SAUGUS YOUTHS SCARING UP SOME HALLOWEEN FUN; NEIGHBORS ON STREET CONTINUE HOLIDAY TRADITION.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

For a handful of families on a neighborhood cul-de-sac, give them a holiday - Easter, Independence Day, Christmas - and they'll respond with a party. Today tricks will be their spooky treat to mark Halloween.

The kids on this Saugus street have converted one family's two-car garage into a mazelike haunted house, with horror film-inspired scares around each dark corner. Cardboard tombstones and faux graves dot the front lawn, where it's obvious that the holes weren't dug the required 6 feet because ``bones'' are still visible.

Barbara Hooper said it all started several years ago when one of the families had an Easter egg hunt. The event was such a hit with kids and parents alike that they all began planning when to hold the next neighborhood bash, and a tradition was born.

The families mark the Fourth of July with a block party, Christmas with a progressive dinner in which they roam from house to house and sample a different dish at each stop, and Halloween with a potluck dinner and game booths that require costumed goblins to win - not just demand - their candy treats.

Some of the families went camping together on the Ventura County beaches in summer 1997, Hooper added.

Last year, several of the families joined forces to create a scarecrow for Lombardi Ranch's annual Halloween contest. Their entry won the grand prize.

``We used our $1,000 (prize) to have a Fourth of July block party,'' Hooper said. They had the bash catered so nobody had to toil in the kitchen.

``We got a karaoke machine,'' her 7-year-old son Aaron chimed in. ``And there was a water fight,'' his twin brother, Kyle, added. Families even made small floats for a mini-Independence Day parade.

It was also during the summer that neighbors Patrick Tatevossian and Zach Hill came up with the haunted house idea.

``We were bored, with nothing to do. We just sat down and brainstormed,'' Patrick said, adding that his girlfriend, Tammy Holoter, and his sister Tiffany helped create the spooky maze in the Hill family's garage.

The youths borrowed ideas they had seen in horror films new and old, from ``Scream'' and ``Halloween H2O'' to ``Frankenstein'' and ``Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,'' said Zach, 15, a Saugus High School freshman. ``We want to scare all age groups,'' added Patrick, 16, a Saugus High senior.

The youths held a carwash earlier this month to raise money for supplies. ``We needed body parts; we needed blood,'' Patrick deadpanned.

Several neighbors responded to the fliers the youths had passed out, listing carwash prices ranging from $2 to $6.

``Whatever we charged them, they always gave us more because we did such a good job,'' Patrick said. They netted $100 for the day's work, Zach added.

The youths have hung nylon tarps and dark plastic sheeting from the garage rafters, in zigzagging rows from floor to ceiling, to create hallways through the garage. Around one corner, the head of a werewolf on a table top will come to life, Hill said.

Tiffany and her friend Ashley Ovanessian plan to re-enact the shower scene from ``Psycho.''

``I come up and I pretend to have a knife, and I pretend to stab her,'' she said.

The group trolled for supplies at swap meets, lumberyards and even traveled to Santa Fe Springs to shop at a Halloween supply store.

Patrick, his grandfather and his girlfriend built a mock guillotine and electric chair. ``I cut all the wood and filed it down, and I have no woodworking experience at all,'' the teen said.

On the front lawn, six tombstones bear inscriptions of ``R.I.P.'' (Rest in Peace) and birth/death years. ``We're going to have the `Scream' character run around the graveyard and scare people,'' Patrick said.

The haunted house, designed for their schoolmates and neighbors, isn't open to the general public. The group won't try to recoup its costs. ``We were going to charge (admission), but you have to get a (city) permit,'' Patrick said.

When Halloween is over, the group has no big plans for a Thanksgiving party. But sometimes, Hooper said, the nicest events have been those that happen spontaneously - like in the immediate aftermath of the Northridge Earthquake in January 1994.

``We had a bonfire and we potlucked,'' said her daughter Sarah, 10. ``It was pretty fun.''

A lot of neighbors, rattled by the destructive temblor, found comfort in each other's company.

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Photo

PHOTO (Color) Saugus youths, from left, Patrick Tatevossian, Tiffany Tatevossian, Jennifer Yoohanna, Anthony Yoohanna, Zach Hill, Aaron Hooper, Tammy Holoter, Bridget Tatevossian and Ashley Ovanessian rest peacefully in the graveyard they built as part of their Halloween display.

John Lazar/Daily News