September 7, 2020: Beware of Big Face


Halloween Die-ary #4

Meet the mascot of the 2020 OTIS Halloween Season. His name is Big Face. It took us less than 48 hours from learning about his existence to buying and setting him up. He’ll probably kill us in our sleep before we reach Halloween.

Last year, we dithered about buying a Headless Horseman animatronic at Home Depot. Did we really want to put that much money into a giant, unwieldy, tacky Halloween decoration? For something that would last a few years max, even if we treated it like a decorative statue in our living room? What if we waited to see if there were any left over after the season at an extreme discount? In the end, we didn’t get one, and the uncertainty over whether that was the right choice lasted through Christmas and winter and spring and summer and haunts us now (how much fun would the first months of our terrifying quarantine have been with an animatronic headless horseman?). So when we saw Big Face at Costco, we didn’t even check our bank balance.


He’s massive. The box says six foot tall, but with his hat on, he clears seven. Definitely a giant, unwieldy, tacky Halloween decoration. And, like everything Halloween these days, he has to be electronic. He has a motion sensor that when set off, brings him to life. His face lights up. He swivels, those glorious gnarly Groot-hands moving from side-to-side like he’s trying to grab you. And he has a range of soliloquies that he runs through in sort of a spooky Disney voice, like Goofy mixed with Zacherle. Really works for him, especially since I would’ve bet his manufacturer’s suggested retail price that his voice would be annoying.

Basically, now that I have this scarecrow, I need to erect a giant fake cornfield in my backyard to keep him. 


He’s a little dopey, but also menacing from the right view…which is right around 11 pm when I arise from the depths of my study to freshen my martini but end up dumping it all over the kitchen floor when his looming silhouette startles me.

And he’s in the house because, despite his size, he’s not an outdoor decoration. I mean, we’ll definitely put him out there a few times when the weather’s nice (we treat him like one of our children in that regard), but if he gets wet, I think it's full-Gremlins for him. 


My favorite thing to do is to turn him on at random times and watch the family jump when they set off his motion sensor. Definitely makes him worth every penny, as well as the comfy recliner we had to toss out to find a space for him. Speaking of which, come December, we probably won’t have space for him and a Christmas tree at the same time, so looks like presents are going under the scarecrow.