THE BASEMENT’S HALLOWEEN HAVEN: Home Accents Holiday 12 ft. Giant-Sized Skeleton with LifeEyes
It seems that for the 2020 season, this huge prop from Home Depot’s Home Accents line, is the one to have, and is quickly becoming the hardest to get. Before I get into this item, the 12 Foot Giant-Sized Skeleton with Life Eyes, let me get into a bit of the trouble I had getting one of these for myself.
As soon as I saw this, I ordered it online knowing what a pain it would be to actually pick up in a store because of the size vehicle I have, plus free shipping was offered. Within days of ordering it, the skeleton was listed as back-ordered on the website, with more on the way. I signed up to get e-mail notifications when it became available. When the first e-mail came through saying it was available again, I wrongly assumed that my order would be fulfilled with this new stock. Within an hour it was listed as out of stock.
I started to get nervous so called Home Depot’s customer service. The woman I talked to stated that at the time, they had nine in stock and was not sure why it wasn’t shipping. She then connected me to the manufacturer, giving me the impression that they were shipped direct from this location. I talked to a nice woman there, who said that she didn’t know why I was directed to this number, as she was one of the people you call when you have difficulty either putting the item together or getting it to run. She did reassure me though that there were plenty available and that I would get one. Despite this no one offered to put it on a FedEx truck for me.
I ended up checking local stores and they all were sold out, except for the display model, which they didn’t seem to want to give up. A customer service representative at one store told me, after checking inventories at nearby stores, that two stores still had them in stock because they had not put up their Halloween displays yet. One of them actually ended up being about ten minutes from where I live.
I stopped there on my way home from work and went to customer service. They looked up the item and said they could not find it. They looked it up online and then told me that it said on the website that it was out of stock and that the store didn’t have it either, as their Halloween inventory had not arrived yet. According to the manager, the internet number and model number on the website was useless for finding this item; he needed the UPC number. I told him which store told me that he had two in stock and he called but instead of asking for the UPC code, which they obviously had because they could look it up, he asked if they had any in stock and they obviously said no. I could tell this guy was not willing to even go look in the back for me, despite it being such a big box to locate, and he acted like I didn’t know what I was talking about. Not a good way to treat someone who wants to buy something for $300.
The next morning I was able to get the UPC code and went right back to the store. The same manager was there, looked it up and said “huh, we have this.” Turns out they did in fact have all of their Halloween inventory and it was actually being stored three aisles away from the customer service counter. On the one hand, I was very unhappy with how I was treated, as though I was just a nuisance. On the other hand I was thrilled to actually be getting it!
To say this box is huge is an understatement! To make it fit, the contents had to be put into the vehicle loose and the box folded up to fit inside. Despite the intimidating size of this prop, it is extremely easy to put together and only took me about forty minutes. It is also very heavy, weighing about 90 pounds. Whoever designed this did a fantastic job and it has a much more realistic look than the five foot skeletons that Home Depot sells. The face also has a somewhat angry looking face, adding to the scary factor.
This is a static prop, which means that it is not animated and cannot be posed, other than the ability to move the arms a bit. Besides the overall size, one of the coolest aspects are the eyes! They are illuminated and animated. The eyes look back and forth, they blink and even the iris contracts and expands as though it it trying to focus on you. Oftentimes with Halloween props the lights in the eyes are so bright that it is distracting. The eyes here are perfectly lit.
The steel base and steel form that the bones go over is very sturdy and is designed to last for years. There are also expansion poles to add stability to the base and there is a steel loop on the back of the skeleton’s spine which will help in securing this big guy. You get plenty of ties and cables to help with this.
Though this may seem pricey, and the availability seems to be decreasing daily, it is well worth the effort to obtain! This skeleton will be the center piece of every Halloween display and people will be looking at it a lot, wondering if it is actually looking back!
Don’t forget to check out the other entries in my BASEMENT’S HALLOWEEN HAVEN series.
~David Albaugh
