Monster House garage-door video takes bite out of Facebook
Halloween decorations on an Ohio home turn into a global viral sensation, and next year, kits will let you turn your own house into a monster.
- Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year" award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Some folks go all out for Halloween, with inflatable pumpkins and ghosts, lights flashing in time with scary music, fog machines, you name it. Cleveland-area artist Amanda Destro Pierson chose a simpler design, but one that's drawn more than 24 million viewers on Facebook.
Pierson, a graphic designer and professional face-painter in Parma, Ohio, told Cleveland's WKYC-TV that she had a "crafty whim" last week and decided to make a Monster House. After five trips to the craft store for duct tape, fishing line and other supplies, she decorated her garage so it looks like the giant mouth of a monster, opening and closing as the garage door goes up and down.
"I hand-painted everything, cut everything out by hand," Pierson told WKYC.
The viral video has drawn attention from Australia, Norway, Finland, New Zealand and many other places thousands of miles from Parma, Pierson said. After the daytime video took off, Pierson went out Monday evening and shot a photo of the Monster House chomping away at night under the eerie glow of a red spotlight.
Pierson works for a company that designs craft supplies, and her company is now going to be producing Monster House kits for next Halloween. The decoration process from start to finish took Pierson about 10 hours, she said, but the kits should cut down on that time considerably. Interested would-be Monster House owners can sign up online.
"I can't believe MILLIONS OF PEOPLE have watched my garage door go up and down!" Pierson wrote on Facebook. "I'm so glad you all like my monster house! I am seriously blown away by the love here."
And those sick of the election will also find a kindred spirit in Pierson. A sign next to her door reads, "Political Canvassers Will Be Fed To The Monster!"
