Lemax Spooky Town Halloween Villages

Now that our new web site seems moderately stable, let’s look at some of the products we sell. Lemax manufactures Christmas and Halloween villages. I love the Halloween line, called Spooky Town. There are buildings, houses, figurines, and accessories that you can combine in nearly infinite combinations to achieve the right look.

Lemax produced the first Spooky Town merchandise in 2000, probably as an experiment. The line was very popular, probably more popular than they were expecting. Being a conservative company, Lemax (I suspect) wanted to see the sales figures before producing more of the line. (This happened again in 2004 with the nascence of the Carnival Series.)



Because of production lead times, Lemax couldn’t react to the popularity again until the 2002 season, when they produced the next batch of Spooky Town products.



From then on, the Spooky Town series has seen 50 to 100 new products annually. For the past few years, in fact, Lemax has produced enough Halloween merchandise to warrant having a Halloween catalog separate from their Christmas catalog.



The Spooky Town series began as two lines: one tame and the other more macabre. By the advent of the 2003 merchandise, the two lines offered enough variety that collectors could specialize in one or the other. Snow-less houses, costumed adolescent trick-or-treaters, and fright-free accessories appealed to one target audience. Those more gruesome collectors preferred the horrific houses, frightening figurines, and action-packed accessories.



Some collectors even customized their collectibles, adding more gore to suit their tastes. Over the years we’ve sponsored quite a few Lemax village decorating contests, but I can’t readily find photos of the winners. There are some doozies, believe me!

In 2006 and 2007, Lemax began deemphasizing the milder Spooky Town houses (to the chagrin of collectors). New lines began to emerge. Today, there are several strong themes, including pirates, ancient Egyptians, the Wild West, and famous monsters from the movies. Each of these lines has enough buildings, figurines, and accessories to create distinct villages entirely based on one of those themes.

There are now three pirate ships (including the Jolly Roger), a Pirate Island centerpiece, and dozens of figurines and accessories.



Ancient Eqypt is well represented with a pyramid, a chariot, palm trees of various sizes, plenty of accessories and figurines, and a plethora of other buildings.



The Wild Western line is coming along with a saloon, a buckboard manned by skeletons, dance hall girls, and a dozen or so other pieces large and small.



Whether you prefer Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf-Man, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, or the Mummy, you’ll find a great selection of movie monsters.



The Spooky Town line is long and strong, with dozens of wonderful, repugnant, hideous, shocking pieces to suit all tastes. Halloween has become the second most-decorated holiday in the United States. People enjoy displaying their Lemax Halloween villages right up till its time to decorate for Christmas.

If you enjoyed reading this article, please share it with a friend. To see the entire line of Lemax Spooky Town merchandise, please visit www.lemaxvillages.com.