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It's not just an October thing. No, here in Los Angeles, we start preparing for Halloween during November of the year before - but it's not just our home haunts, special effects make-up expertise and elaborate costuming that makes L.A. particularly creeptastic all year long.
It's our proximity to and unusual comfort with the scarier side of nature - owls, snakes, tarantulas, and the like. It's the blurred line between fantasy and reality that places us in that no man's land between a dream state and being awake - where we're not sure if we're remembering something that actually happened, or whether we saw it in a movie or read it in a script.
Of course, we've also got our fair share of hauntings - but rather than fleeing from the dead and the undead, we've learned to embrace it all. Here are six great examples of places that help make the City of Angels more like Spooksville, U.S.A.
1. Dapper Cadaver, Sun Valley
This is a busy time of year for Dapper Cadaver, the horror props house by the Burbank Airport that sells and rents anything from coffins to aliens, dinosaurs, and incredibly realistic-looking-but-fake corpses. It gets a lot of its business from Hollywood, but it also supplies the creators of home haunts as well as collectors of oddities like vintage surgical instruments, skulls and other bones, and jars of preserved critters (some fake, but some real). In fact, their work is so good that it can be difficult to tell the difference between a prop and a specimen - although you'd be safe to assume that there aren't any actual dead bodies in their showroom. But catch one of their glassy-eyed, disembodied heads out of the corner of your eye, and you're likely to jump a little. Dapper Cadaver is open to the public during the week all year round, but in October you can also visit on Saturday for that fake goat or stone archangel you've been meaning to get for your yard.
Photo: Courtesy of Sandi Hemmerlein
Photo: Courtesy of Sandi Hemmerlein
2. Skeletons in the Closet, Lincoln Park
You probably wouldn't expect any coroners office to have a gift shop - but at the County of Los Angeles Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner, that's exactly what you'll find. Just walk through the front door of the former Los Angeles General Hospital administration building on the LAC+USC Medical Center campus, check in with security on your left, and enter Skeletons in the Closet on your right. You'll find garment body bags, crime scene beach towels, chalk outline welcome mats, coffee mugs, keychains, mousepads, and even toe tags. Although there's a fair amount of levity to many of their product offerings, it shouldn't detract from the serious business of the coroner's office. In operation since 1993, the store's mission is to promote how fragile life is and create awareness and responsibility toward ones actions. But if you visit in person, it's also a good way to give yourself the heebie-jeebies inside a building that you otherwise wouldn't wish to visit.
Photo: Courtesy of Sandi Hemmerlein
Photo: Courtesy of Sandi Hemmerlein
3. Bearded Lady Vintage & Oddities and Bearded Lady's Mystic Museum, Burbank
Ever wish that your antiques store sold medical equipment? Or that there was somewhere to get your crazy cat lady friend a black cat Ouija board? Have you ever been to an artwalk and thought that there just weren't enough ghosts in the galleries? Well, it's your lucky day, because Burbank's Bearded Lady has got all of that and more, between its two locations just two blocks way from each other on Magnolia. The Vintage & Oddities shop is more of a traditional shopping experience with a dark twist, while the more recently-opened Mystic Museum down the street features a shop of new oddball gifts in the front and a museum / art gallery / event space in the back. The art on the wall switches out regularly, but there's also a permanent collection of vintage occult paraphernalia, including an impressive collection of spirit boards. Special events hosted in the museum include s ances, magic shows, and sideshow acts. Both shops are conveniently located a short distance from the Halloweentown year-round horror headquarters, the horror specialty bookstore Dark Delicacies, and the dark-leaning, monster-friendly collectibles and comics shop Creature Features.
Photo: Courtesy of Sandi Hemmerlein
Photo: Courtesy of Sandi Hemmerlein
4. Necromance, Hollywood
There are those who enjoy the delicious spookiness of fantasy, and others who prefer the terrifying truth of real life. With its collection of bug, bones and skeletons, and sea creatures and shells (some of which have been made into jewelry), Necromance can definitely satisfy your curiosity of the natural history and wonders of this earthly realm. You can get one-of-a-kind poison bottles, freeze-dried and taxidermied rodents, and a real contemporary medical bone saw. Some of the items in their retail collection veer towards the occult - shrunken heads, crystals, beads, and various talismans - but by and large, the items here prove that truth can be stranger than fiction. Prices range from $1 to $150+, so when you go, buy a little something rather than just window shopping or taking photos.
Photo: Courtesy of Sandi Hemmerlein
5. Dearly Departed Tours, Hollywood
Dearly Departed specializes in bus tours and walking tours of L.A.'s most famous sites of murder, celebrity death and burial, and horror film locations - but they've also got a storefront on Sunset Boulevard that's a combination museum and gift shop. Visit it to see their shrines to various dead celebrities
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