Spookytown

After reading an article about a local haunter in Springfield, NJ (or thereabouts) who said a local "Spookytown" Halloween store was his favorite place to buy props, I was happy to learn there was one open in Paramus and decided to drive there to check it out.

It seemed bigger than a lot of the Spirit Halloween stores I have been in and carried a lot more props (though the Spirit in Little Falls does have quite a bunch). I'm really not into costumes, and dislike that three quarters of the stores -- regardless of the names on the sign out front -- carry tons of them. Maybe it's because even before I really got into yard haunting that I was always more impressed with hand-made costumes than store bought. There is so little creativity displayed in a store bought costue for the most part. Maybe I just had some innate attraction to the props that was looking for an outlet to express themselves.

What I did discovery at Spookytown (and everytime I say that name I think of the song Funky Town, it drives me nuts!) was that they are expensive with a capital X. Yee-hah! Even simply masks were $40 or more. But the props seemed outrageously priced. Although I appreciated the sign that said everything in the store was for sale, it would have to be a well-heeled customer to pay those prices. I'm hoping the $1700 on the drum set at the front of the store included all the band member skeletons on the display and not just the drummer. I also would have liked to have seen it in action.

Perhaps the highlight of the visit though was to the back area where a pretty, buxom girl in a very tight, low cut shirt wearing a coordinating very short skirt felt the need to climb up on a ladder to get something off a shelf. I liked it when she called over the one guy working in the area to "spot" the ladder. Without question his view was improved!

I was surprised really at the cost of everything though. Raven props that I got at Spirit for $8, were on sale at Spookytown for $20. A somewhat anatomically correct skeleton that stood only about 4 feet high went for $100. I think you can get an actual anatomically correct skeleton from some skeleton company (AAC? I forget its name at the moment) for the same price just about, and it's about 6 feet tall.

They had different props than I've seen elsewhere, though much of the same too. Considering the prices I can't imagine my buying anything from them, though the show that was put on might make it worthwhile for a return trip!

Rich