Huntington horror

Dave Brooks

Its dinnertime at the Hammonds’ residence.

Someone left the refrigerator door open and a quick glance inside

revealed the typical Halloween fare -- bloodied limbs, a couple of

fingers and a spinal cord delicacy. On top the of the fridge sat the

main course for the evening -- a severed head still fresh from its

iron maiden cage. Thankfully her blackened tongue was still in tact,

but some hungry visitor just couldn’t wait and made off with one of

the eyeballs.

Sadly, there will be little time to eat at the Hammonds’ Haunted

Halloween Beach House just off Pacific Coast Highway near Seapoint

Avenue. Instead visitors will be taken past the human meal and

through an extravagant maze created by couple Josie and John Hammonds

in the garage and sideyard of their upscale Surf City home.

“We do this for the enjoyment of the kids,” said John Hammonds, a

dentist who’s been building the maze for over a month.

Visitors to the haunted house on Saturday and Sunday will be

greeted by a skeleton and taken into a disorientating entryway

overloaded with strobe lights, cob webs, fog machines and

ear-throbbing screams. About eight costume-clad volunteers will do

their best to frighten visitors, jumping out at them, chasing them

around, an acting generally ghoulish. Toward the end, visitors will

be greeted by a giant clown that blasts them with a frightening bout

of air and a mechanical rapid dog hellbent on breaking free from its

chains.

“We send grown men through this and even they scream,” Josie

Hammonds said gleefully.

Besides its relatively small size -- it takes about three minutes

to walk through -- the Hammonds Haunted Beach House is on par with

some of the larger commercial projects in Southern California. The

Hammonds sunk about $15,000 into the project, and many of the

components have accumulated around their house from past Halloweens.

“We decided that if we’re going to do it, do it right,” John

Hammonds said.

That includes marketing the project. For several nights before the

haunted house is open, the couple walks around their small

neighborhood in costume, not uttering a word in hopes of letting

residents know there are ghosts about.

Some neighbors even get involved. Nearby homeowner Fred Benson

helped design the last leg of the haunted house, a scary proposition

between a mauling and a mass murderer.

“You see, when they walk out here, the mechanical dog will try to

get them, but when they run away, someone’s going to jump out with a

chain saw,” he eagerly explained. “This is where they’re going to

have to make a decision; do they want to be eaten by the dog or

massacred by the chain saw?”

The Hammonds are expecting about 200 people to visit the free

haunted house, which will start at sundown and go until about 9 p.m.

“It’s just so much fun to watch the reaction on people’s face when

they go through here,” Josie Hammonds said. “If we can scare them a

little and they have fun, then it’s all worth it.”

* DAVE BROOKS covers City Hall. He can be reached at (714)

965-7173 or by e-mail at [email protected].