{"id":335575,"date":"2025-10-27T07:49:37","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T07:49:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/335575\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T07:49:37","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T07:49:37","slug":"dallas-homes-viral-halloween-decor-adds-truck-crash-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/335575\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas Home’s Viral Halloween Decor Adds Truck Crash in 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

With more than 10 million views across his TikTok posts alone, it\u2019s difficult to believe that local spooky season hero Steven Novak<\/a> actually doesn\u2019t like the holiday that brought him virality<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201c[My partner] has to remind me to put on a costume, because frankly, I don\u2019t like Halloween,\u201d Novak tells us. \u201cWhat I\u2019m doing has nothing to do with Halloween; it just happens to take place during Halloween. Halloween is an excuse for me to do crazy shit outside \u2014 I\u2019d do it all year long if they let me, but you won\u2019t see any ghosts or pumpkins in my yard.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Instead, the man who once got his neighbors all up in arms about a gory display at his former M Streets residence<\/a> takes a more intellectual approach, planning months out for what will ultimately be this year\u2019s theme. After moving to a more receptive-to-scares neighborhood<\/a> in Oak Cliff, he began concepting the d\u00e9cor currently adorning his home. He began planning this year\u2019s treatment nearly six months ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Growing up as \u201cthe classic kid who likes to take everything apart\u201d means Novak always begins with a big concept \u2014 in this case, the idea of a crashed helicopter was one he\u2019d been mulling over for years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hyperactive, so I\u2019m always working on things,\u201d Novak says. \u201cI have stacks of notebooks full of random shit that just pops in my brain, and sometimes during the year, Halloween jumps in my noodle. The idea of a crashed helicopter had been on the books, and I actually found one, but my partner thought aviation was a bit risqu\u00e9. She\u2019s a skydiver, so she knows a lot of people are sensitive about plane crashes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Every concept Novak comes up with starts with a sketched-out scene \u2014 in this case, a crashed truck surrounded by ravenous zombies.<\/p>\n

Rose Cobey, the partner in question, is also a little queasy about blood, so Novak has pivoted further in recent years to more conceptual stories, using self-built animatronics and props. In this case, the crashed helicopter transformed into an upside-down truck, and he wrote a back story about zombies to support it.\u00a0One video previewing this year\u2019s setup already has more than a million views<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was trying to explain why there was a truck that crashed in my yard, and it just popped in my head that they were transporting biohazard material, so it\u2019s going to be zombies \u2014 that\u2019s why they\u2019re wearing hazmat suits,\u201d Novak says. \u201cI think there was a leak in one of the barrels, and the driver started getting zombified and crashed, and there\u2019s a spill. That\u2019s why it\u2019s very secretive and why the truck is unmarked.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Novak named this year\u2019s figures \u201cLarry, Moe and Curly\u201d after the classic comedy trio from The Three Stooges. He sketched out the scene four months ago on a chalkboard, then refined it through page after page of drawings before moving the ideas into a 3D rendering program called Blender. Once Novak works out each figure\u2019s dimensions, he fine-tunes the builds and decides what materials he can use to transform his dreams into reality. And, he says, \u201cOnce I decide how to get my head around the material, I\u2019m unstoppable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the case of Larry (a headless hazmat-suited guy swinging from a tree), Novak learned to weld, practicing in his garage for a month to create the steel and aluminum figure. For Moe, his \u201cthirsty zombie,\u201d he welded together an iron figure strong enough to stand on two legs with a 55-gallon barrel over its head. Moe serves as a fountain of sorts, with a tube running from arm to leg. <\/p>\n

There are also small nods to Novak\u2019s previous displays \u2014 repurposed gory body parts are scattered around the scene from his notoriously viral year.\u00a0Curly\u2019s figure wears the Beetlejuice mask from last year\u2019s concept<\/a>, and once Novak got his hands on the final prop, he decided to add Shemp, the fourth Stooge, as a character flung from the wreckage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Until just a week or so ago, Novak was lamenting to his vast TikTok audience about his inability to afford a vehicle to anchor the scene, as he was over his typical $5,000 budget per scene. Donations poured in from around the globe, with one fan from Norway Paypal-ing him a thousand dollars to help secure a \u201992 Nissan, which he has adorned with lighting and fabric to mimic \u201cflames.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my rules (for the scenes) is it has to be plausible and real,\u201d Novak says. \u201cThere\u2019s a narrative. If they were infected, there\u2019s a reason for it. It\u2019s not a fake truck; it\u2019s a real truck. I needed it to have no engine or gas tank so it would meet code compliance. I\u2019ve got it rigged up so it looks like the lights are running, but to my rule, I don\u2019t want anything fake \u2014 they have to be real light sources. It\u2019s those restrictions that guide the thing into being what it is. If I just lugged in spotlights, it would completely break the immersion.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

His attention to detail keeps followers coming back and brings him new ones \u2014 the grandchildren of two of the Stooges are happily following along on social media as Novak continues to adjust and tweak to the 11th hour and beyond, adding to the 300-plus hours he\u2019s already spent concepting and building the scene.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"The king of a zombie disaster domain, Steven Novak stands among the scene in his front yard. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s adding more lasers, more flames, and a citizen zombie to potentially attack poor Shemp. He\u2019s also considering patenting the \u201cfeat of physics\u201d he achieved in devising a figure that can swing with its own power, musing, \u201cI might as well let the world have it instead of it collecting dust in my garage.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But, as always, Novak is about 10 steps ahead of the rest of us. He is already figuring out how to reuse, repurpose and recycle his inventions for next year\u2019s display.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen (Larry) doesn\u2019t have his costume, he looks like the Terminator,\u201d Novak says. \u201cI was pissed I had to cover it up. It\u2019s poor taste to have guns involved in a Halloween display, but with Terminator robots, I can have laser guns. I\u2019m starting to think maybe next year I can have a Halloween display with Terminator robots and laser tag, and people can shoot the robots, and they\u2019ll fall down like a video game. Laser tag Terminator \u2014 it\u2019s going to be awesome.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

You can check out the spooktacular display at 1414 Lansford Avenue through November or follow Novak on TikTok<\/a> or Instagram.<\/a><\/p>\n

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