by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleaders.com
Susie Wistrom’s neighbors think it’s a good thing – a very good thing – that she is an expert in CPR, and some have even suggested she keep a defibrillator on hand.
Especially on Halloween night when blood-curdling screams, coming from the Wistroms’ garage, ricochet through the chilly night air in the Morningstar neighborhood.
How could a perfectly attractive neighborhood garage produce such shrieks of terror? Well, you’ll have to step inside come Halloween and find out for yourself. Hopefully, Wistrom won’t have to use her life-saving skills on you.
So far, so good. In 15 years, she has never had to revive a victim of fainting or – heaven forbid – someone whose heart has stopped ticking, someone scared literally up to death’s door.
She has, however, seen many people young and old tremble, scream and turn white with fright in the spooky, dreaded passageways of the Wistrom Haunted House. Who knows what lurks around that next darkened corridor?
Is that ghoulish clown who seemed to appear out of nowhere a mannequin or is it – eeeek!!
Those bloody hands reaching through the wall look so real. Eeeek! They are! Hey, let’s get out of here!
From the wisps of fog in the Haunted House, nightmare apparitions “greet” visitors: a horrific little girl with huge glaring milky-blue eyes, her mouth a blur of bright blood, as she clutches a Teddy bear; a deathly pale human monster on the ceiling staring down with a blood-lust craving, his hands like the talons of a bird of prey; and then there stands another clown, anything but funny with his leering, vicious look, his gaping mouth revealing hideous rows of teeth.
The eerie music playing is by itself enough to give anybody goose bumps and ice-cold chills.
Last Halloween, 420 people found spine-tingling terror (and queasy fun) at the Haunted House. And every Halloween night people can’t wait to return to get scared by new horrors, which change from year to year.
Not surprisingly, Wistrom loves Halloween and everything about it. She always enjoyed putting up Halloween decorations – from delightful to demented – on her front lawn for the little trick-or-treaters to enjoy. About 15 years ago, she decided to go all out by transforming her garage into a free-admission Haunted House. First, during her planning, she let her imagination run wild, very wild, and then she searched the Internet for decoration ideas she tweaks to her own liking.
“I wanted it to be similar to the Molitor’s Halloween night when people jump out and scare you,” she said.
As anybody can testify, she achieved her goal – and then some.
The Haunted House is so scary it’s off limits to any child under the age of 6. For those younger children, there are plenty of frights in the front yard: witches, tombstones, skeletons, spiders and other spooky-wooky stuff. Kids love it.
The Halloween displays in Wistrom’s yard and garage kept growing year by year until she was running out of space in which to store the stuff the rest of the year. As a result, she’s become a master at recycling and repurposing the decorations into brand-new horrors, constant surprises for the returning fans of the Haunted House and the front yard. Husband Todd is very good in helping with the technical aspects of the production. Sons John and Matt are also helpful. The Wistroms’ other children, Michael and Jasmine, no longer live in Sartell.
Among her “props” are three sound systems, dry-ice fog machines and anywhere from nine to 11 actors who play the ghouls. Other props include mannequins Wistrom salvaged from her line of work. She teaches specialized health and safety, including CPR and first aid, which uses mannequins for practice.
She starts creating the Haunted House as early as August and then keeps tweaking it right up until the Big Night arrives. While she operates the Haunted House, someone else – usually one of her grown sons, Matt – gives out candy to children from the house. Sometimes he has to walk down to the street to give kids candy because the sights in the front yard scare them too much.
The candy is dispensed from a large plastic pumpkin, the same one Wistrom used as a child when she’d go trick-or-treating.
“I grew up in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and it was always so cold on Halloween night,” Wistrom said. “Down here in central Minnesota the Halloween weather is just right. I love this “Southern” weather, as I call it.”
After the chills and the screams, visitors are invited to gather ‘round the big bonfire on Wistroms’ front lawn. There they tend to huddle together and giggle a bit nervously about the “thrills” they’ve just experienced. Once the nerves settle somewhat, it’s always a “Happy Halloween” for one and all at the Wistroms’ home.
The Haunted House opens at 6 p.m., and usually closes at about 9 p.m.
Susie Wistrom (right) is a smiling, friendly, happy woman — not the kind one would think could create the ghoulish, frightening critters found in her Haunted House. At left is John, one of the four Wistrom offspring, with his daughter, Emma.
A gummy-blob pukey witch is one of the “adornments” in the Todd and Susie Wistrom yard in the Morningstar neighborhood of Sartell. In the background is the Halloween ghoul’s graveyard pumpkin coach.
Beware of this not-so-sweet sweetheart, clutching her Teddy bear as she greets visitors to the Wistrom Haunted House.
A clown who is not exactly a barrel of laughs is one of the creatures who will greet visitors to the Wistrom Haunted House on Halloween night.
My oh my, one of the lawn creatures at the Wistrom residence is having yet another bad-hair day, much to the delight of the hundreds of young trick-or-treaters who enjoy the spooky sights.
This bloodthirsty human monster hangs from the ceiling of the Todd and Susie Wistrom garage in Sartell, a garage that is transformed into a scarifying Haunted House every time Halloween rolls around.
