Spooktacular Linwood home open for Halloween

A haunted house of horrors tucked away in a Christchurch suburb will be crawling with scary treats on Halloween night.

The Linwood property, dubbed the "Thomas Street Cemetery", will be filled with skeletons, witches, creepy dolls and killer clowns on Thursday night.

Owners Sam and Jordan Dickinson have been going all out to decorate their property for the season.

The couple say it is their favourite time of the year.

"The spookiness, it's different. I don't even know how to explain it, I prefer it more than Christmas, to be honest. This is our version of Christmas."

Among the backyard attractions will be a series of "jump-scare" animatronics, scary actors and spooky walkthrough displays with neon ghostly apparitions.

"(We) love scaring the kids and then giving them lollies for being such good sports."

The couple spent $5000 on brand new scary animatronics this year, which they'll be letting loose on the public for the first time.

Sam Dickinson admitted scaring herself after forgetting one of her killer clown heads was in the...
Sam Dickinson admitted scaring herself after forgetting one of her killer clown heads was in the kitchen. Photo: Geoff Sloan
The Dickinsons say they have received huge community support for the free event, which keeps getting bigger each year.

"I think our first year, we had a couple of hundred through. Last year we had 1200 people through in four hours."

Jordan, a horror movie buff, first got the idea to 'spook-ify' the property during the Covid lockdown.

"I got stuck in bed with Covid for two weeks and I got stuck on Halloween haunt videos from America, and I just decided there that we were going to do it, and it's taken off," Jordan said.

They had thought about charging or asking for donations, but decided to keep it as a free community event. And they're promising an even bigger display next year.

"We'll probably start planning next week. We start planning as we're tearing it down, and as we do that, we come up with more ideas," Jordan said.

  • The haunted Halloween house at 5 Thomas St, Linwood, is available to view for free between 4pm and 9pm on Thursday.

- By Geoff Sloan, made with the support of NZ On Air