Spooktacular!
The legend of Halloween theme park SpookyWorld is unearthed in Quinn Monahan’s wickedly niche documentary dedicated to the former field of screams.
Mass. chaos: A SpookyWorld pumpkinhead
Image courtesy of Spookywood Productions
To all who come to this happy place–welcome…to hell. In the middle of a Massachusetts woods on a Saturday in late October 1991, founder David Bertolino unleashed the Disneyland of Halloween, cementing his legacy in the hearts of horror fans of a certain generation. Reflecting the surging shift to embrace Halloween as a cultural event in the 1990s, the Berlin, Massachusetts theme park began as a modest haunted hayride attraction around an 18th-century farm and swiftly expanded into a fully realised scare park. It was a place where horror fans could meet the likes of Freddy (actor Robert Englund) and Jason (actor Kane Hodder) in person, hear Bobby "Boris" Pickett sing his Halloween classic “Monster Mash”, and see “The Sultan of Splatter” Tom Savini explain screen-worn makeups from films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2. For the local staff it was an opportunity to, as one SpookyWorld performer bluntly states, “Dress up, scare people, get paid.”
Each season, new attractions brought bigger crowds and filled the coffer. Park additions included a Tom Savini branded Haunted House (complete with animatronics), a carnival style Monster Midway, a Phantom Mineshaft, the Cirque Macabre, and Hell House–a wax museum focused on the seedy side of Hollywood, which boasted narration by Christopher Lee. The celebrity guests included iconic names such as Linda Blair, Elvira, and Alice Cooper. As the list of sponsors grew, so did SpookyWorld’s media attention. From musician Tiny Tim’s live wedding ceremony on The Tonight Show to a Willard Scott weather forecast on Today—how did something this successful fall into oblivion? Monahan’s doc Spooktacular! conclusively traces founder Bertolino’s origins in X-rated greeting cards through to the rise–and ultimate demise–of his creepy creation, SpookyWorld. The talking heads include the park’s celebrity guests, mastermind Bertolino, and many of the former performers that resurrected seasons of scares at the venue.
Though SpookyWorld is technically ‘America’s original horror theme park’, the doc does gloss over other haunted attractions, such as the temporary Knott's Scary Farm, which predated SpookyWorld by 18 years, and Universal's annual Halloween Horror Nights (then Universal Studios Fright Nights), which opened just five days after SpookyWorld in October of 1991. The focus is rightfully on SpookyWorld’s thrills and chills, but some context on the history of the haunted attraction may have provided further insights. After all, the origins of the haunted house date back at least to 1915 with the Orton and Spooner Ghost House in Liphook, England.
A documentary of disparate elements, Spooktacular! was impacted by the pandemic. Some guests are beautifully photographed, while others appear in Zoom boxes. Then there’s the gimmick of comparing showman David Bertolino to the persona Vincent Price inhabited across his films. While seeing Price is always nice, supplanting Bertolino for Price’s visage seems a somewhat strange choice, given that Price himself never appeared at SpookyWorld (though the Haunted Museum did feature a headshot personalised to SpookyWorld, alongside a casting of Price’s face). Sometimes the clips are completely apropos, other times they come across as forced. That’s perhaps the biggest issue here–the extensive use of public domain footage to cover the audio interviews. Surely there was enough archival footage of the park itself to fill the gaps. An infamous 20 minute promotional VHS ‘A Video Visit to America’s Horror Theme Park’ narrated by Kane Hodder (aka Friday the 13th’s Jason) has a lot of content to pull from.
Though the public domain pieces in some ways reflect the hodge-podge development and shoestring budget of the park’s origins, the broad assorted footage eventually detracts more than it adds. Beyond the fresh interviews telling the story, the best part really is that archival vintage footage of the park in its heyday. Perhaps like the kitschy hayride that started it all, at the end of day none of these criticisms really matter as long as guests are enjoying the ride. Monahan has effectively captured the essence of SpookyWorld, its inhabitants, and the fondness that so many still possess for the one-time fright farm.
CHAD KENNERK
Featuring David Bertolino, Linda Blair, Tom Savini, Kane Hodder, Spencer Charnas, AJ Danna, Robert Englund, Butch Patrick, Victoria Price, Daniel Roebuck, and the original cast members of SpookyWorld.
Dir Quinn Monahan, Pro Danny Wolf, Anthony Landry, Screenplay Gail Jorden.
Spookywood Productions, LLC-Fantastic Fest
97 mins. US. 2023. Rel: 22 September 2023 (Fantastic Fest). No Cert.
