GHOSTS IN THE GRAVEYARD; AREA HOMES GET A GHOULISH TWIST FOR HALLOWEEN CELEBRATIONS.

Byline: Andrea Hescheles Staff Writer

You get to dress up. You get gifts of candy. And you get to scare the living daylights out of perfect strangers.

What's not to love about Halloween?

More and more Americans are asking themselves just that - and in the process, making greeting card and party supply companies howl in delight.

Halloween has become second only to Christmas for home decorating, according to American Greetings. People are draping their homes with everything from pumpkin garlands to glow-in-the-dark spider webs.

And then there are those who take this holiday of ghosts and goblins to the extreme. The Valley - home to many would-be and real Hollywood set designers - is no stranger to celebrating the holiday in ghoulish fashion.

``Halloween has always been a big holiday for me,'' said Noah Korda of Van Nuys. ``I tend to celebrate this more than Christmas or Hanukkah. It's a holiday that lets me be creative.''

He's named his Halloween masterpiece the Grimmstone l done Cemetery.

It takes Korda three days to set the stage for horror: the first day to install the sound, the second for lighting and the third for props.

For 15 years, he's gone through this ritual, adding a couple of new elements each year to his arsenal of props.

It's a fun tradition for Korda, who creates artwork for an educational software development company and props for the entertainment industry. ``I'll get dressed up, too - the last couple of years as a cemetery groundskeeper - and hand candy out to the kids.''

For Gary Corb of Studio City, a childhood visit to Disneyland fueled his imagination for frightful delights around Halloween.

Corb was 9 when the theme park's Haunted Mansion opened in 1969. All he could say when he saw it for the first time was, ``Wow, I want to do that.''

So, he did.

Working with several friends and family members, Corb has been creating his Hallowed Haunting Grounds for 27 years.

What started out as simple Halloween decorations with a few headstones and some spooky graveyard sounds has expanded into a full-fledged tour employing techniques similar to those used in the Haunted Mansion itself.

``So many people will say, `They work for Disneyland.' But we don't. No, we do all the stuff ourselves,'' he said. ``It really is a ma-and-pa operation.''

It takes Corb and his helpers three weeks of evening and weekend work to put up the elaborate display. In the three days the tour is open (it began Friday and continues through Sunday), he estimates there will be about 5,000 visitors to his homemade homage to the Disney attraction.

``There's no blood and guts. The whole tone of the show is about the after-life,'' Corb said. ``There's an air of mystery about the show.''

The only thing in the air at Mike Sugleris' Agoura Hills home is the thick fog that hangs steadily over his Haunted Cemetery - a k a his front yard.

This time of year, his typically suburban lawn is littered with tombstones bearing humorous epitaphs. A fog machine spews a heavy mist over the makeshift crematory and mortuary.

Sugleris himself finishes the package by becoming one of his cemetery-appropriate alter egos: a crazy transplant surgeon, a monk, the grim reaper or a mortician.

``I really enjoy seeing the kids have something special to do in their own neighborhood,'' said the self-employed Sugleris.

``That's the reason we do it. I always say that if the kids stop coming, I won't do it. Not this much work.''

But for six years, the children have come. And the project has grown into a family and neighborhood undertaking.

Since she was a little girl, Lynette Vartanian, an electrical contractor for Hye-Line Electric, has had a passion for the spooky night.

``Everybody that knows me calls me the `Queen of Halloween,' '' said Vartanian. ``Halloween is not just Oct. 31 for me. Everybody that knows me knows the love that I have for this holiday.''

Sure enough, even on the World Wide Web, she goes by the name ``Morbid Mistress.''

``It's the one night of the year that you can be something off-the-wall or different and have a good time. ... You can be whatever you want to be, from gory to the glory,'' she said.

By decorating her Northridge home - complete with an apparition in the window and the ``newlydeads'' celebrating in front of the house - Vartanian intends to bring back the old-fashioned Halloween of yesteryear, when friends and families trick-or-treated in neighborhoods and the streets were alive with activity.

``When I was a kid, I had fun. There was excitement in the streets,'' Vartanian said. ``Neighbors and friends would go door-to-door to trick or treat. I miss that. And that's why I do it. I'm trying to get that side across - of what it used to be like.''

SCARY STOPS

AGOURA HILLS

The Sugleris family and neighbors Lynn and Kurt Pearlman have created a haunted cemetery at 5927 St. Laurent Drive, featuring mad doctors, a crematory, a mortuary and fog machines. Visit beginning at dusk today and Sunday.

NORTH HILLS

Michael Frost has created a haunted cemetery complete with fog, lights and an executioner's room. Monsters and ghouls will be roaming the yard. Candy for the kids. 6 to 10 p.m. Sunday, 16850 Mayall St.

NORTH HOLLYWOOD

The Schilling family invites spectators to walk through their ghostly graveyard with ghoulish lighting effects, spooky sounds, coffins and the tombstones of Casper, Billy the Kid, Marilyn Monroe, Mad Dog and others, 5 to 9 p.m. Sunday, 8052 Nagle Ave.

NORTHRIDGE

Trick-or-treat at the Vartanian family's ``All Hallows' Eve Burial Grounds,'' featuring Boris the Soul Taker, Uncle Fester and his bride Melancholia, and the spirit of All Hallows' Eve, appearing in the front window from 6 to 9 p.m. Sunday, 9801 Sylvia Ave.

RESEDA

Visit the Seifert family's eighth annual haunted house and graveyard. All the ghosts and goblins will be there to meet and greet. The mortuary opens at 5:30 p.m. Sunday, 6928 Yarmouth Ave.

SHERMAN OAKS

The Heinzel family presents its ``Van Noord Street Walkway of Horrors,'' which features special effects, a meat market, animatronic displays, including a first-aid area with an autopsy chair and an electric chair, from 5 to 11 p.m. tonight and Sunday, 5515 Van Noord St.

STUDIO CITY

The 27th annual ``Halloween Haunting Grounds'' features special lighting, sound and projection effects, including a talking statue, the ghost of a little girl, the marble bust of a young woman, a phantom organist and a skeletal harpist. Visit tonight and Sunday beginning at 7 p.m., 4343 Babcock Ave.

THOUSAND OAKS

Chris Consolo has turned his parent's front yard into a miniature haunted house. The site includes a mad-scientist section, a graveyard scene with headstones and rats, a guillotine complete with heads and more. Stop by on Sunday, 3194 Bordero Lane.

VAN NUYS

Noah Korda's Grimmstone Cemetery is a haunted graveyard with special effects. Visit from sundown to midnight Sunday, 6706 Blewett Ave.

CAPTION(S):

6 Photos, box

PHOTO (1 -- cover -- color) Halloween brings out the ghoulish in Valley residents' homes.

(2 -- 3 -- color) Above, floating spirits surround Lynette Vartanian's haunted house in Northridge.At right, Gary Corb holds a skeletal greeter in the fog-covered Halloween graveyard at his Studio City home.

Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer

(4 -- 5 -- color) Above, Mike Sugleris, whose haunted house includes a crematory and mortuary, holds a skull and severed head in his Halloween cemetery. At right, a crow perches atop a cross in Sugleris' front yard.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer

(6 -- color) Vartanian and the ``newlydeads'' get a head start in the yard of her haunted house.

Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News

Box: Scary Stops (see text)