Home Is Where The Horror Starts : Some county pranksters enjoy Halloween so much, they keep the ghoulish yard decorations--from coffins to cobwebs--in place year-round.

It seems like another quaint, residential Ventura neighborhood.

Exactly how the zoning commission missed that cemetery in the front yard on South Dos Caminos Avenue is hard to say. And that pile of skulls isn’t a pretty sight near the half a dozen or so cement headstones.

What about that beat-up old wrought iron fence tilting every which way? It can’t be earthquake safe. And go figure--no matter what the weather, on at least one night a year there’s that pocket of dense fog just hovering around the house.

All in all, it would be a nice piece of property if it weren’t for that coffin out front. It sort of detracts from the well-manicured lawn. Now why didn’t that thing get buried, anyway?

It’s probably for the best, though, considering that each time someone gets near the coffin, the presumed corpse starts pounding on the lid, seeking relief from a suffocating predicament.

It’s a setting that would be the source of pride for Vincent Price, Bela Lugosi, Stephen King, or any other of the legendary horror folk. It certainly pleases Jim Sindelar, the Ventura resident--or caretaker--of this property. That’s why, for the past three Halloweens, he’s been dragging out the cemetery props. He is one of those county residents who still takes time out to celebrate the ghoulish occasion with zest and imagination.

While concern for children’s safety has cut down on trick-or-treating in some areas, there are still eerie signs of the old days when gangs of costumed creatures headed from house to house, never sure what lay waiting behind the fake cobwebs and dangling skeleton; never sure how the normally nice man next store would be transformed once the doorbell rang.

Most neighborhoods have at least one resident who goes out of the way to make Halloween the terrifying and/or bizarre night it was meant to be.

We found a coven of them around the county:

SAVORING CEMETERIES

“The kids in the neighborhood know what I’m going to be doing and they love it,” said the 34-year-old Sindelar, a mailman. “The first year we had well over 100 kids come by. It surprised me because Halloween was getting to the point where nobody was coming around. It was kind of depressing.”

Sindelar said he enjoys doing what he can to preserve the spooky spirits of the holiday. He’s a fan of real-life cemeteries, and once Halloween is over, he doesn’t exactly put the decorations in storage.

“I set the headstones up in my back yard all year long, the cement skulls sit in a pile,” said Sindelar. “As I’ve grown up I’ve gotten more and more into cemeteries, mostly the older ones with the headstones and the work that goes into them. There is a peaceful feeling about the places.”

Sindelar’s Halloween display has become more elaborate each year. First there was just the coffin. Then last year he commemorated the 300th anniversary of the first witch burnings by re-enacting the scene with a mannequin. Then there was the fog machine. Last came the homemade headstones--all blank, except for the one belonging to Lord Byron, poet and rumored vampire of the 1800s.

Though the neighborhood kids seem to find the headstones unimposing the rest of the year, on Halloween, it’s a different story. “A lot of them won’t come up the block,” said Sindelar. “We have to take the candy half way down the street to them.”

EXPANDING THE SHOW

Each September, Camarillo’s Ken Carter sits down with a Halloween mail order catalog from the Oriental Trading company of Omaha, Neb., and makes a wish list. This year’s wishes-come-true included a silhouette-making machine and a flying bat with a 10-foot wingspan, additions to an already noteworthy collection of Halloween decor.

There’s “The Surprising Arm,” a “Graveyard--Enter at Your Own Risk” sign, cardboard tombstones marked “Unknown” and “Reserved,” an open coffin with fake body, a spider attached to a fishing line that drops on unsuspecting visitors, cobwebs, a flying ghost, battery-operated noisemakers, bales of hay, a scarecrow, and various other tricks of the trick-or-treat trade.

“It started out small and has gradually gotten worse,” said Carter, who has been doing this since 1986.

“I just like the scary things that go bump in the night. It brings back childhood memories of how scared we would be about ghosts, headless horsemen, haunted houses,” he said.

“I grew up with guys where we all got pillowcases and started trick-or-treating when the sun went down and didn’t stop ‘til people told us to go away. I remember the houses I enjoyed going to were the ones where people went out of their way to make it more entertaining.”

The 37-year-old firefighter lives with his wife Tanya and their two children--Lauren, 8, and Kyle, 5--in a two-story home on Heritage Trail in the Mission Oaks area. It’s a young, family neighborhood, Carter said, where lots of things go bump on Halloween night.

“I have a friend down the street with a guillotine, and there’s someone with strobe lights,” he said. “And around the corner there are people who have a cage with a guy inside rattling it.”

And where is Carter while all this is going on? In his trademark role: propped up in black cape, mask, and dark makeup at the foot of the coffin, next to his front door.

“I put myself in an awkward position, lying in the bushes, in a way nobody in their right mind would,” he said. “I’m limp and still. When they turn around after getting their candy, and start walking away, I reach out and grab something.”

Carter said he tries not to scare the little kids too much, but the big ones are another story.

“A couple of years ago, there was a group of eight older guys--the ones who don’t put on costumes and just come up on skateboards and want candy,” he said.

“One was acting real tough, real brave, real loud. I was out front sitting in my chair as a skeleton with a black cape on and he didn’t even notice me. He took some candy and as he turned to walk off I grabbed his arm. He screamed like a girl in front of his buddies. I semi-humiliated him, but it was kind of fun.”

GHOSTLY VISITS

Halloween is a great time to bring out all sorts of scary devices, but it’s not like Ventura County needs make-believe spooks. Ghosts regularly come around to check out their old haunts.

Like the Lady in Black. She was last spotted at Ventura’s Olivas Adobe about a year ago, with sightings going back more than 20 years. No doubt, she or someone resembling her will be hovering around the Adobe this Saturday, during the fourth annual Halloween tour of the nearly 150-year-old house.

Visitors will be led through the Adobe’s seven rooms, each of which will be decorated for the occasion. And guides will share plenty of ghost stories.

“There’s the Faceless Woman, the Lady in Black, mysterious sounds,” said Richard Senate, Adobe historian and local ghost aficionado. “Basically, workers have heard footsteps on the balcony when no one is there. Doors have opened and closed. Pictures have turned by some force. I think there is at least one ghost here.”

Just in case the real ghosts are no-shows for the tour, Senate and his staff have devised alternative ways of creating that cozy, haunted feeling. “Bells will ring by themselves, music boxes will play by themselves,” said Senate. “For very young kids it might prove frightening, but for ages 5 or 6, it probably will not be a problem. We’re not trying to frighten kids into nightmares.”

And in case you were wondering about that Lady in Black, she’s often been spotted staring out a window or a door. “Nobody knows who she is,” said Senate, “but it’s assumed she’s a member of the (Olivas) family. She kind of comes and goes.”

ELVIS SIGHTINGS

Who would know more about ghosts than someone who pretends to be a dead guy all year? Take Santa Paula’s J.R. Shropshire, construction worker by day, Elvis impressionist by night.

Shropshire, 33, has been doing Elvis for 15 years, but it’s only been for the past three that he’s taken his act on the road for Halloween. He wears his $3,500-plus show costume (the Indian suit off The King’s Boulevard album, for you Elvis buffs) to go trick-or-treating with his 12-year-old daughter Lisa Marie.

Shropshire said the reaction when an authentically attired, adult Elvis comes to the door looking for candy is generally one of disbelief.

“I show up on Halloween and it gives them the feeling that the ghost has returned,” he said. “I’ll be in full jumpsuit and I get this neat look from the little ones. They ask, ‘Mommy, who is that?’ And mommy stares and says, ‘I think it’s Elvis.”’

If nothing else, Elvis’ trick-or-treating has proved a boon for his daughter. “She gets extra candy,” said mom Terri Shropshire, Elvis’ manager and wife. “They say, ‘Could you give this to Elvis?’ ”

Shropshire and his daughter like to complete their trick-or-treating rounds by about 8:30 p.m., because that’s when the real fun starts. Their neighborhood, Venus Avenue, becomes a block party. While the neighbors barbecue, Elvis rocks.

“Every time it’s different. Two years ago someone said, ‘Well, how about putting on a show?’ Next thing you know there are people from across the street, down the street, kids with their parents. I just cranked it up and let it go,” he said. “Last year I had a party for my daughter’s school friends, and I was dressed up as Werewolf Elvis. After that we split and went over to the Frontier Bar and had a real nice party going there.”

One note: If you do run into this particular Elvis on Halloween, please don’t grab his mutton chops or pompadour. They’re not part of the costume.

“They’re mine,” he said. “They don’t come off.”

SPOOKY FAMILY

It’s Halloween on Calle Crisantemo in Thousand Oaks--starring the Clark family.

There’s mom Terrie, age 38, as the fortuneteller; daughter Soozee, 12, as “The Hand;” son T.J., 10, as the part-time “Face” and occasional epitaph writer; daughter Leia, 16, as occasional “Face” and cobweb stringer; and father Bruce, 40, doing the props.

It’s a family show, but enter at your own risk.

The front lawn is cute, decorated with a ghost on a stick and some cardboard headstones, with sayings like, “Dum Dan--Thesse Wer His Las Werds. Geronamo!!!,” and R.I.P.--I TOLD YOU I WAS SICK!--LUCY THE LIAR--1990.”

After passing the lawn, though, trick-or-treaters beware, because before they get to the candy, they must meet with the fortuneteller.

“They come up and get their fortunes read,” said Terrie Clark. “I give them some kind of corny little thing like, ‘You’ll come into money as soon as you get your chores done.”

Then the candy-seekers have two options: Reach into the candy caldron sitting on the fortuneteller’s table, or go for the “special treats” behind door No. 1, which happens to be a standing coffin.

If they reach inside the caldron, they get the candy, but they also get “The Hand,” reaching back at them. And if they go for the special goodies inside the coffin? Well, let’s just say they’re greeted by the “Face.”

The director of this show is, of course, good old mom, a performer (member of the Southern California Mummer Choir) who grew up with a painting of a witch hanging in the house, and celebrations on all the major holidays.

“Sometimes life gets really boring,” she said. “You have to think up something.”

And Halloween has always been a prime focus for the Clark family. Terrie can’t understand those who suggest that the occasion is too violent or sacrilegious. Her intent is not to terrify, she said, just to startle.

“Why can’t we let the kids have fun and let it rip?” she said. “I grew up with people dressed up all weird, and I’m normal.”