Leading Canadian and American retailers report that Halloween has become the second largest holiday in sales, right behind Christmas. For many Canadians the annual holiday has evolved beyond kids and candy to include Halloween parties, Haunted Houses, and family get-togethers centered around watching scary movies, baking spooky treats, and visiting nearby scare parks. Pets and infants now wear costumes alongside their owners who wear costumes as much to have new photos to post on Facebook as to give out treats at the door. The rising popularity of Halloween has combined with the latest trends in technology to create an entire market of animated props and decorated, powered by motion-activated sensors, programmable chips, and simple mechanics, these inexpensive animatronics offer a new dimension of spectacle for home during the haunting season.

Hallowindow.com$30

Like many Canadian hobbyists, Calgary-based animator Mark Gervais has been devising his own methods of transforming his home into a haunted house to offer chills and thrills for the local kids. The difference between Gervais and other spooky inventors is that he has taken his idea and transformed it into the hottest prop accessory of 2008.Hallowindow.com is a DVD filled with Mark’s own animated sequences, spooky-yet-whimsical cartoons that are designed to be projected onto the windows of your home. With a standard multimedia projector and a bedsheet taped tight over the windows, owners can fill their windows with moving eyes, flaming jack-o-lanterns, and falling spiders. The DVD comes with two collections, each with the feature to loop over and over again, as well as to be played in reverse so that you have the option of projecting from either the inside of your house (against the window) or outside (against the wall) where the message “Happy Halloween” can still be read. What makes the DVD such a hot commodity is the ingenious animations themselves which are so good that, even if you don’t have a projector handy, they still make for a great video to have playing on your television for parties and get-togethers.Note: For our demonstration on CTV News I used a Dell M409WX Projector. Its compact size and weight (2.6 lbs) along with its High Resolution (1280 x 800) DLP display and low fan noise made it the ideal choice. To use it in our living room I had to create a make-shift stand for the projector and had I used a larger projector or one that required more distance from the screen, it would have made the job a lot tougher.

Down at your local Rexall PharmacyYes, a pharmacy might be the place for your normal day boo-boos, but who would have thought that Rexall would emerge as the leading source of Halloween animatronics in Canada? Here’s what they have to offer this year:

Grim Reaper and Pirate In Cages$20 ea.These motion-activated moaners ignite with fiery eyes before letting out a blood-curlding scream. Their hands are poseable and the cages are made of cloth that makes them easy to collapse and store later on. Hanging them is a cinch with an adjustable thread system.

36” Scary Talking Skeleton$13Designed to hang on a wall or front the ceiling, this sound-activated skeleton comes alive with blazing red eyes and a moving mouth synchronized to a deep, comical voice track that sound the like those used as Walt Disney parks. His wise cracks hit there targets and get the giggles going.

Three Foot Candy Greeter – Mini-Butler$30As you reach for the bowl of candy in his hands, this little butler lights up and offers a number of dry, wit-induced lines of dialogue, in a high-pitched voice. Channeling a bit of Hitchcock, he alludes to the quality of the candy and its effect on his own expanding waist line. Features real shoes and clothes. Fully collapsible, his little legs telescope down and his head comes off for easy storage.

Skeletal Hand Candy Bowl$13As you reach into the bowl for some candy, your hand trips a motion-sensor causing the skeleton hand to move protectively to block you from the sweets. For those expecting just an ornamental dish, it will prove to be quite a shock.

Light Up Pumpkins$20 per casePut them out on your front porch or inside for display, these real-sized plastic pumpkins include light bulbs that light them up like lamps. Just plug them in and watch them glow.

The Best Is Online – Buycostumes.comFor the more advanced animatronic props I recommend going online where many American outlets, serving a much larger market than Canada, offer a mind-boggling range of outrageous props and decorations. Buycostumes.com is one of the largest and certainly the friendliest when it comes to shipping their goods to Canadians. Oh, and as their name suggests, they offer the best selection of costumes on the internet. Here’s some picks from their line-up this year.

Remote-Controlled Grim Reaper$70One of my favorites, this life-sized Grim Reaper stands atop of wheeled platform that is controlled with a wireless remote, much like an R/C car. He can move forwards and backwards or spin left or right, his eyes lighting up as he goes. Give some serious gas and he build up speed and emit a maniacal, haunting laugh. His hands are poseable and it collapses very easy for storage. You can tuck him up into a very small box thanks to telescopic body.

Haunted Skull With Moving Eyes$15This sound-activated skull lights up and delivers a haunted song along with cackling laughter. The eyes also glow and move from side to side in their sockets. Looks fantastic, sitting on a bookshelf. A small, but extremely effective prop that you’re bound to play with again, even after Halloween.

Animated Rising Gargoyle Tombstone$30What looks like a simple paperweight prop will transform, once the motion-sensor is tripped, opening its roof to reveal a hidden gargoyle who rises from the depths to unfurl its wings and scream with fiery eyes while beating its wings at you. Think I’m being over-descriptive? Think it can’t be that good? It is.

Donna the Dead Floating Scary Bride$30A disembodied head and hands, connected only by a wedding veil, float in the air, rising and falling thanks to a set of motorized puppet strings. Designed to hang from the ceiling and activate when it senses the sound of an approaching visitor, the mechanism that pulls the strings also lets out a sorrowful wail while blue led lights shine down onto the moving bride to cast her with an eerie glow. Very effective.

Cursed Coffin$20This 18” toy coffin, wrapped in plastic chains, seems very quiet at first. One you step near it or press the button on the front, a little ghoul pops up with a roller-coaster shriek. It’s enough to make anyone jump back, but the shock of whispy yellow hair and wide, pale eyes are enough to inspire post-stir giggles.