Forget It, Vince. It’s Halloweentown.
Back in the 1990s, before DisneyPlus was streaming endless content into people’s homes, folks looking for family entertainment from the House of the Mouse would have to rely on The Disney Channel Original Movies. One of the more popular films from this era was 1998’s Halloweentown. It starred Debbie Reynolds as an old school witch who lived in a bustling village of monsters, spooks, and other oddballs. This week, Michelle and I did some research on this magical town, and sculpted a diorama of one of its oddballs.
You don’t see much of this jack-o-lantern kid and their mom in the movie. In fact, they’re on screen for about three seconds. But I couldn’t imagine any of the other goblins and goons in the movie representing Halloweentown so perfectly. The kid’s head is a jack-o-lantern!
There’s nothing more quintessentially Halloween than a jack-o-lantern. Even black cats come in second. And yet, they are barely shown. It starts the mind wondering.
I used CosClay to sculpt the figure. I’ve been relying on Cosclay a lot more often lately, despite having a giant tub of Sculpey in the workshop. I think it’s the durability of the CosClay that appeals to me. They say if you condition polymer clay correctly, get all the air bubbles out, keep the sculpture to a reasonable size, and bake it properly, it should last a long time without cracking. But that doesn’t take into account the number of times I knock a sculpt over or drop it as I flail around my workshop trying to get four projects finished at once. So, the more durable CosClay it is.
Once the picket fence was in, Michelle covered the base in soil and turf. In the movie, the town square is directly in front of the courthouse. I mention this because, six years later, in Halloweentown High, we see a member of the town council who seems to be some sort of pumpkin man. Unlike our pumpkin kid, this council-pumpkin seems to have human eyes that are oddly more disturbing than the gaping hollows carved into pumpkin kid’s gourd. Is he related somehow? Is he some other, variant pumpkin species? Do the pumpkin people with eyes hold more political power? What are the implications?
After we lay the foundation, the straw/hay was glued down. This stuff is often used to absorb moisture as bedding in animal pens, so it has no problem soaking up the glue we laid down. We scattered it thinly enough so you don’t miss the green turf we laid underneath, but in the movie the hay is heaped so high, you start to wonder if it’s there specifically to hide something. What lies beneath the hay? What fluids is it absorbing? I have my suspicions, but they may be too horrific to utter.
As a finishing touch, Michelle sculpted another jack-o-lantern to sit in the square as decoration. Aside from the creepy councilman, this family that appears in the beginning of the film may very well be some of the only pumpkin people in Halloweentown. Why do we never see more? And just how are the dozens upon dozens of jack-o-lanterns scattered around the town square related to the pumpkin people? We have no idea, but the implications are grisly. Halloweentown is a Disney Channel movie, and it never delves into these dark speculations. So maybe that’s where the investigation ends. Maybe sometimes you just have to get out before you get in too deep. Sometimes you just gotta say forget it…it’s Halloweentown.
To see us put this adorable, possibly ghastly Halloweentown diorama together, you can watch the video below: