A Halloween loving mum-of-five has turned her brood into the real-life Addams Family, transforming her home into a house of horrors for four months every year.
From July to October, Sarah Adams – that’s her real surname – decorates her house with scary dolls, cobwebs and pumpkins.
During the family’s favourite time of year, spooky movies run non-stop on their TV at their home in Banstead, Surrey, surrounded by over £4000 worth of decorations.
Sarah, her partner Sam Cullip, 37, a plasterer, and her five kids who share her Adams surname – Alfie, 17, Jamie, 14, Kobie, 10, Bonnie, 7, Archie, 5 – love dressing up as the Addams Family and look strikingly similar to the macabre TV clan.
Even her youngest son, aged just five, isn’t scared, and has taken the family’s Chucky doll to bed with him as a cuddly toy.
And once Halloween is over, Sarah’s love for all things spooktacular creeps into Christmas.
The Chucky doll stays up all year round and is given a cute festive hat and candy cane.
Sarah, 36, never celebrated Halloween as a child, so she’s making up for lost time.
She said: ‘Halloween was never really celebrated at home.
‘I’ve got a good excuse with the kids that I’m doing it for them, but I’m doing it for myself as well.
‘I’m making my inner child very happy with all the decorations. I also see myself as a cool mum – maybe a bizarre mum, too – that has the Christmas tree up already and puts Halloween decorations on it.’
Sarah was just five-years-old when she watched cult horror movie, Chucky. – which has an 18 rating. But rather than terrifying her, she says that’s where her love of Halloween began – and she felt sad she was missing out on all the fun.
She said: ‘It didn’t scare me. It’s a brilliant story and I just love Chucky.’
In 2011, she threw herself into collecting horror-themed decorations to decorate the hallway and picking out trick or treating outfits with the kids.
Now Sarah’s Halloween celebrations have become so big that by June, she gets messages from her social media followers, asking if her decorations are up yet – Sarah says they start ‘edging their way out’ from cupboards in early July.
Meanwhile, she has nine spooky dolls permanently and prominently displayed on a shelf above the stairs – and her favourite is Chucky.
Sarah said: ‘He was the first decoration I bought in 2008 and then I officially started collecting Halloween and horror things in 2011.
‘A couple of years later, Tiffany, Chucky’s bride, was released and I needed to get her as well. From there, this obsession started.’
The horror family all dressed up as the Addams Family last Halloween. ‘It was the first family costume we did,’ said Sarah.
This year, they’ll do the same costume – but with some improvements.
She explains: ‘It want Thing – the hand – sitting on one of our shoulders.
‘We want to retake the picture outside with gravestones, fog and pumpkins.’
The Addams and Adams families don’t just have their last name in common – she reckons their personalities match too.
She said: ‘I’m a very black and white as a person. I don’t show that many emotions, like Morticia, but at home I adore my kids over everything – they are my whole life.
‘Sam is more romantic than me, he is like Gomez Addams in that sense. And my daughter Bonnie, she’s Wednesday 100 percent because of the way she looks.’
In the lead up to Halloween, the Adams family often have their favourite Halloween movies running in the background – A Nightmare Before Christmas, Chucky, Annabelle and The Addams Family are all firm favourites.
They also enjoy festive activities, including Halloween baking, playing Cluedo and carving pumpkins. Halloween morning means stockings filled with figurines, sweets and chocolate.
Sarah said: ‘When the second Hocus Pocus movie was released, I threw a party for my kids.
‘I had biscuits in the shape of cinema tickets they could eat. They loved it – even my 17-year-old, Alfie, said it was nice.’
Sarah isn’t the only one in the Adams family who likes all things horror.
While eldest son, Alfie, recently got a glow-in-the-dark Purge mark, Bonnie likes to brush Tiffany’s hair and her youngest, Archie, even took Chucky to bed as a cuddly toy.
She said: ‘My kids are not fazed by the decorations. The Chucky doll is on top of the stairs all year, as is the Scream Mask.
‘When we watch scary movies, I always tell them it’s not real and none of the decorations will come to life; I think that helps.
‘But I think they’re just fearless with things like this and are not the kind of kids that wake up screaming with nightmares.’
Making her house spookier doesn’t stop there. The next project involves turning her stairs into an all-year horror display. ‘My partner is making me coffin-shaped shelves,’ says Sarah.
Her partner of ten years, Sam has known Sarah for over 15 years, and supports her passion for horror and Halloween.
She said: ‘He came home the other day after driving around for hours trying to find a Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas as a surprise for me.’
Sarah now has hundreds of pieces in her spooky collection that she estimates is worth about £4000.
And should the space in her three-bedroom house run out, she confesses she’d rather move than get rid of any of her eerie decorations.
‘I just love décor and making everything look pretty. I got hooked on it and no one can ever change my mind from it.’
To see more of Sarah’s Halloween displays on Instagram, visit @the_adams_family_home.
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