Halloween Delight: Fright Night Lights

Every year, about this time, Brandon Bullis and his family from Virginia in the US create a spook-tacular Halloween light show on their house. The Edwards Landing Lights, as they have nicknamed the show, is synced up to a combination of popular songs and some Halloween classics, such as Ghostbusters, Thriller, and Monster Mash. As the music plays, the light flicker and some spooky faces on the front of the house "sing" or "rap" along perfectly in time. The full show lasts for about half an hour and replays for a couple of hours after 7pm every night of the Halloween season - except for the big night itself so as to not distract trick-or-treaters or drivers. But before you go feeling sorry for the Bullis' neighbours, none of the music is broadcast outside: you can only hear the music that accompanies the light show if you tune in your radio to 98.1FM. And what do the neighbours think of all this? According to Brandon, it's a chance for them all to get together. "They say it's so great for the community," he said. Some of the songs featured in the show can be watched on YouTube, and it's not surprising that there are more than 35,000 subscribing fans. One of this year's songs, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' Downtown, has had almost 500,000 views already - and you can watch it for yourself under this article. Macklemore has had the pleasure of seeing the show for himself and happily tweeted his seal of approval:  

This is amazing.... Definitely the kind of house that gives out full sized candy bars. http://bit.ly/1Mx8qKe

— Macklemore (@macklemore) October 16, 2015

  Now, with over 8,500 lights and 2,500 computer animation channels, you would expect their electricity bill to be through the roof. But the family has conscientiously used energy efficient LEDs for most of the lights and estimate that it only costs them between $25 and $35 for the whole Halloween season. What's more, the Bullis family places a donation box outside the display every year to raise money for the John Hopkins Children's Center and have managed to accumulate a whopping $10,000 (£6,500) for the charity over the past couple of years. And to paraphrase a popular expression, lights are not just for Halloween - the family also has a display every Christmas, which is pretty much how all this started. You can watch the Edwards Landing Lights Downtown video below, and if you want to check out more of their light shows, you can take a look at their YouTube channel here. [video width="600" height="300" id="ZddXbKpXKLs" type="youtube"] Happy Halloween!