Each year, as October dawns on Somerville, many prepare for an annual trip to the storied realm of the Pumpkin King. The journey to Halloween Town is dared by young and old alike, and it does not require travelers to brave magic portals—known to be as unreliable as Boston-area public transportation. To pay respects to Jack and his crew, visitors need only journey to the corner of Curtis Street and Powder House Boulevard, just North of Davis Square. There, the characters of The Nightmare Before Christmas rise up to 10 feet tall welcoming passersby and ushering in spooky season in style.
The display’s renown is well-earned. Each of the eight characters are strikingly true to form and entirely homemade.
“All of it is a learning process for me,” said Erica Joyce who dreamed up and created the display. “It’s fun to have that challenge and I have had such a phenomenal response from the neighborhood, [especially] the kids.”
Halloween Town—which replicates the eponymous setting of the 1993 claymation “The Nightmare Before Christmas”—was established in 2021, when Erica Joyce moved into her current home in North Somerville. The trend of the 12-foot Home-Depot skeleton was just emerging and Joyce was itching to have her own larger-than-life holiday display, but giant skeletons do not come cheap. She wondered if she could make something herself.
Joyce collected some PVC pipes, leaned into her thrifting savvy and picked up a pair of pants secondhand at Goodwill, rescued a few plastic bottles from the recycling bin, and got to work.
Jack Skellington came together the first year. The PVC pipes became his lanky, skeletal limbs, and a single pair of pants was cut, lengthened, and taken in to accommodate his long and lean stature. Paper mâché, spray foam, paint, and shellac became his head.
He was raised in Joyce’s front yard, which is situated on a heavily foot-trafficked block, between the Tufts University campus, a pre-school, and an elementary school.
Jack made a great first impression on the community. Neighbors were instantly enamored. The positive reviews Joyce heard from passersby encouraged her to keep going.
The following October brought Jack two new companions, Zero and Oogie Boogie. Zero, Jack’s deceased canine companion is made from clothes hangers, pool noodles, and a curtain, with his paper mache snout molded around a plastic Dollar-Store skeleton. Oogie Boogie—the movie’s main antagonist: a monstrous burlap sack brought to life by the bugs wriggling about within, and spilling out his seams—came together around tomato cages and an inflatable exercise ball.
In 2023, Halloween Town got its iconic gates, sign, and hometown sweetheart, Sally. Joyce said Sally was one of the most challenging characters to design. In the movie, Sally is a rag doll, pieced together by a mad scientist. Unlike Jack, her form is more than just skin and bone, but she is less amorphic than Oogie Boogie, meaning she took some sculpting to get right. Luckily, a friend’s recent move had generated an excess of styrofoam, which became Sally’s innards. Joyce sewed her a patchwork dress, and finished her with paper mache, air-dry clay, and paint.
That fall Halloween Town also got a tech upgrade, welcoming its first moving element and a soundtrack. In the movie, the Mayor of Halloween Town is known for his two distinct faces, one a permanent, rosy smile, the other a pallid grimace. To portray him, Joyce painted one face on either side of a cone-shaped head and attached it to his shoulders using the stand of a rotating sunglasses display. The Mayor was installed on her porch where he could be attached to an extension cord that would power his spinning cranium. She also installed a small box with a motion sensor. When visitors wave at the box, it plays the Nightmare Before Christmas theme song.
This year’s Halloween Town updates brought three new kids to the block. Lock, Shock, and Barrell—or the Boogie Boys—are a trio of malevolent trick-or-treaters. Lock, the devil-clad leader of the group was Joyce’s first take at incorporating motors into her creations. Using the motor from a moving reindeer decoration, she powered a jerky side-to-side motion in Lock to portray his shaking of a caged bug. Otherwise, he is made from PVC pipes, insulation board, paper clay, and pool noodles.
Early on, Joyce let the characters make their own introductions to the neighborhood, preferring to duck inside when folks stopped by to admire her creations. But she eventually began to interact with passersby. “[it’s] nice to talk to your community.” She said. She has gotten to know many people this way and even forged a few decoration-based friendships with neighbors who have their own displays.
She likes the natural way people interact with the art, walking down the street and being surprised by an unexpected display. “It’s really nice to see everyone’s happiness and joy over something random.”
One late October evening, just as darkness was fully settling in over the neighborhood, a group of about 12 runners paused their watches in front of Halloween Town. “This is the first stop on our tour,” one of them explained. In celebration of Halloween, the club was spicing up its exercise routine by visiting several of the best seasonal sights within running distance of Davis Square.
“These are amazing!” one of the runners exclaimed. When another pointed out they were homemade, a third was astonished, “wait, all of them?” they asked.
The runners are not the only group to schedule a visit to Joyce’s yard. For many, paying homage to Halloween Town has become a tradition. The display can take time to set up each year, and while Joyce occasionally worries about her timeline, she said that some families enjoy watching it come together piece by piece. She hears them remark on how it evolves a little more each day they walk by.
There is also some friendly competition across town now. After hearing kids say the superlative for best Halloween display was between hers and one a few blocks over, Joyce had to see for herself what she was contending with. A quick trip to Electric Ave showed an admittedly impressive display, but one that she says wins in a category of its own. Its artistry is in the curation and set up of store-bought items rather than the creation of original pieces.
With all that is on display at Halloween Town, it is easy to imagine Joyce has a formal background in set making, engineering, or something of the like. She does not. Joyce grew up in a crafty household, with a mother who was an artist and elementary school teacher. She took up quilting at a young age, and has been a skilled sewer for some years. But creating Halloween Town meant mostly learning as she went. She leaned into YouTube as a resource for tutorials and inspiration; referenced examples of similar things people had made on a smaller scale; and returned again and again to the movie itself.
Bringing to life the residents of Halloween Town also meant overcoming some fears. A while ago, Joyce began dabbling in woodworking, but suffered a serious injury to one of her hands that turned her off from it for some time. Eventually, she realized she might need to give those skills another try if she were to accomplish certain effects with her characters. Now, she said, she feels fairly comfortable practicing the techniques.
Joyce loves the process of creating these characters and their surroundings. It challenges her to work with different mediums, vary techniques, and continually learn new skills. Throughout it, she said, “There’s a lot of good little mini moments”. But some of her favorites happen when she first sees something come together well. Up until the finishing touches, Joyce is holding her breath, wondering if it will look the way she hopes. When she finally steps back to see that it has, she said, “it’s really exciting when it works out.”
At the end of the season, most of Halloween Town breaks down into compact parts. Only Oogie Boogie lives out the year full-size. To accommodate him, Joyce facilitates a migration to her parent’s home on the south shore where he has more room to stretch out.
So what’s next for Halloween Town? Is development on the horizon? Maybe. “Life in Somerville is transient,” said Joyce. She has thought about how she would break the news to the tourists of Halloween Town if she were to move and has a few ideas up her sleeve. But if she is still here next year, she has her eye on a wheel for Oogie Boogie and a draft plan for the town’s centerpiece fountain.
In the meantime, as Halloween falls into the rearview, Jack is preparing to cede his annual moment of fame to his good friends from Christmas Town.
Videos of the display and sneak peeks behind the scenes at the making process live on Joyce's Instagram @crafty_joycee
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