Summerland. Quiet, pretty, filled with orchards and wineries and lined by sandy beaches. Such a welcoming, pastoral place.
Or is it? Next week, your perception may be forever altered.
That's when the dolls arrive. A couple of dozen at first, strewn about the city and patiently waiting for innocent passers-by. But they're merely the advance party for the full-on onslaught, several hundred strong, scheduled for next Friday and Saturday evenings.
The dolls, and the hellacious pre-Halloween terror they'll spark, are the product of the creative but curious mind of Trout Creek's Heather Pescada.
Pescada is best known, at least in social networking circles, for a "family" of skeletons called the Peskellys. Each Halloween, and at other times throughout the year, the Peskellys appear at various spots throughout the Okanagan and the province, often involved in the most mundane of pastimes.
But that's just the point. Pescada has seemingly turned this family, and its equally skeletal pets, into animated entities who live their lives as any fully-skinned family would. And then she posts their activities all over Facebook and the like, much to the amusement of onlookers.
But Pescada isn't just some weirdo with a fetish for the dearly departed. In fact, she's precisely the type of person who makes neighborhoods and communities better.
Whether it's an Amazing Race-themed community beach party, a Christmas light contest, or a dry grad fundraiser, chances are Pescada's behind it.
And next weekend she's at it again at Summerland's Harold Simpson Memorial Youth Centre. That's where Pescada, along with several other adults and a whole bunch of 2020 Summerland Secondary grads, will present a fright-filled, doll-centric evening of terror called Nightmare at The Doll House.
All the proceeds will go to the school's dry grad celebration.
"It's basically a maze," said Pescada earlier this week while repositioning the Peskellys on her front lawn. "It's like you're going into a doll museum. There's a Christmas room, a toy room, a porcelain doll room, a vintage doll room. People have to find their way through the maze and get out safely."
But guests will confront more than creepy dolls on their journey. Also lying in wait will be several dozen Summerland Secondary grads, dressed hideously and ready to pounce. So just when you think you've made it through a given section, you may well get the fright of your life.
Pescada says she's collected approximately 600 dolls for the event, and then tweaked many of them to look even more spooky. "They're everywhere in our house," she laughed. "They're in my husband's office, covered with sheets so they're not looking at him."
She's also gone to great lengths to set the stage. For starters, Pescada and her merry band of miscreants, including her own son and 2020 grad Darion, have made a promotional video.
And it's a good one. A shockingly good one, with pro-level pacing and camerawork, credible acting, and a story that'll likely keep you pinned to the edge of your seat.
If you're feeling brave, you can find it here.
To Pescada though, the video wasn't enough. She wanted to create an even bigger pre-event stir. So she set up a coming out party of sorts for the dolls that'll see them appear throughout Summerland next Wednesday evening.
"The dolls will be coming out next Wednesday night to be discovered Thursday morning," she said. "So people will see them and know they're out and ready to go. There'll be 21 of them in all, mainly on benches in uptown Summerland."
According to Pescada, those who watch the video, then see the dolls on the benches, then come to the event, will have completed the full storyline.
Nightmare at The Doll House runs Friday, October 25th and Saturday, October 26th at the Harold Simpson Memorial Youth Centre, 9111 Peach Orchard Road.
The wholesale frights begin at 7 p.m. and end at 10 p.m. both evenings, though guests who'd rather steer clear of human spooking are welcome to attend the "family friendly hours" from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
The particularly squeamish might want to try the "lights-on" viewing session Saturday afternoon from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Admission is $6.00 per person for the family friendly hour, $7.00 per person for the full meal deal, and $5.00 per person for the Saturday afternoon viewing session.
This isn't the first Halloween maze, or the first grad fundraiser, for Pescada. In 2015, she concocted her first "Nightmare" in her own backyard when her eldest son Decio graduated. More than 1200 people attended.
Given her track record, and the sheer number of accomplices she has this time around, we expect Nightmare at the Doll House to be one of the premier 2019 Halloween spectacles in the south Okanagan.
