Halloween Town

Look to your left — though honestly, you won't be able to miss it. This is Halloween Town, where it is Halloween every single day of the year. There are actually a cluster of these shops within a block of each other here, and together they turn a stretch of ordinary Burbank sidewalk into a permanent haunted attraction.

Halloween Town isn't a seasonal pop-up that got stuck. It was founded around the year 2000 by Wayne Toth, a professional creature-effects artist, and his wife Jackie. Toth spent years in the film industry's makeup-effects world — including a long run at one of the most famous effects houses in the business — before opening a store of his own. He's also built giant mechanical props and puppets for the touring stage shows of rock acts like Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper. In other words, the monsters here aren't mass-produced novelties; they're the work of someone who makes monsters for a living.

This is the clearest example yet of a pattern you've been walking past all morning. Burbank is a company town, and the company is entertainment. The special-effects artists, prop builders, and costumers who work at the studios two miles away don't leave that craft at the job — they open shops, they gather, they show off. Halloween Town is really an art gallery and a movie-prop museum wearing a costume-store sign.

So step inside and let it spook you a little; that's the point. The displays are built to feel like an actual haunted house, packed with masks, props, décor, and horror-movie apparel. It's a small masterpiece of studio craft spilling out onto a public street. When you've had your fill of fog and fake blood, we'll move on to something completely different — a bookstore for people who love cars and airplanes.