For this Austin dad, Halloween starts Sept. 1: See what he and his family created for 2023

Henry Hasert cannot find a crucial part of his orc costume — a pair of shin guards with leg bones painted on them. The 10-year-old is going back and forth into his family's southwest Austin home and keeps coming up with everything but the shin guards: a silver, foam sword that's twice his fifth-grader size, shoulder pads, and a limb.

"Hey dad, I didn't see it. I only found an arm," he gleefully informs Bud Hasert, who is standing among a homemade castle complete with monsters, dragons, skeletons and random bones strewn about in the home's front yard. Henry swings the fake arm into the air to high-five his dad.

Later, Bud Hasert looks on with pride at a crumpled skeleton on the lawn with a stick stabbed through its chest. That was Henry's idea he says, smiling ear-to-ear like the Grinch. (Please don't be mad at us for mentioning a Christmas character, Bud!)

This is business-as-usual for the Haserts during Halloween, and while Bud Hasert leads the charge, he's found a partner in his son who is now just as obsessed with the holiday. Since 2020, Bud Hasert has decorated —elaborately — the family's front yard as a UFO, a pirate ship, a cemetery, and this year, with a Dungeons and Dragons theme. Alexandra Hasert, the family matriarch, comes along for the fun, too. (But she was watching a Christmas movie the other day, Bud Hasert tattled.)

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The family tradition of having more noticeable decorations in the neighborhood started when it was just Bud Hasert. The advertising creative director's Halloweens began when he discovered Sixth Street while still a student. Bud Hasert was an engineering major and his roommate was a film major with a lot of credit cards and monster costumes from films he had worked on. The pair dressed up in the costumes and headed out to Sixth Street.

"All of a sudden, we were celebrities for that evening. We did it again the next year and the next year," Bud Hasert says. "That set the trend of, 'Hey, it's OK to have fun on Halloween, even as an adult.'"

He remembers going up to patrons in restaurants and bars on the iconic street, knocking on windows and then disappearing mischievously. Or there was the time he stood still on the street while people stopped to look at his costume, and then he grabbed their ankles from behind the outfit.

"Turn to the next chapter in the book and I got married and started a family and then a pandemic hit in the middle of that. For the first time in a long time, I didn't feel like going to Sixth Street," he says.

What was Bud Hasert to do at home, with a 6-year-old? Obviously one night of Halloween wouldn't do. So, he built a pirate ship in the front yard. He added a candy cannon to shoot out candy to trick-or-treaters for a socially distanced, friendly version of trick-or-treating. The alien spaceship in 2021 had candy blasters to deliver treats. The cemetery in 2022 was a "Circle C Cemetery."

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Halloween starts on Sept. 1 now, which is when Bud Hasert starts building. Oct. 1 is when he starts moving everything into the yard. And when does Bud Hasert start buying his huge stash of candy?

"I can't answer that in front of my wife," he says with a laugh.

The yard is full of small orcs and one giant one. Orcs are apparently little green goblin-looking dudes. The giant one is huge and is at least 10 feet tall. He's sitting on a huge thrown behind some castle gates. The set has fog and lights and three different playlists. Bud and Henry also collaborated on a little movie that will play on a projector hanging over the garage. Just about every thing is made by Bud Hasert. He uses silicone, foam and latex for his creations.

Inside the Hasert home is his studio. The small room is behind a false shelf to the left of the front door and is stocked with heads on shelves and buckets of liquid latex lining the floors. A half-finished orc head is propped on a wooden work desk. The head will be Bud's mask on Halloween to match Henry.

Previous costumes include (but these aren't all): Pinhead, Frankenberry, Frankenstein's monster, a monkey from "The Wizard of Oz," a green alien and a grim reaper.

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Hasert Halloween started as a way to give back to the kids in the neighborhood, but the meaning has evolved. Bud Hasert sees it as a way to instill joy, creativity and fun in Henry.

"It's great to be able to share this with my kid," he says.

Propped up next to a mummy in Bud's studio is a teensy, tiny Jason mask a la "Freddy vs. Jason." It was Henry's first Halloween costume when he was a baby. It's now a cherished keepsake. Bud Hasert hopes Henry never gets over Halloween.

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Back in the garage, Bud Hasert is showing us the projector he bought for Halloween this year. He's hanging it up when Henry appears at the garage door in full regalia: shin guards, shoulder pads with a chest plate, a sword, and the best thing we've ever seen in the form of an orc mask.

The mask is made with black foam and covers his head, forehead and two cheeks. Underneath the mask is an orc head with big green, pointy ears poking out horizontally, a frown and a bulbous nose. The sword is as big as one and a half Henrys. He's wearing a stack of rubber bracelets on his left wrist, which look like skinnier versions of a yellow "Livestrong" bracelet. Those aren't part of the costume, it just felt important to include what's trendy in fifth grade right now.

Henry hands a foam, double-bladed battle ax to his dad. The pair square off in the driveway. The only thing differentiating Bud Hasert from his son in that moment is his height. Otherwise, they just look like two guys who love Halloween.

We ask Bud Hasert if he thinks he'll go this big for Halloween forever.

"I do," he says, without having to think about it.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin family created elaborate Halloween yard scene. Where to see it.