Oh, the horror in West Seattle

Dawn Murin and Dana Knutson always have loved Halloween. If Murin could, she would keep more Halloween decorations up in her West Seattle home throughout the year.

"It's our favorite holiday, because it's ghosts and witches and spiders and vampires," she said. "All the things I like are more socially acceptable this time of year. If I had my druthers, I'd leave the crow and witches and the alien up year-round."

Murin, 39, an art director for Wizards of the Coast, and Knutson, 54, have a collection of Halloween decorations accumulated over the years.

One of the finds this year was an old Bela Lugosi Dracula poster that Knutson ordered from a magazine as a child. The Dracula, his fangs dripping blood, hypnotizes people from behind a curtain in the dining area.

Their home also benefits from Knutson's love of movie props. A corner in the spare bedroom is taken up by a promotional life-size alien from the first "Alien" in 1979. A mask of horror actor Tor Johnson placed atop black robes and draped with flickering green lights provides a thrill in the front entryway.

They also doctored a promotional cut-out of a vampire for the book "I, Strahd: The Memoirs of a Vampire" from the Ravenloft series, adding glowing red eyes and draping it with chiffon.

Murin, who until last year was the art director for the game Dungeons and Dragons, always has loved monsters and horror films.

"I guess it was natural I ended up in this job," she said.

Towering terrors in Redmond

Redmond resident Scott Axworthy was probably 5 years old when he entered his first haunted house. His older brother was fond of rigging a haunted house in the garage and tested low-tech contraptions like a ghost bursting out of a trunk on his younger brother.

"It terrified me, but I loved it," said Axworthy, 45.

Axworthy has turned his childhood thrills into a full-time passion.

For years, he created stunning devices on the side that gave his yard a demonic tilt, and now he is working on a Halloween theme-park concept. His yard is a sort of testing ground.

A 9-foot-tall formal scarecrow in a tux with an orange cummerbund and carved pumpkin head greets visitors in the yard, raising its arms as fog shoots skyward for a ghostly aura.

A creepy blue-lighted graveyard under a tree features ivy crawling around headstones and a skull.

A ghost, its bony fingers outstretched and tattered shreds streaming behind it, flies around the house on an invisible wire just above your head.

The latest addition is a 13-foot scarecrow made of woven twigs inspired by sculptor Patrick Dougherty and lighted by spotlights. The looming scarecrow is draped with a distressed canvas and cobwebs, its head a papier-mâché pumpkin.

As visitors dare to walk up into the yard, organ music plays in the background and red and blue spotlights highlight his inventions.

Fog streams across the yard every few minutes.

Axworthy, who studied electrical engineering in college, loves creating innovative Halloween creatures.

"My thing is setting the mood," he said. "You set the mood, and people's imaginations go."

Wicked bliss in Queen Anne

Chad Waddle and Cami Petrie love Halloween so much, they're planning a Halloween-themed wedding next year.

They have yet to decide what they will wear for the ceremony, but they'll be in costume — and their guests will be expected to come in disguise, too.

"I love the dressing-up aspect (of Halloween)," Petrie, 27, said. "You get to be something funky or creative."

The Queen Anne couple starts thinking about Halloween in August. Decorations, including a vast Halloween village from collectibles-wholesale company Department 56 that takes up three tables in their living room, are in place by the end of September every year.

They also try to attract trick-or-treaters to their home with decorations out front, including a flying witch hanging off the porch; an inflatable giant purple and black spider; and a coffin, new this year.

Waddle, 26, doesn't love costumes as much as his fiancé does, but he still is passionate about Halloween.

"I like the spooky side — freaky movies and going to haunted houses," he said. "Fall gets you in the mood."

Nicole Tsong: 206-464-2150 or ntsong@seattletimes.com