Hollywood artist Jon Neill’s pumpkin carvings are so scary they might just give you nightmares this Halloween. The big, wrinkly faces and mouths full of crooked teeth are so life-like and rich in detail that it’s hard to believe they’re actually made of plain old pumpkins.

Neill, originally from Kansas City, has been carving pumpkins ever since he was a boy. His family used to grow them, and over the years, his traditional jack-o-lanterns morphed into creepy works of art. But his skills didn’t receive recognition until a few years ago, when the San Fernando Valley resident turned pro. He auditioned for the TV show Halloween Wars as a pumpkin artist, for which he made a few time-lapse videos of himself at work. When one of those videos was put up on YouTube, it started to receive thousands of hits, and he soon became known as one of the world’s best pumpkin carving artists.

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You can forget about carving jack-’o-lanterns this year, and take your Halloween decorations to a whole new level with Tony Dighera’s organic ‘pumpkinsteins’ – pumpkins that are grown to resemble the head of Victor Frankenstein’s grotesque monster. They’re admittedly expensive at $75 apiece, but these bad boys really do bring in the Halloween spirit!

The price is kind of justified considering the effort that Dighera put into creating these fabulous pumpkins. The California farmer used two special $100,000 tooling machines to make the pumpkin molds, which is quite huge in terms of investment. But he seems confident that his product is going to be a huge hit and that he will earn back the initial investment within the year.

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One of the most memorable events of the year takes place around Halloween at the Van Cortland Manor in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. Here, literally thousands of incredible jack o’lantern carvings are lit up in a spooky exhibition of giant spiders, flying pumpkin ghosts, skulls, skeletons, bats and other hair-raising entities, all handmade from pumpkins. This year’s main attraction are some awesome life-sized dinosaurs which give the place a very spooky prehistoric feel.

According to HudsonValley.org, The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze takes place throughout October and early November lasting for a whopping 25 days. 5,000 hand-carved, illuminated jack o’lanters are displayed along a pathway open to anyone lucky enough to get one of the fast-selling tickets. For only $16 (or $20 in the weekends), you can “stroll through the Tunnel O’ Pumpkin Love and witness the incredible sight of gourd-filled Jack-in-the-Boxes springing up and bouncing around. See slithering ground snakes, a giant spider web, and go gaga over a collection of shrunken Little Monsters. Gaze in amazement at a towering pumpkin bonfire and a working doomsday grandfather clock.”

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Life-size zombies crawling out of a 1,800-pound giant pumpkin? You have to face it, Halloween carved pumpkins don’t get a lot cooler than that.

A crowd of Halloween fans gathered at the New York Botanical Garden, the other day, to see pumpkin-carving master Ray Villafane work his magic on the world’s biggest pumpkin. Ray, an established artist known also for his incredible toy and sand sculptor, had something special in mind for this year’s event, and it’s safe to say zombie fans were pleased with his idea. He used two of the largest pumpkins from this year’s harvest, one of them a record-holder, to create a creepy scene featuring zombies covered in pumpkin guts crawling out of a giant squash. Ray spent hours painstakingly carving his undead work of art, but his efforts were generously rewarded with cheering and clapping.

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Alex Wer is an awesome artist who can take just about any image and turn it into a piece of everlasting art, by carving it into a craft pumpkin. His Halloween creations look so almost to good to be real.

Alex Wer, also known as “The Pumpkin Geek” first started exercising his awesome talent as a pumpkin carver two years ago, by accident. His wife asked him to carve a pumpkin for her office Open House, and since he had always enjoyed carving pumpkins, he thought it would be fun. He only has a few weeks until Halloween, so he had to decide between carving a real pumpkin that would spoil within a week, or go for a craft pumpkin that could theoretically last forever. He went for the second option, and although he only created a logo and some script, Alex’s pumpkin was a hit at his wife’s event. Before he knew it he had 35 orders for custom logos and children pictures, and his “Orange Empire” was born.

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You might think you had your hands full with this year’s Halloween Pumpkin, but American sculptor Scott Cully had to carve his way through a 1,800-pound giant pumpkin.

Scott Cully has made a name for himself by carving overgrown pumpkins, and he even held the previous record for the world’s largest jack o’lantern, but this year he managed to beat his own record and get another mention in the Guinness Book. It took him two days, working at a pace of 100 pounds per hour, to work his way through the giant pumpkin, grown by Chris Stevens, from Wisconsin, but he managed to do it just in time for the big Halloween party. The event took place at the New York Botanical Garden, and it’s probably still on display, so you can check it out, if you’re in the Big Apple.

Scott Cully started carving pumpkins in 1988, when he and his wife got his hands on a 400-pound pumpkin, and, inspired by a few bottles of quality English hard cider, they began carving it into a jack o’lantern. Then he just kept on creating new designs, into bigger and bigger pumpkins. Using just a handful of kitchen utensils, Scott stays true to the tradition of creating jack o’lanterns, by creating scary Halloween pumpkins, with big mouths that kids can slide their heads through, and big threatening teeth.

Believe it or not, Scott Cully absolutely hates pumpkin pie. Ironic, isn’t it?

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Already 17 feet in diameter, and weighing 750 kilograms, the giant pumpkin grown by Ian and Stuart Paton is set to become the new world’s largest pumpkin.

Twin brothers Ian and Stuart Paton have been growing giant pumpkins for the last 30 years, and this year they think one of their pumpkins could actually set a new world record. Tipping the scale at 750 kilograms, and growing by around 13 kilograms every day, this giant pumpkin is already heavier than a Fiat 500.

The Paton brothers of Lymington, Hampshire, hope their produce can “put on enough weight” by the official weighing, on Saturday, to beat the old record of 784 kilos. It has already beat the British and European records and by their calculations it could soon be the world’s heaviest pumpkin. Their pumpkins have been getting bigger each year, as they’ve been learning new tricks about how to grow and breed them. This might just be their year.

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As Halloween draws ever closer, pumpkin-carving enthusiasts take their pumpkins and carving tools for a session of underwater pumpkin carving.

It might sound like a weird event, but underwater pumpkin carving is pretty common in the US, with several competitions being organized in Florida, South Carolina, Lake Tahoe or Pennsylvania. Contestants put on their diving gear and drop down to a depth of less than 30 feet, where they try to carve the most intricate jack-o’lanters, and claim the top spots. All the gear is supplied by the organizers, so contestants need only bring their talent and inspiration.

While it may sound like a fun thing to do, carving a pumpkin underwater is a pretty difficult task, considering the buoyancy of the pumpkin (at least until you cut the lid off) and Newton’s third law of motion (for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction).

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