Gory Halloween display with hanging 'bodies' is too real for some in St. Louis Park

A Halloween display created to gross out 12-year-olds is the talk of a St. Louis Park neighborhood.

Some parents think the hanging "bodies" — next to Sunset Park, at a school bus stop — are too gruesome. The real-looking corpses dangle by their heels from a maple tree, trussed toe-to-head in clear plastic and dripping with fake blood.

"You don't need that ugly stuff for a fun holiday," said Carol Berger, who lives two blocks away. "Especially in such a family neighborhood."

Others say they're right in the spirit of the holiday. Bennett Kenzie, who lives a couple of houses from the display, called it "a really good piece of art."

"My dad and I both love them," he said. "It's obviously creepy, but I think it's one of the better Halloween decorations."

The creatively creepy display was concocted by Kevin Amlee and his 12-year-old stepson, who wanted "to make something that would gross out his friends," Amlee said. Amlee himself has loved horror movies and Halloween ever since he was a boy, he said.

"Halloween is my thing," he said. "The wife gets Christmas to decorate everything. We were definitely having fun with the whole project." The Twin Cities Horror Festival has contacted him about hanging one of his creations in the lobby at its upcoming event.

Others wanted nothing to do with the gory display, which was a topic of conversation on a Facebook moms' group this week. A member posted a photo of the dangling bodies, along with a plea for advice on what she could do about them.

"I'm all about freedom of expression, but young children (including mine) live in our neighborhood and are traumatized by it," she wrote. Other neighborhood mothers were discussing the display offline, as their children played in Sunset Park — and the moms weren't happy about it.

Neighborhood resident Mary Nowling said people need to lighten up.

"I think it's really cool," Nowling said. "My sister was here, and she took a bunch of pictures to send to her son."

Amlee actually got a visit this week from the St. Louis Park police, who had been called by a local resident. But the cops laughed about it, said Amlee, who faces no charges. After the police visit, he hung a handwritten sign on one of the dummies that read, "There is no law saying I can't hang out here. Please let it go."

Amlee said he wasn't out to offend anyone.

"The point was to do something different," he said. "I didn't want to tick anybody off."

Star Tribune staff writer Rochelle Olson contributed to this report. John Reinan • 612-673-7402