Home Depot stores have just started putting out their Halloween displays, and as usual, there’s plenty to choose from for decorating your house or apartment. While they have a wide variety of props and animatronics, they also have a few ongoing themes that are added to each year: Grave & Bones, Dead Water, Halloween Classics, and Wicked Woods. One of the Wicked Woods items debuting this year is a real killer: The 8Ft Giant-Sized Animated LED Perilous Plant Monster.
What Is The Wicked Woods 8Ft Giant-Sized Animated LED Perilous Plant Monster?
The Perilous Plant Monster is an outdoor-rated animatronic that has one movement and three different sounds. It retails for $299, and is available to purchase from your local Home Depot or from the Home Depot website.
Here are some of the features:
- Indoor/Outdoor
- Motion sensor activated
- Middle head moves from left to right
- 3 spooky sound effects
- LED Light up eyes and mouth
- Bones and plants in detailed design
- 2-person assembly in 45 minutes
- Ground stakes and extension base included
- Box Height: 28.5″
- Box Width: 44″
- Box Depth: 40.45″
Assembling The Wicked Woods 8Ft Giant-Sized Animated LED Perilous Plant Monster
You can find assembly instructions here.
I have to admit, I was not expecting a box quite so large! Obviously if you shop in store, you’ll see the size for yourself, but if you order it sight-unseen, just be prepared for a box size along the lines of a prop like the 12′ Skelly.
One of the things that I always appreciate with Home Depot animatronics is that the instructions are replicated on an interior box lid. They also include a separate printed set of instructions, but it’s handy to be able to have a spare in case you lose the manual. It also gives you an idea of what you need to unpack first to put together your prop!
Opening up the box, you’ll find the base at the very top, followed by…well, a bunch of parts. Some of them are wrapped in plastic to help protect the painted details while in transit.
Assembling the Perilous Plant turned out to be a fairly quick and painless task. As with most animatronics, you start at the base and build up. Poles connect together easily with snap buttons. The plastic leg pieces slide over the poles.
Once you’ve attached the torso to the legs, you’re ready to move on to the next phase of assembly.
For the next part of the assembly, you need to lay the prop down on top of its box.
Then, you’ll run the tether cable from the back of the prop to the hooks on the base:
Connecting the tether cable was honestly the most challenging part of the assembly. The instructions suggest lifting up the torso of the Plant Monster if you can’t get the cable to reach, but even by doing that, I was unable to get the cable to reach both hooks. I finally just used a carabiner I had on hand to make up the extra distance I needed the cable to go.
After getting the tether on, you’ll move on to connecting the heads and upper arms. The heads have power cables that will connect with ones inside of the torso.
The last step before standing the Perilous Plant Monster back up is to cover up the holes in the back of the shoulders and thighs. There are molded pieces that easily clip right into the holes, disguising them.
Once you’ve stood the Plant Monster back up, the last steps go very quickly. First, you’ll attach the additional stability poles into the base, and then you’ll clip on the lower arms and hands. And voila, you’re done putting your prop together!
The power cord connects at the back of the torso. There is a volume control, input for an optional step pad, and a power switch that allows you to choose from a lights-only mode, a timed sensor mode, or the step pad mode. A bright red LED indicates which mode is active.
Each of the heads has a light up in the roof of the mouth, which both lights the eyes and the mouth itself.
Of course, to truly appreciate any Halloween prop that lights up, you have to see it at night. So, without further ado:
Sadly, only one head turns. But as you can see, the movement is very effective, as is the sound. The prop triggers easily from the IR sensor located in its chest.
The Wicked Woods 8Ft Giant-Sized Animated LED Perilous Plant Monster – Final Thoughts
This is my first prop in the Wicked Woods line. And as it turns out, I like the Perilous Plant Monster so much, it kind of makes me want to start a whole haunted forest for my Halloween display!
While I do love props with a lot of movement, like the Bride of Frankenstein from Home Depot I reviewed last year, I know that, with the engineering involved, it can be very costly to put a lot of motion into a giant-sized prop. But surprisingly, the single motion of the one head in the Perilous Plant Monster manages to bring the animatronic to life. The prop is well-posed, giving a looming, shambling illusion of motion which presents a nice sense of menace. The Perilous Plant Monster looks like it’s about to scoop up a trick or treater as a tasty snack for one of its 3 heads.
The purple lights provide a nice, eerie accent to the earthy greenery of the Plant Monster. It looks great standing on the grass where I built it, but it would also be fun to have it emerging from a bush or from behind a tree. I’m not entirely sure what to make of the undigested human bones sticking out of the creature, but they’ve grown on me. And the sound effects for the prop also give a nice sense of a dangerous, carnivorous plant that’s running around eating people.
Speaking of carnivorous plants, sci-fi fans will be tickled to know that the Perilous Plant Monster apparently had another name at one point that is a nod to a famous science fiction book that was also made into both a movie and a miniseries. That original name appears several times in the instructions, such as in the picture below. I can just visualize marketing executives scratching their heads at the original moniker.
Other than connecting the tether, I found the Perilous Plant Monster to be very easy to assemble. As a matter of fact, I was able to put it together in about half an hour, without any additional assistance. Though if you’ve got a second pair of hands, it’s not a bad idea to have two people for tilting the prop back and forth. The plastic limbs fit together very well, with no discernible gaps between the joints. And as opposed to so many of the Halloween animatronics out there, this one can be displayed outdoors, so the Perilous Plant Monster can remain out on your lawn for as long as you want, rain or shine.
The Perilous Plant Monster is a well-designed animatronic that is easy to assemble and has great presence on your lawn. Even though I don’t have a Wicked Woods of my own yet, I think it will look great stalking behind the gravestones that I usually put up as part of my Halloween display. It’s a relatively simple prop, but the the visual appearance, lights, sound effects, and motion all combine to create a striking and original creature that is sure to stand out in your neighborhood.
For more information or to make a purchase, head over to the Home Depot website.
Home Depot provided this prop for evaluation, but had no input into the review.
