KAILUA-KONA — At Tim Ewing’s house on Sea View Circle, a good Halloween night is making small kids cry.
“A great Halloween night,” the creator of Kailua-Kona’s most famous haunted yard said, “is when I make teenagers and adults cry.”
Ewing, owner of Kona Hydrostatic Testing, has been serving up scares at his house at 77-6518 Sea View Circle on Halloween for 18 years.
It started small in those early days, with a small graveyard and a couple rubber skeletons. Costumed in monster gloves and mask, with a second black mask under the scary mask, Ewing said he would “sit very, very, very still — would not move” with a big bowl of candy to tempt trick-or-treaters, who would stand in front of him, debating whether he was man or mannequin.
“And just as they reach in for the candy, I reach up and grab their hand,” he said. “And about half of them would scream and run back down the stairs.”
Since then, Ewing’s ghostly display has only grown — and nearly two decades later, includes not only window displays and the original spooky graveyard, but also a maze with whispering voices throughout and a dungeon in which spectral faces blow air at those passing by.
And the feedback has been consistent.
“The first year I did it, the kids’ bus stop used to be right here right in front of my house,” he said, “and I heard the kids saying, ‘You were scared last night!’ ‘I wasn’t scared last night,’ ‘I heard you scream last night!’”
“Hearing the kids’ reaction the next day was a lot of fun,” he said. “And that caused me to build it bigger and bigger and bigger every year.”
Just a few days ago, he received an email from someone asking if the haunted house would return this year.
“It’s a lot of fun,” he said. “It’s nice to be known as the Halloween guy or the ‘scary guy.’”
So enthusiastic has the response been that he’s had to reinforce parts of the attraction, upgrading the thickness of the walls to protect it from overly zealous guests.
“I had to beef up the walls from cloth to 1/8-inch plywood to 1/4-inch plywood because people would run through the walls trying to get away,” he said, adding it’s not uncommon to get guests who come in trying to put on a tough face. “Some of the teenage boys who are acting all tough, when they get scared they try to punch walls, and that’s why I have the thicker walls, so they can’t damage my walls or damage my haunt.”
As Ewing has worked to improve upon his attraction each Halloween, he’s also taught himself a slate of new skills, including pneumatics and animatronics.
Last year, Ewing built a “zombie door” into the side of the house, and this year, he said, he plans to introduce a new prop as well as revive another from six or seven years ago.
Ewing said he’d like people to take 5-10 minutes to go through the entire attraction, but said most kids “go through really, really fast.”
But for those who follow all the way through, there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow — or rather, a bowl of candy at the end of the nightmare.
“You have to go all the way to the end,” Ewing said.
He said they typically go through between 10 and 20 pounds of candy every year.
Ewing said he’s always looking for volunteers to be monsters to help scare guests. He said he could probably use another four or five people to help and can be contacted at 987-1750.
Ewing doesn’t charge admission to the haunted attraction, instead only asking that visitors donate a nonperishable food item for The Food Basket.
He said the event typically brings in anywhere from 80-120 pounds of food along with some cash from the 300-500 people that come out.
The haunted yard opens exclusively on Halloween, which is Wednesday, Oct. 31, starting at dusk. The attraction typically starts to close between 9 and 9:30 p.m.