By Khalida Sarwari
In the back yard of the Mills home on Duff Avenue, dismembered body parts, bloody sheets and sinister clowns are a common find every October. Also, an electrical chair, zombies and bones.
The elaborate scene would rival any haunted house, bringing in hundreds of neighbors who stand in line on Halloween night for their chance to experience a little more than the typical house handing out Skittles.
In return, Evan Mills, a sales manager for Fremont Acura, and his wife, Candice, an orthopedic sales rep, ask their friends and neighbors to bring canned food items to donate to the Second Harvest Food Bank. Last year, the couple collected 1,500 pounds of food and recorded 1,400 people walking through their “haunted house.” They collected nearly $300 in donations. And the previous year, they collected 800 pounds and had about 900 people walk through the door.
That door this year was actually on the side of the back yard, right past a graveyard on the front lawn. A tour of the haunted house revealed a zombie-infested area, scarecrows, a scene depicting a man repeatedly slashing a girl’s throat, a voodoo room, a “wheel of death,” a scary jack-in-the-box and a claustrophobic tunnel set amid strobe lights and Halloween sound effects and music.
It’s a growing production and it’s not easy work, the Millses said. Every year they refresh the scene and switch up the props. One of the movies that inspired the zombie area this year was 28 Days Later, Evan said.
It cost the family about $4,000 to buy all the props, costumes and makeup that go into creating the haunted house. Evan builds the scenes while Candice is the decorator and creative mind behind the production.
“She watches a lot of horror movies,” Evan said, “and we’re just demented.”
Candice, who dressed as a zombie this year, said they pluck one scene from a scary movie every year, such as the Saw series. Reading zombie books helps, too.
“We don’t have a theme; we just come up with nasty stuff and build it,” she said.
Their 11-year-old daughter, Natasha, also gets involved as do their friends and some children from the neighborhood. Preparation of the haunted house requires about 200 hours and typically begins in early October, said Evan. Deconstructing the scene takes another couple of weeks. The hassle at times makes him question whether they should continue with it next year, but once the house is set up on Halloween night, those thoughts quickly fade away.
“It all becomes worth it the first time I see a crying child come out of there,” Evan said. “It’s for the love of the game. All this effort for three to six hours of satisfaction.”
The Millses’ haunted house has made the family somewhat of a legend in its neighborhood. People call out to him in the streets and say hello, Evan said.
“Everyone wants to have a conversation with me,” he said. “It feels like we give something back to the community.”
The Millses have won awards from the Second Harvest Food Bank for their contributions every year. They have been hosting their haunted house since 2009.
Kids were getting scares, not Skittles, at the Millses’ haunted house in Campbell
