The Best of Home Depot 2017

I'm not a big Home Depot shopper, admittedly, and as I write this, our local store doesn't have any of its Halloween out on the shelves. Luckily, they've got pretty much everything up on their website. This means I can go ahead and write some proper Halloween merchandising content in an unusually dry August, but it also kinda robs me the fun of stumbling upon some of this stuff in person. A blessing and a curse.

Pineapple Skeleton

I'm gonna start with the most baffling, and the item I'm most curious to see in action. The website seriously called this a "pineapple skeleton" last I looked, but it's actually a skeleton holding an apple and a pen. I have...positively no idea why it would be holding an apple and a pen. Some kind of obtuse "back to school" joke? It looks like it lights up, makes noise and swings its arms around, desperately showing you its apple and its pen, which I suppose could be tied in, somehow, to whatever keeps its soul bound to our world.

Creeper

This is one of those Halloween items that looks like a somewhat lazier Silent Hill monster, but just goes to show how a lazier Silent Hill monster can look like an exceptional Halloween monster. The entire doll face is cracked open into a jagged mouth, and this thing stands at least six feet tall!

Skeleton Horse

Almost life-size and at least a couple hundred dollars, this skeleton horse is almost completely accurate to boot, except for the bone ears that have become a staple of Halloween skeleton animals. I don't mind them, per se, but I wouldn't mind their exclusion, either. A horse skull especially doesn't need ears. Anyone can tell the grim and soulless visage of a horse at a glance, skin or no skin.

Skeleton Manhole

"Ey! I'm woikin' hea!" is the only thing I can hear when I look at this.

Medusa Scroll

Always great to see something with Medusa, even if it's just a painting of her face on a fabric scroll with weirdly copy-pasted looking snake heads. Does anybody know what kind of snakes these might be? Artists don't always keep it in mind, but they clearly used a photo reference.

Scarecrow Reaper

A scythe actually makes 100% perfect sense for a scarecrow to wield without necessarily making them a "reaper," but this was called a Scarecrow Reaper, so I have to just assume this is a scarecrow who harvests the souls of the dead. Actually, that in itself makes more sense than just a skeleton who happens to use farming tools, doesn't it?

Light-Up Monster Signs

Available in skeleton and witch, these are actually pretty pricey, but they have a lovely retro feel to them and excessively fine detail; just look at those blonde curls on the witch!

Gargantuan Spider

This spider costs hundreds of dollars, and that's because it's big enough to drape over your entire car. I've seen spiders kinda like it in the past, but this one wins in terms of anatomical accuracy.

Spider Phone

Fake Halloween telephones are all the rage lately, and I'm glad to see one that's also an entire spider, the abdomen so nicely integrated with the phone dial. It's the kind of spooky phone a cartoon haunted house would include, and I just wish I could somehow use it as a real phone.

Animated Tapping Witch

This is one of the scariest Halloween props I've possibly ever seen. You just hang her outside of a window, turn her on, and let her tap at the glass, which would have terrified me absolutely shitless as a child.

Haunted Toaster

According to the website, a pair of skeletal hands will pop out of this toaster when the button is pressed. Why they don't show a photo of this, I have no idea, but the idea is pretty wacky. Is the toaster simply inhabited by a pair of haunted, bony hands, or is the toaster some kind of portal to another realm?

Skeleton Tyrannosaur

Yep, even bigger and more expensive than the horse. It's like every company right now is racing to top each other's skeletal animals.

Skeleton Triceratops

If your budget is a little tighter, the topsy isn't anywhere near life sized, and only forty bucks instead of the T-rex's $299.

Skeleton Tyrannosaur Hatchling

...But if your budget isn't THAT tight, and you've got your heart set on a carnosaur, this adorable baby dinolich can be yours for about $60, though it's obviously meant to be an accessory to the full-size mom.

Air-Blown Inflatable "Slim Man"

I was really tickled the first time I saw slenderman as an inflatable Halloween decoration, and as old as slenderman has gotten, I still enjoy his inclusion alongside all the Draculas and Frankenstoids. They're pretty dusty memes themselves, after all, so the more the merrier...but did Home Depot think "slenderman" was a copyrighted name, or is this genuinely a completely different entity, Slenderman's cousin Slim?

Air-Blown Inflatable Giant Preying Mantis

I've seen a lot of giant, inflatable Halloween yard decorations...but this just about knocks my socks off. How often do you ever see a mantis as a Halloween monster?! They could have gone with the more traditional spider, scorpion or even cockroach, but no, someone decided your Halloween needed a humongous, radioactive mantid straight out of a 50's B-movie, and they're absolutely right. Everyone's Halloween needs this, but unfortunately, everyone doesn't have the cash.