Decorate for a Spooky High-Tech Halloween in 2024 [CNET]

Deck out your house for Halloween with glowing skeletons and creepy digital decorations that will bring fright and delight to trick-or-treaters.

Bedsheet ghosts and peeled-grape eyeballs will never go out of style, but maybe you want to level up your Halloween decorations with something fancier. Animatronics, giant skeletons, foggy effects and digital decor can turn your unassuming home into a haunted house that will be the talk of the neighborhood. 

Look to your local home improvement retailer or shop online to find creepy creatures to haunt your yard or digital specters to pop out of your walls. Here are our picks for high-tech Halloween decorations that glow, talk, move and help set the scene for a spine-chilling holiday celebration.

LED Levitating Reaper

Home Depot made Halloween history with its 12-foot yard skeleton named Skelly. The home fix-it retailer has been coming up with variations on the theme, including a giant skeleton dog, ever since. The 12-foot Animated LED Levitating Reaper offers a considerable creepiness upgrade with a glowing chest and skull. The reaper is designed to look like it’s floating, especially when it’s dark. The grimacing giant speaks six unnerving phrases, including “You are merely ants in my game of death and destruction.” It’s a showstopper for $300.

Skelly eye kit

Here’s a bonus for folks who already own the standard 12-foot Home Depot Skelly. You can upgrade the skull with an LCD eye kit for $30. The kit offers eight different LCD animations that you can adapt to the season. There are hearts for Valentine’s Day and fireworks for Independence Day, or you can go for the year-round fun of reptile eyes, regular eyes, bloodshot blue eyes, flames, spirals or stars. The remote-controlled moving eyes take your giant skeleton to an unsettling new level of fright.

Haunted Harbor Talking LED Sea Diver

Not to be outdone,  Lowe’s is stocked with Halloween animatronics this year. For something out of the norm, look to the 6-foot-tall Haunted Harbor Talking LED Sea Diver for $349. The harpoon-holding, seaweed-draped diver sports an LED skull face, spouts spooky sounds and phrases, and moves from side to side. It’s a nightmare from the deep.

AtmosFX Scarecrow collection

Dip your toes into the world of digital decorations with AtmosFX’s spooky offerings ranging from grimacing jack-o’-lanterns to flying ghosts. The Legends of Halloween: The Scarecrow collection is $39 for a digital download and includes several scenarios with a hair-raising talking scarecrow. You can display the decorations using your television or, preferably, a projector. With a projector, you can aim for a wall, floor or ceiling or send your scary, moving images onto a screen. Check out CNET’s recommendations for the best projectors.  

Distortions Unlimited Scare Wolf

You won’t find this Halloween prop at Home Depot. The Distortions Unlimited Scare Wolf is a professional-level prop with a professional-level price of $5,250. The frightening werewolf animatronic lunges at unsuspecting bystanders. A hose in its mouth blasts air for a viscerally interactive experience. This is so pricey, however, that it’s not the kind of prop you leave on your porch all night. As scary as he is, he might get wolf-napped.

Spirit Halloween 400 Watt Fog Machine

A professional-level fog machine for DJs can run many hundreds of dollars, or you can pop over to Spirit Halloween — known for its seasonal pop-up stores — and pick up a 400-watt fog machine for $50. Even better, the machine is wearing its own Halloween costume with a coffin shape and a skeleton on top. Don’t forget the fog machine fluid and a timer. 

Amazon Echo

Amazon’s $65 fourth-generation Echo speaker lets you tap into the Alexa voice assistant’s spooky side. Play games like Monster Madness, put chills up your spine with eerie sound effects or get Alexa to tell you a short horror story. Here are ways to use Alexa to spice up Halloween.

Also check out these tips for creating a haunted smart house at the last minute.