Just a couple weeks after making a post showcasing their love for Halloween and the "Stranger Things" series with an elaborate, floating display, horror fans from across the Chicago area and beyond have turned their attention to Dave and Aubrey's Plainfield home.
The show-inspired display shows Stranger Things character Max Mayfield floating above Dave and Aubrey's yard, surrounded by spooky scenery scattering the lawn in front of their home.
For those driving by, it's pretty hard not to notice.
"We'll literally be outside, setting stuff up and you see people driving past and they're going fast. And then, they stop," Aubrey said.
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While the site has likely startled many passing drivers, Dave and Aubrey said their home has thankfully avoided being the site of a car accident thus far. Despite all the attention the house has gotten thus far, they're only getting started.
Although many who have seen the display for themselves or have seen it online are deeply curious as to how Max Mayfield is floating above Dave and Aubrey's yard, the magic will remain a mystery just a bit longer as October finally gets underway.
According to Aubrey, many fans online have suggested the couple used magnets or drones to keep Max floating. For the Plainfield couple, the full show needs to be on the road until any of the secrets are revealed.
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Thankfully for those that are curious, the display elevates to a new level beginning Saturday night.
"We have our soft open this weekend. Oct. 1 is our official first day open and then Sunday as well," Dave said.
While the displays have featured a floating character thus far, lighting and special effects will be added outside the home just in time for the start of October. Even though there's plenty more to come in terms of Halloween madness for Dave and Aubrey, the decorations are all for the love of the holiday and related activities.
"We do this for no money.," Dave said. "It's for free. It's just for kids. It's for adults who want to see something different, who want their walks to be you know, more entertaining."
There may not be any financial gain in the horror-inspired efforts at this time of year, but the couple has not avoided recognition for their extraordinary efforts.
"We actually heard from Netflix on our TikTok. They commented and said, '#001 fan for sure.' Pretty cool. Like we took a good two or three minutes," Dave said. "Did they really comment and how do you reply to that?"
The couple also said they received a retweet from the Stranger Things Writers' Room, and have caught the eyes of athletes, bands and even The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
"I was like, 'Okay, all right. We're really doing something here,'" Dave said.
The couple have been on board with Stranger Things since the first season, with both Dave and Aubrey pointing to their childhoods in the 1980's and overall fascination with horror for drawing them into a show millions have streamed over the past six years.
The horror of the show may be a drawing point for them, but the show is much more than the scares for the Plainfield couple.
"It's everything. It's the music, it's the writing. It's really the connection to the characters," Dave said, adding that the show has grown on the couple more and more with each season.
While the couple's Stranger Things fandom plays a prominent role in their Halloween display, their method of scaring isn't solely tied to the Netflix smash hit.
"So one side of our yard is all Stranger Things. The other side is every pop culture horror film that we basically can fit in there that looks tasteful that we like and that's together," Dave said.
The numerous horror references, ranging from "Alien vs. Predator" to "Pennywise" to "Killer Clown", have drawn plenty of attention from hundreds of horror fans across the Chicago area.
While it's Halloween 24/7 inside Dave and Aubrey's home, the fascination with the holiday and horror came from completely different places.
For Dave, it was fear turning into fascination.
"When I was really young, my dad let me watch "Freddy Krueger", and I can remember falling asleep, you know you're a little kid, you pass out and then something is still on TV. I wake up, and "Pumpkinhead" was on," Dave said.
While that moment ended up instilling quite a bit of fear in Dave as a child, it was an interest in special and practical effects later on that would end up igniting a lifelong passion.
"As I got older, I started learning about practical effects and how something so disgusting, especially like in the movie Pumpkinhead when he cuts his hand, I was grossed out and then I saw the two tubes squirting the blood behind the knife," Dave said.
From that moment on, Dave became engrossed in making the unbelievable look believable in the simplest way possible.
When he was dating Aubrey, some of the most memorable moments involved cherishing Halloween in their own unique way.
One year for Halloween, a few years after Aubrey's dad had stopped decorating the house for Halloween himself, all the decorations came out of retirement for one more year.
Now with children of their own, shared experiences involving Halloween have become a yearly tradition that is only expected to grow from modest beginnings of yard tombstones and pumpkin bags filled with leaves.
For Aubrey, decorating for the holidays was always part of family tradition growing up, even though Christmas was the holiday that got most of the decorative attention at the time.
The permanent switch from Christmas to Halloween happened in middle school for Aubrey, thanks to an unforgettable experience during trick-or-treating one Halloween.
"I got this Crypt Keeper mask and I sat on my front porch and I told my dad like I wanted to scare some kids, you know and hand out candy," Aubrey said. "And I sat all like weird like literally looking like a dummy and had a sign that said, "Please take one," and had my hands in the candy bowl, so that they couldn't tell that it was me."
At seemingly the perfect time, some classmates of Aubrey's stopped by her doorstep and were not prepared for what was coming next.
"These older kids that I went to school with came up and they saw the sign and they're like, 'Oh, please take one? I'm gonna take the whole bowl!' And then one kid reaches his hand in and I grabbed it and he jumped and ran across the street," Aubrey recalled.
From that moment on, Halloween became a bigger and bigger event in the household each year with more and more decorations, although the method was quite unconventional.
"My dad would put it all up on Halloween and then take it all down on Halloween. He didn't want anything to get sun damage, weather damage, anything like that. He really took care of his stuff," Aubrey said of the family's Halloween routine.
From that point on, the love of Halloween and decorating was in place for good.
"That was the hook, line and sinker for me, like that feeling of scaring someone," Aubrey said.
While the couple have plans to decorate for some other holidays in the coming year, Halloween will remain the focus for this year and in the future.
"I don't think anything is more inspiring than knowing people enjoying what you do. And that is igniting the biggest fire in our imaginations," Dave said.
The couple added that the Stranger Things theme will stick around for a few more years, due to their dedication in props related to the show and the overall public interest in it. From there, they plan to let natural passion carry them into new ideas.
Even with the recent fanfare and recognition surrounding their decorations, Dave and Aubrey hope to continue just having fun and doing what they can within their means.
"We're not trying to become the number one CGI creators. We just want to build and learn at our own pace, but be able to slightly outdo ourselves every year," Dave said.
