Ghosty has been with us for years, a piece of fabric with a stuffed-newspaper head and inexpertly-drawn eyes. He’s been haunting our lamp post for the better part of two decades, and when I at first couldn’t find him in the basement a week ago, I felt bereft.

Compare him with the current crop of Halloween decorations. The 12-foot-tall Skelly, for instance, a plastic skeleton so popular that Home Depot can’t keep it in stock. Or the gruesome, leering werewolf that rears his ugly head from a woods near me. I wouldn’t want to run into him on a dark night.

It’s all fun and games — unless you’re a child with an overactive imagination. Since I was one of those, I feel for the kiddos who see a masked face so scary that a full year later they can’t forget about it.

It’s super-sized Halloween terror, coming soon (already!) to a suburban lawn near you.

(Top photo: courtesy Home Depot)