Teen turns his suburban home into elaborate haunted house every October

Joe Veneziale is known as the “Halloween guy” at his high school, and for good reason. For the last five years, Veneziale has been transforming his family’s suburban Philadelphia home into a theatrical Halloween walk-through of deranged clowns, lurking zombies, and jumpscares galore. 

“Joe is obsessed with Halloween,” says his mom, Christine Veneziale. His fixation is nothing new. Veneziale has been visiting haunted attractions since he was a kid and, as the youngest of three, was always helping out with his family’s Halloween decorating. 

“From there, I started coming up with my own ideas,” says 16-year-old Veneziale. In 2020, he organized his first “haunted house” in the driveway of his family’s former home. When the Veneziales moved in 2022, they took the idea for a walk-through attraction with them—even constructing a room in the basement specifically for it, complete with its own entry and exit. 

Veneziale has designed his “haunt” so guests enter through a front yard display of jack-o-lanterns, ghouls, and gravestones. Then, they walk into his home’s foyer, which leads right to the basement door. It’s down in this underground lair that the manor’s main attraction awaits.

Veneziale builds all of the sets himself with the help of his mom, dad, and grandpop Goose. It’s a skill that the high school sophomore gets from the latter, a lifelong carpenter. Veneziale says the more he learns, the more elaborate his sets get. For instance, this year’s manor includes a speakeasy-style cocktail lounge in the basement erected from scratch. It includes window boxes with cut-outs for special effects like thunder and lightning. “When you enter the room it’s pitch black,” he says. “You don’t think anyone’s in here with you,” until there’s a flash of light. “And then…surprise!”

Although smaller in scale than most professional haunted house attractions, “what you can see at them you’ll likely see here,” says Veneziale. We’re talking everything from air cannons that emit bursts of compressed air to strobe lights in every room, not to mention set designs that rival the big wigs and plenty of frights. There’s even a professional makeup artist on hand to help transform Veneziale’s cast of 17 or so actors into creepy characters, like a deceased bellhop and the walking dead. “It’s full-on immersion,” he says. 

The manor’s theme, which has included both a bayou and an asylum, typically changes annually. However, Veneziale decided to make this year’s attraction an enhanced version of 2024’s—a 1930s hotel that screams of Old Hollywood, but has seen better days—with added rooms and a completely new layout. “I didn’t want to change everything completely before people got the chance to see it.” 

There’s a front lobby complete with burgundy walls and cobwebs (not to mention a desk attendant whose appearance doesn’t bode well for your stay), a retro-style elevator featuring flashing lights and a fog machine, and a baggage room that’s filled to the brim with teetering stacks of vintage luggage. “People were giving their bags to us,” says Veneziale, “and we were finding them at thrift shops, antique stores, estate sales…even Facebook.” Although the suitcases are safely secured, the illusion is that it’s all going to topple over any minute.

Other things to look for this year include a bellman’s cart that Veneziale and his mom rescued from a hotel dumpster (it’s the centerpiece of the baggage room), two specially crafted body props for the manor’s backyard ballroom, and a tented outdoor emporium, complete with a cast of maniacal clowns. There’s also a midway between the ballroom and a stand-alone “clown emporium” where guests can pose for photos with the actors, not to mention plenty of uncanny mannequins. “We got them from Macy’s,” says Veneziale, “which was going out of business.” 

As usual, Veneziale has already started planning out things for next October, “because I have to know what I’m gonna get when all the Halloween items go on sale,” he says. He hits up trade shows for more professional props, like a light-up, battery-powered chainsaw that has two four-inch subwoofers for sound, and scours antique shops and non-profits like Goodwill and Habitat for Humanity with his mom for set pieces. Veneziale’s dad is often responsible for picking up items further afield, such as an animated phantom that had been listed on Facebook Marketplace. 

His paternal grandma prints the flyers and helps get the word out, while his mom’s mom makes the costumes. “I’ll draw her what I want. We’ll pick out fabrics, and then she creates these incredible costumes you won’t see anywhere else.” 

Hundreds of “scare-seekers” make their way to “Veneziale Manor” each October to revel in its thrills and to help raise money for Spirit of Children, which brings the magic of Halloween to kids in local hospitals. While in the past it’s been invite-only, this year Veneziale is finally showing off his hard work to the public with a weekend walk-through, October 24 and 25. One-hundred percent of the proceeds go towards fundraising for Spirit of Children. 

All in all, it’s a year-long project that involves endless brainstorming, sourcing, and construction, as well as character development and training for his cast—many of whom Veneziale knows through his background in theater. Still, the 16-year-old wouldn’t trade it for anything. 

“My favorite thing is when everything is finally done and there’s no more last minute things,” he says, “and we just get to sit back and say, ‘Hey, I created that.’” Veneziale then takes part in the action, dressing up as a maniacal clown. “Then the nights of the walk-through are so exhilarating. We get our makeup on, we get our costumes on. And then we scare people for hours.”

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