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  • - Hello, my name is Pamela Apkarian-Russell

  • and I am the Halloween Queen,

  • which is my registered trademark,

  • and this is Castle Halloween Museum.

  • Welcome to Castle Halloween Museum!

  • Ooh, lightning!

  • This fireplace and mantle came from a miniature golf course

  • in Windsor Locks, Connecticut.

  • We have approximately 35,000 items here at the museum.

  • 48 years of collecting.

  • Whether its folk art, pottery, paintings,

  • spiritualism, the Salem Witch Trials.

  • What's a witch without her hat?

  • This is the Costume Room.

  • There are over a thousand costumes in this room.

  • They were not flame-proof

  • and don't forget these people were using live candles

  • at this time.

  • Over here we cover over a hundred years of games.

  • But of course, you have the Ouija Board.

  • If you're a good person, you bring good things out.

  • If you're a bad person, you're gonna bring bad things out.

  • It's you that brings the things to you.

  • Memento Mori was for remembering the dead.

  • They're interesting because they're made of human hair.

  • It was like having that person there with you.

  • These are the Earth Spirits.

  • I would love to have one of these guys come alive

  • in my yard and just come in here

  • and just be part of my life.

  • It was junk, as far as people were concerned.

  • That's how I got my moniker, the Halloween Queen.

  • We were set up in a very posh antique show

  • and this man took great umbrage to my big Halloween display,

  • really very snobbish.

  • "I don't want all this Halloween Queen junk."

  • I remember looking at him and saying,

  • "if you don't like it, leave."

  • Now, especially after my books came out

  • and people started seeing the value

  • and the sophistication of the artwork

  • and the beauty of the artwork,

  • then all of a sudden it started coming out of the woodwork.

  • Halloween has nothing to do with blood and gore.

  • It was a way of giving.

  • It represents the harvest

  • and the fact that you're gonna make it through the winter.

  • It's the life force being kept unbroken.

  • Real life, it can be very, very harsh and ugly.

  • Halloween, it's a healing process.

  • It's like you have a big cauldron of water

  • and you start putting in all these wonderful spices,

  • whether it's the voodoo flags, the Day of the Dead,

  • the Easter Witches from Sweden, the troll from Norway.

  • It gathers things together.

  • It is intolerant of intolerance.

  • This is what makes our lives richer.

  • Hubba hubba, dingle dangle,

  • I can see from every angle.

  • - Who said that?

  • - It was in a magazine or a book

  • from a hundred thousand years ago.

- Hello, my name is Pamela Apkarian-Russell

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