mid-September and really get into it," she said. "I don't want to be too scary, so we go for (fun) themes."

She hand-painted the Max Rebo Band that plays at Jabba's Palace in the original "Star Wars" movie on a large foam board attached to their porch. A foam facade hand-painted to look like the adobe entrance to the bar where Luke Skywalker meets Han Solo greets guests at the door.

"We put a lot of work into it," Wendel said. "I love seeing the looks on their faces when they come over."

"It's work, a lot of work," Tom Wendel said. "You're sitting there, you have to have a chair, because you're just handing out candy. It's a constant (stream) of kids."

They get a lot out of it as well.

"I love seeing all the costumes," Shandra Wendel said. "Halloween is so fun because you can be whatever you want and you get to share that (vision) with everyone else."

More than 40 percent of Americans don costumes and ring doorbells begging for candy, according to a Harris poll.

"We go into Halloween Spirit for clearance around (mid-October)," Fielding said. "You have to get there early or it's gone."

Halloween is the beginning of the holiday season, said Michelle Pignatello, owner of Black Cat Costumes and Novelties on Rainbow Boulevard and Sahara Avenue, as customers start to feel the fever to change out their usual dÃ©cor for something frightful.

"People are decorating, now more than ever," Pignatello said, who has owned Black Cat for 12 years.

Her family-owned store sells out quickly of the larger items such as lighted spiders, blow-up props, strobe lights and fog machines.

"We have people come in with an idea of how they want to do something to decorate their house and our staff helps them make it happen," Pignatello said. "It's something families can do together, which is what Halloween is all about."

The spate of late-October scary selections has been a boon for the industry.

"My Halloween is all on clearance," by mid-October, said Lolly Sneed, owner of Rod Works Las Vegas Stores with locations in northwest Las Vegas and Henderson area. "We are sold out early."

This year, she has had more collectors searching for witches and goblins, but a surprise seller has nothing to do with Halloween.

"This year I sold a lot of sugar skulls," Sneed said. "That's a Day of the Dead (item), but they were big this year."