(Creepy animatronics come to life at The Devil's Playground, a free home haunt decorated for Halloween, located on the 6600 block of West 87th Place in Oak Lawn The Devil's Playground is open from 7:30-11:30 p.m., Oct. 29-31.)

Anyone with PVC pipe, duct tape and some old clothes can build a Halloween display featuring statuesque and stationary props. But props to those who aim a little higher by giving their monsters motion, as is amply evidenced at The Devil's Playground, the brain child of Keith Janowski.

Make no mistake: The Devil's Playground is no tot lot for little Lucifers. You won't find swings, slides or sandboxes here, but you will see plenty of dismembered corpses wriggling in agony, torture devices busy at work and creatures just waiting to pop out at you.

In one corner, there's a guillotine chopping away on autopilot. In another there's a hapless death row inmate strapped into an electric chair that jolts to life every few minutes. A giant orange and white box suddenly bolts open to reveal a psychotic

jack-in-the-box. A severed head hangs from a chain and drips a river of blood into a bucket below. The shutters on the home mysteriously creak open and the glowing red face of a curious werewolf peeks out upon you.

And then there's Freddy. As in Mr. Krueger himself, the coup de grace of the entire display and the most talked-about piece in Keith's collection. You may not want to cozy up too close to this life-size Nightmare on Elm Street icon, as he's bound to spring into action at any moment and rush toward you, like a King Cobra waiting to strike at whiplash speed.

Keith concocted the "Devil's Playground" name when it launched in 2004 after thinking about his address, which, coincidentally enough, includes the numbers 6-6-6. Many of his props were acquired from a former home haunt in Chicago. He's since completely rebuilt and customized nearly every purchased piece and made several originals of his own. Some of his figures are pneumatically controlled, while others are powered by motors, cylinders and other gizmos. But virtually everything exhibited on his front lawn moves.

"I'm probably most proud of the electric chair," said Keith, an electrician by trade, who added that the contraption runs via relays and pistons that are programmed and timed to work in conjunction with the fog device, strobes and sirens attached.

Surprisingly, "it costs me more to have Christmas lights on my gutters than it does to run this display," he said, noting that most props are run via low voltage.

Krueger, of course, continues to be the fan favorite.

"Everybody loves Freddie," said Keith. "He's the one that chalks up the most swears, runners and criers. Some people even do a little dance to try to figure out what sets him off."

When asked to fess up on how Freddy works and what triggers his attack mechanism, Keith smiles and shakes his head.

"No good magician ever reveals his trade secrets," he said.