NEDERLAND —Paige McDonald admits she may have had ulterior motives to creating the scariest house on the block, but it’s really all about post-Ike stress reduction, she claims

“I’m kind of competitive, and the kids really get into it,” she said.

Aside from giant, blinking cats, skulls and lights, the corner house on Maple Street, off 27th Street just outside of Nederland, is showing a movie, of sorts.

Images of a flaming pumpkin, stormy weather and cemeteries repeat themselves out of her son’s window with growls, gurgles and other sound effects.

“It’s new age,” she said of the projection kit she got from Canada. It’s on surround sound from her son’s bedroom window.

“Poor little thing,” she said of his sacrifice to the Halloween landscape.

She was afraid the neighbors would find it too loud, but they told her to crank it up.

“You can’t hear it inside the house,” McDonald said.

Next-door neighbor Kathleen Fore also made a big to-do over the holiday, with a yard full of creepy decor. McDonald called the work her therapy.

“I just did it because I needed some stress relief and it took on a life of its own. I just want people to not think about the hurricane for a change,” she said. “It just made me feel good to do it. Both of my sisters lost their homes in Bridge City. My sister had a wedding album (saved) and that was it … and I lost my beach cabin at Crystal Beach. It was just kind of an outlet to me.”

McDonald said her husband Brent was hanging out the window to get the decorations up.

“He knew how excited I was,” she said.

Their sons are Landon, 17, and Lane, 13.