Recently, I did a review of the Halloween Museum in Honesdale, Pennsylvania (see HERE). Now I am presenting an interview with the creator and owner, Fernando Irizarry, a celebrity in his own right with what he has done.
David: What is your earliest recollection of Halloween? Was it “love at first sight?”
Fernando: Hmm not sure if this is my earliest memory, but off the top of my head I vividly remember my sister and I hanging these newspaper-filled plastic sheet ghosts (made by SunHill, I think) from the birch tree branches in our yard and the fall foliage was just beautiful. I also have good memories of my mom and grandmother making leaf piles for us to jump in. That was always a blast.
Another early one was all the way back in preschool where the teachers had us kids sit on the floor in a circle and they would play this tape that I would kill to have today. It was this really immersive sound effects tape that took you on a guided journey through spooky locations on Halloween night. There was a graveyard, the dark woods, leaves blowing in the wind, a cornfield lit up by the full moon with witches flying overhead, cackling. The lights would be down low too and I swear I felt like I was on that journey for real. I could see everything they talked about on the tape so vividly. It was terrifying, but I was so fascinated with it.
I remember finding a dead leaf that looked just like a ghost with holes where the eyes and mouth would be when I was 3 or 4. I was so fixated on it, my mom taped it to a Halloween party paper plate and I still have it to this day. It was a time of year I would look forward to constantly, from as far back as I can remember.
The last memory I’ll mention is coming home very late from a remarkably bountiful night of trick or treating when I was about 7, and emptying my pumpkin pail full of candy all over the living room floor while my folks checked each piece, and the original 1931 Frankenstein was being aired on TV. I had never seen it before and I distinctly remember being instantly transfixed by it.I couldn’t take my eyes off it. That was the moment I became obsessed with horror and monster movies. I cared so deeply about the Frankenstein Monster that I would consistently become so stressed any time he was in harm’s way that I would get these terrible stomach aches every time I watched the movie (which was constantly, because I would rent the tape every single time my family went to the local mom & pop video rental store, Showtime Video).
David: Growing up, what were your favorite parts of the Halloween season?
Fernando: Man, that’s really hard to narrow down, but taking the storage tubs down from the attic and putting up the family decorations all around the house and yard was always euphoric for me haha. I also really enjoyed pumpkin picking at this place in Jersey called Ideal Farms. They had this fantastic classic haunt called The Haunted Barn with one of the best decorated exteriors I’ve ever seen. For the actual pumpkin picking though, you’d take a hayride up this huge hill into the distant fields, and along the way there were homemade graveyard sets where a guy in a giant gorilla suit and sometimes Ghost Face would chase and board the hayride. It scared the hell out of me and I remember I would start crying my eyes out. They’d drop you off at the top of the hill and down below you there was this sort of valley where they would lay out all the pumpkins in one spot, and it was just a magnificent sight. Orange as far as the eye could see! My sister and I would take turns rolling down the hill on our sides into the pumpkin patch below. So much fun! When we got home, we’d lay out the trusty ol’ “splat mat” and start carving the pumpkins while my mom and dad would play either a spooky sounds fx tape or a tape recording of this children’s storybook called “Too Many Pumpkins.”
David: What are your top three Halloween costumes that you ever wore and why?
Fernando: Ohhh so many to choose from! One would be when I was probably like 7 and I dressed as Ghost Face with the mask that had that classic gag where the face would start bleeding when you squeezed the heart shape pump you’d hold in your hand. Aside from that just being cool, I place it high on the list because I think it may have been the first time I dressed up as something actually scary for Halloween, instead of Jar Jar Binks or something haha.
My second pick would be the Frankenstein’s Monster costume my mom made for me around that same age. It was genius for what it was. She put foam padding in the shoulders of my little blazer and made the iconic square head out of the bottom of a plastic gallon water jug and glued fake hair to it. I was blown away that my mom went so above and beyond to make that for me. I remember being ticked she painted the headpiece green though because I was very particular as a young monster fan.
Third pick would be when I was much older and was finally able to afford an accurate 1978 Michael Myers mask replica in high school. I wore the hell out of that mask and coveralls. My friends and I would go out late at night during sleepovers and hide in the woods along isolated roads with me dressed in the whole getup. They would spot oncoming cars for me and I would subtly reveal myself from behind a tree at the perfect moment as the car would pass. We scared the hell out of people! They’d slam on the breaks and we’d duck and hide in the woods hoping we wouldn’t be shot or something. Horribly irresponsible and dangerous for everyone involved, but boy oh boy was it a rush like no other!
David: When did you start collecting Halloween items?
Fernando: From the beginning I coveted my family’s decorations that had been passed down through the years, as well as the “new ones” we bought at the time in the 90s. I didn’t start buying and collecting my own until about late high school once I began to realize the way in which the holiday and its decor had been shifting in an ugly direction over the past decade or so. Once I moved across the country and was living on my own in Oregon a few years after that, I finally had the means to feed my vintage Halloween decor obsession and gradually began collecting. Not for money or internet clout or anything like that, they just filled me with a strange sense of joy, warmth, and wonder that was unlike anything else.
David: What are the top three items in your collection and why? Can you provide pictures of these?
Fernando: This is like ‘Sophie’s Choice’ for me, but some top tier items for me would be my Don Featherstone Haunted House blow mold, the 1930s German paper mache jack-o’-lantern I snagged a few years back, and the Bayshore ‘Hi-Hat 2-Faced Pumpkin’ candy pail. I can’t explain my reasoning for these choices beyond saying that the vibrations emanating from them are very strong.
David: If you have to recommend three of your favorite Halloween-themed movies to someone, what would they be and why?
Fernando: Halloween III: Season Of The Witch (1982)
- You can never go wrong with watching any of the first four Halloween movies to get your spook fix, but I am choosing Halloween III as my go-to pick because I simply cannot think of any other film that captures the essence of the holiday season so perfectly. The uniquely Halloween-centric premise, the gorgeous cinematography, the unbeatable soundtrack, and of course Tom Atkins’ legendary portrayal of our beloved alcoholic protagonist.
Carnival Of Souls (1962)
- Not Halloween-themed per se, but the haunting atmosphere in this little indie horror movie is unmatched. That organ soundtrack and the dreamlike visuals will make you swear the veil has thinned and you have indeed crossed over the threshold.
Dracula (1931)
- Again, not specifically Halloween-coded, but come on! The gothic scenery, the surreal near-silent sound design, Dwight Frye’s Renfield, and Bela Lugosi’s presence and vocal cadence will teleport you to spook central in a heartbeat if you allow yourself to be whisked away by the magic of this timeless flick.
Honorable mention picks: The Legend Of Hell House (1973) and the opening credits of Halloween IV on an endless loop until you pass away
David: What made you want to start the Halloween Museum?
Fernando: Well, I had been collecting vintage Halloween trinkets for some time at that point and I had started to dwell on the fact that so much of this history and art is largely undocumented, and combined with the cost of these items skyrocketing to near-ridiculous heights over the years, I started to become concerned that at some point in time, many of these beautiful works of art would be either inaccessible to most folks or lost to time completely. Probably rotting away in some sweet old woman’s attic or in the storage unit of some private collector.I started to feel like it was senseless to just privately hoard this stuff away where only I could enjoy it. With the quality and community-oriented traditions of Halloween declining and the holiday getting less and less of the commercial spotlight, it was wrong for me to keep this magic to myself and a handful of collectors.I wanted to share the joy I got from these items with the world. It was high time for someone to take a stand against the soulless rot that had been infecting this wonderful season’s jack-o-lantern of culture for far too long.
So what did I do? Well uh…I sat on the concept for several years and did nothing. Often fantasizing about some nebulous plan to preserve what I loved about Halloween, but ultimately not knowing where to start and feeling like it was a pretty silly, unrealistic dream. It wasn’t until a spontaneous matcha-fueled rambling I subjected my poor then-girlfriend to that I began to think maybe it wasn’t so far-fetched. Instead of shrugging it off, she wholeheartedly and enthusiastically supported my idea, helped give it form, and encouraged me to pursue it like a legitimate project. We even put together a retro-themed home haunt for Halloween that year and had the kids and families go through the house to get their candy. It was like a little proof of concept. Even though we no longer see eye-to-eye, I have to give Kylie Jackson credit for being crazy enough to convince me that the Museum was actually feasible. Not to mention, her talents were an invaluable help to the initial incarnation of the Museum in PDX and even now, as I’m still actively using a good deal of the resources she designed as well as the concepts that we came up with together. I wouldn’t be here without her.
David: The Museum is an obvious labor of love. What were some of your biggest challenges doing it?
Oh boy it truly is! I was shocked at the amount of overt animosity the exhibit received during our time at Portland’s Lloyd Center. I anticipated a fair amount of apathy to the project, especially after October had ended, but I was not prepared for the unprovoked level of negativity directed towards the Museum seemingly for its mere existence haha. But you know what? I was shocked and moved even further by the sheer amount of positivity and support we received from the overwhelming amount of people who got what we were about. That love keeps you going even when it’s the middle of January in an empty shopping mall on life support. The main challenge is fighting that nagging voice you get in the back of your head that’s hellbent on convincing you it’s not worth it and that you should give up. A never-ending battle, I’m afraid, but probably the most important thing to keep a handle on because if you lose control of that, it’s all over.
The other big challenge is that I’m an idealistic, creatively focused, clueless art creature that’s set in its ways. I don’t have a sensible business bone in my body, and so I’m constantly learning the hard way about how things work in the business owner world and how to successfully run something super niche like this. As difficult as putting the Museum together the last time was, I had a great deal of help. The bureaucratic red tape and the nuts and bolts of owning a business was basically nonexistent for us. I was very lucky.
Getting up and running this time around, however, has been way more difficult. I’ve largely been on my own, aside from some MUCH needed construction assistance from my saint of a friend, Elias Johnson. I’m now paying over triple the amount in rent I was the first time around, and for a smaller space that initially lacked the kind of structures I used to build the exhibit layout I had once taken for granted. So all the foundational structures of the exhibit had to be jury-rigged from scratch this time, which is the main reason it took so long to open.
After that came the mind-numbing onslaught of permits, fees, and zoning paperwork. Everyone in this beautiful town has been so incredibly kind and welcoming to me, but man oh man for a little town like this they sure have a very particular and strict way of doing things. I imagine it’s not so different from starting a business anywhere else on this planet, but I can’t help but be a complaining, overdramatic diva sometimes. I think it may be terminal…
David: As an adult, what is your favorite part of the Halloween season?
Fernando: Honestly, it hasn’t changed all that much! I still love decorating the house, going pumpkin picking, handing out candy, and I even get dressed up and go trick-or-treating still just for the love of the game and to see all the houses decorated in the neighborhood. Aside from all that, I love visiting haunted attractions old and new. There’s just nothing like it, you just want to keep the high going and going, but then you check your bank account and begin to rethink things.
David: What are your plans for the Museum after this season? If possible, please discuss the recreations you had planned for vintage collectibles.
Fernando: Well, the exhibit will remain open year-round. I plan on continuing to add things as it goes along, and hopefully I’ll be able to swap out sections for new Halloween-adjacent themes. I really would like to have a section of the exhibit devoted to the icons of horror at some point that would feature life-sized figures of famous faces from Dracula to Leatherface. It would be cool to have seasonal exhibits centered around different vintage holiday decor, but that might be a long shot because I would have to fund and build up a collection of things from the ground up, whereas with Halloween I’ve already been collecting for years. Besides, I think Halloween needs the most love and support out of the major holidays these days anyway.
Hopefully sooner than later the Museum will actually be able to focus on the mission of the project, which obviously is preservation. I plan on digitally scanning and archiving all the paper decorations in our collection, as well as making new casts of our plastic blow molds. The plan is to not only preserve these items through cataloging and proper documentation for posterity, but also to create faithful reproductions of these pieces of art to make them once again accessible to the average decorator. There will always be a thriving market for the originals, and so I see no harm in making these relatively inexpensive pieces of paper and plastic available to the average person that can’t afford to shell out hundreds of dollars for holiday decorations that up until the early 2000s you could get at your local drug store for $10.
David: When it comes to Halloween collectibles, is there a Holy Grail that you still hope to get?
Fernando: Always! The hunt is eternal. One of the things I’ve been eyeing for a long time is the Don Featherstone “Happy Halloween” pumpkin blow mold, as well as his witch on the broomstick blow mold. They were around in the late 90s and early 2000s, so you would think they would be relatively easy to find for a decent price. But nope! Usually $300 or so, if you can even find them in good shape. I see them pop up from time to time, but I’ve had to control my impulsive urges and be at least somewhat responsible. I also wouldn’t mind owning one of those old metal Hallowe’en parade lanterns from the early 1900s.
David: Have your friends and family been supportive of the Halloween Museum?
Fernando: Oh absolutely! I’ve been very lucky to have a lot of support from my friends and family. After moving back from Oregon, my poor parents have been incredibly supportive of my foolhardy venture, and have offered a helping hand in just about every aspect of the process this past year. Too many to list, but my friends from all over have just been so wonderfully encouraging, always keeping me going.
The community in Portland also really came through for the Museum last time. Folks donated lots of items, put up funding, and many generously allowed us to put their items in the exhibit on loan. A wonderful local fellow named Chris Wirth had a mind-blowing collection and we had many of his pieces on display for a time. So far this town has been no different in that sense. I have already met so many amazing and helpful people, and I’ve only been open for like a week and a half.
I’m not gonna lie, there’s been no shortage of slow days so far, but it’s a small town in Pennsylvania so that’s just the unavoidable reality. Despite this, the town of Honesdale has already shown to have great promise with a very supportive, welcoming, and enthusiastically wild sect of creatives and weirdos. So in short, it may take some time for the Museum to find its footing and flourish, but with the response it’s gotten thus far, I have faith we can make it.
David: If people want to find out more about the Halloween Museum or want to support it, where can they go?
Fernando: At the moment, I really only have a presence on Instagram right now. I’d like to get a website going eventually, but that’ll have to wait. For the time being, our Instagram page is where all the Museum’s updates and upcoming events and announcements will be posted. The handle is @halloween_museum, not to be confused with @halloweenmuseum which is another great museum up in Salem, MA that I would really like to check out some day.
The address of the museum is 742 Main St, Honesdale, PA 18431. You can follow them on Instagram as well!