“After Six Bonus Years in the Garage, I’m Finally Hanging Up the Tools” – Ohio Animatronics Veteran Walter “Doc” Ashbury (71) Releases the Last Batch of His Sound-Activated "Grave Risers"
For three decades he built the creatures that made a regional haunted attraction famous. When new ownership switched to cheap imported animatronics, he took his tools home instead of putting them down. Six years later, this is truly the last batch – and this time, there’s no next season.
Coshocton County, Ohio. The garage smells like sawdust and hot glue. A shelf along the back wall holds a row of grinning, half-finished faces, waiting for hands and paint. On the workbench: wire, a coffee can full of screws, and a single finished Grave Riser propped up on a moving blanket – arms frozen mid-reach, waiting to be boxed.
Doc Ashbury didn’t plan on still being out here at 71. But six years ago, when the coworkers who used to call him “Doc” – because he could bring any dead animatronic back to life on a deadline – stopped needing him, he just moved the whole operation forty feet, from the shop floor to his own garage.
“Nobody told me to stop building monsters,” he says. “They just stopped paying me to do it there. So I kept doing it here.”
This October, that's finished too – on his own terms.
The park went corporate. He didn’t.
For most of his working life, Doc was the guy behind the curtain at a regional haunted attraction – the one who kept the animatronics moving, the timing right, the jump scares landing exactly when they were supposed to. When the attraction was bought out and new management switched to cheaper, imported creature props to cut costs, his job went with it.
“The new ones looked fine in a catalog photo,” he says. “Up close, in the dark, with a kid standing three feet away? They moved like a toy. Mine never did.”
So he built his own in the garage – not for the park, but for neighbors, then for other home haunters in the area who’d heard about “the guy with the real ones.” Word got around at county fairs and haunt-hobbyist meetups long before it got around online.
“People send me videos every October,” he says. “Always the same moment. A kid walks up, laughing with their friends, and the arms start moving. There’s always a scream in there somewhere.”
“A cheap decoration just sits there and lights up. Mine waits. It listens. That’s the whole trick – the same trick I used to build for a living, just smaller, in my own garage now.”
Built like a park piece, sized for a front yard
Every Grave Riser stands 23.6 inches tall – sized to look like it’s genuinely emerging from the ground, not towering over the mailbox – and runs on 3 AA batteries, no extension cord snaking across the lawn.
The detail Doc is proudest of is the same one he used to engineer for a living: it doesn’t move on a timer or a switch. It’s sound-activated. When it picks up the noise of people approaching – footsteps, talking, laughing on the front walk – the arms move on their own, like it’s reacting to them, not just running a loop.
- Sound-activated, not timer-driven. The moving arms react when it hears you get close – the same cue-based timing used in professional haunted attractions.
- Runs on 3 AA batteries (not included) – no cord across the walkway, no outlet needed.
- Indoor or outdoor. Works on the porch, in the yard, or as part of an indoor graveyard scene.
- 23.6 inches tall – ground-breaker scale. Built to look like it’s genuinely climbing out of the earth, not a tabletop figurine.
- Folds flat for storage. Built to come back out again next October – even though this is the last batch Doc himself will ever build.
- Limited: 340 pieces remain from Doc’s final run. When they’re gone, Ashbury Motion Works closes for good.
“My hands are fine. I just want a few Octobers with my grandkids instead of in this garage.”
Doc is quick to head off the assumption that this is a sad story.
“People hear ‘71’ and ‘final batch’ and they want it to be about my back giving out,” he says. “It’s not that. Six years of doing this as a hobby instead of a job was the bonus round. Now I want the Octobers I’ve got left to actually be free – taking my grandkids trick-or-treating instead of hiding in the garage handing out candy through a crack in the door.”
Until now, the Grave Riser was strictly local – sold at fairs, by word of mouth, out of the garage. Getting it in front of people outside the county wasn’t something Doc had any interest in figuring out.
That part, at least, his son handled – setting up a listing on Backroad Goods so the remaining stock could actually reach people outside Coshocton County before it’s gone for good.
“My son set the whole thing up online,” Doc says. “I wouldn’t know where to start. But I told him – I’d rather 340 yards have one of these than have them stacked in my garage while I’m out fishing.”
What his customers say
“I run a small haunted trail every October for the neighborhood kids and I’ve bought a lot of props over the years. This is the only one where the sound-triggered arms actually surprised ME the first time it went off.”
“My husband set it up by the mailbox and didn’t tell me. I was carrying groceries up the driveway talking to myself and the arms came up. I nearly dropped the eggs. Worth every bit of that.”
“Folded it flat and got it back in the attic box in about two minutes come November. That alone puts it ahead of the last two yard decorations I bought, which both ended up in the trash after one season.”
“My grandkids named him before we’d even finished setting him up. They check on him every night after dinner to see if he’s ‘moved.’ Cheapest babysitter I’ve ever had, honestly.”
The one Halloween decoration that isn’t trying to be scary for its own sake
Ask Doc what he thinks makes a good Halloween prop and he doesn’t talk about gore.
“It’s about the moment,” he says. “A kid walks up not expecting anything, and for two seconds, something reacts to them. That’s the whole job. I built that same two seconds for twenty-two years at the park. Now I get to build it for people’s own front yards instead.”
He knows what happens after this batch sells through. “These'll be out there in yards for years, probably longer than I’ll be building anything,” he says. “That’s fine by me. Let the last ones do the work.”
Claim one from the final batch
The last 340 sound-activated Grave Risers from Doc Ashbury’s garage workshop – at his farewell price, in time for Halloween.
Limited quantity · While supplies last
Try it risk-free: 30-day money-back guarantee
Set it up by the front walk. Let it sit quiet until someone gets close. If the sound-activated movement doesn’t get the reaction you were hoping for, send it back within 30 days for a full refund – no arguments, no restocking fee.
Ashbury’s Grave Riser isn’t mass-produced import decor with a scary paint job. It’s built by the same hands that kept a regional haunted attraction’s creatures moving for over 30 years – and after this batch, those hands are officially off the clock.
Thank you, Doc. For every October since.
Disclosure: This is a paid advertisement. Quantities stated reflect inventory at the time of publication and may change. Customer statements are individual experiences. Delivery before October 31 applies to orders placed while stock remains. Requires 3 AA batteries, not included.