Here’s a thing you might not know existed: Doorbells that you can load with a sound file of your choice.

Just like a phone ringtone, you can use your favorite sound effect, song, or movie clip, and change it as often as you like. That means that your doorbell can scream like the one in Murder by Death, or say, “You rang?” like Lurch. (If you don’t think that’s hilarious, you may be on the wrong blog.)

There are a number of manufacturers, and prices vary significantly. The cheapest that I could find is Honeywell’s My Chime, followed by Swann’s MP3 DJ Doorbell. Other options include Kakadu (a UK vendor, although I take mild exception to their assumption that the customer is male), YourBell, iChime, and The Tommyknocker, which wins the “best name” category.

This would, obviously, be a splendid novelty item for Halloween, but there’s no reason why visitors shouldn’t be treated to banshee wails or rattling chains year-round. I’ve wanted a screaming doorbell for years, and there’s no way I’m going to limit its use to one day a year.