Death makes a holiday : a cultural history of Halloween by Skal David J

Author:Skal, David J
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Halloween, Halloween, Cultuurverandering, Feestdagen
Publisher: New York, N.Y. : Bloomsbury
Published: 2002-01-05T16:00:00+00:00

HOME IS WHERE THE HEARSE IS

for masks and display heads in late July, and spend every August and September preparing for their own Halloween season in Chatfield. "We usually have somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty or sixty life-size figures standing around in various poses." Laura Lady is responsible for costuming, as well as wigs and hair ("I call her my 'head of hair,' " says her husband, with a typical arching of one eyebrow).

The Ladys personally escort small groups of visitors, who pay five dollars a head, through their domain. They are accompanied by yet another "head" - a talking skull in a box, who delivers most of the evening's bon mots. The skull box contains a concealed cassette player, which delivers a narration prerecorded by Burbank-based actor Daniel Roebuck, himself a major fan of the horror genre. Roebuck's plummy diction "is kind of a cross between Boris Karloff and Hans Conried," according to Lady.

"I always write the script for what's going to be in each scene and then I fax it to him, and then we usually have a couple phone calls where he says, 'What am I seeing here?' and we kind of go over how the skull is thinking, whether the skull is alarmed or thinks it's funny, or whatever, and then he sends me back a tape. It's all timed with how many seconds each thing needs to run, and he always does it magnificently."

The visitors encounter the talking skull on the entryway table. "The skull welcomes the guests," says Lady, "and then asks for my help. 'If my associate here would be so good as to carry me through . . .' because, of course, he's only a skull. That gives me an excuse to carry him around. People look at the skull because he's doing the talking, and his mouth is moving, and so when I want you to look in a certain area, the skull says, 'Oh, my, over there I see we have . . .' and I just aim him like this and it's amazing -people don't look at me as much as they just follow the skull."

During the tour, visitors view not only the Ladys' masks but full

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