In 1998, the late Debbie Reynolds starred in a Disney Channel movie called “Halloweentown.”
The Oregon town where they filmed it turns into its own Halloweentown every year. A new documentary celebrates the town and the season.
The town is real. It’s St. Helens, Oregon, the primary filming location for the 1998 Disney Channel movie, “Halloweentown.”
St. Helens, which is home to about 15,000 people, decided several years back to capitalize on its cinematic history. It started inviting tourists to celebrate the movie and the holiday.
“When we saw an article that an entire town, their identity, has transformed itself because of this movie, and they-and 60,000 people come every year to, like, experience it and take pictures. We were, like, “That’s our kind of world we want to go explore,” said co-director Brett Whitcomb.
So the filmmakers went off to St. Helens.
The result is their documentary, “The Spirit of Halloweentown,” all about what happens here for six weekends every year.
Co-director Bradford Thomason told us, “You’re in Halloweentown whether you like it or not in St. Helens and how that manifests itself in you, I think, depends on you.”
The event definitely has a feeling of American, where kids are at play, where high school cheerleaders put on an impressive act. But there’s also also intrigue for the adults, from seances to ghost hunting. And, of course, there’s also a haunted house for visitors to enjoy–or not. Sometimes, younger children need to be escorted out because it’s a little too scary for them.
If you watch the documentary, it may make you want to visit St. Helens.
“I know that Brett and I are really happy to hear that it inspires people to want to go, you know, because we didn’t make a film about “Halloweentown,” the movie. We made a film about the people of St. Helens and, you know, if you see that and want to go, you know, be amongst those people and celebrate Halloween there, that’s cool,” said Thomason.
And just like the movie, there’s a giant pumpkin to greet you. In today’s world of social media, that means a lot of pumpkin pictures.
“The Spirit of Halloweentown” begins streaming on several platforms this weekend.
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