By Brian Connors
With Halloween right around the corner, kids and adults alike want to dress up. Visit Halloween City in Leominster and there are many costumes to choose from. This is not to be confused with Halloween Costume World, which is nearby, but closed down as of 2014.
At Halloween City you’ve got the classic spooky costumes such as the Grim Reaper, skeletons, witches and ghosts, or you can grab a presidential candidate mask. Though these characters have been trending in the media for some time now, they are far from the most popular costumes. Not surprising, considering a lot of these costumes are aimed toward the kids going trick or treating. Store clerk Paula had some things to say regarding the popularity of costumes this year.
The biggest sellers this year were TV and movie related, she said. Among small children, characters from the Nick Jr. show “Paw Patrol” were “very popular and quickly sold out, she said. “It was the same with characters from the Nickelodeon show “Loud House.” Costumes from the Mattel doll line and cartoon “Monster High” were popular among little girls, but didn’t sell well overall. The older kids, however, were more interested in the movie-related costumes. One of the most popular was the character Harley Quinn from the DC Universe movie “Suicide Squad.” “She’s that psycho clown chick with a baseball bat,” Paula said. “The teen girls loved this one.” She also noticed that Wade Wilson from the film “Dead Pool” was very trendy amongst the boys. Costumes from “Star Wars” were popular among all age groups, she said, as were superheroes, with Wookie being the most popular “Star Wars” costume. Batman and Spiderman, per usual, did the best this year for superheroes. Paula notes that “they tend to sell the most every year.”
Some of the more controversial costumes were a hit among adults. With all the talk about clowns (Hillary and Donald aside, though you can find them here too) it should be no surprise that you can find clown costumes. However, given the recent clown scares across the region, these were not selling too well. “I don’t think people would want to be mistaken for one of those bad clowns,” Paula said.
When asked about the popularity of the Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump masks, Paula exclaimed, “They look almost as scary as the real thing!” According to her, the Hillary and Donald masks were selling pretty well. Obama was available too, but not as many customers were interested.
With the recent shooting of Harambe, the gorilla that was shot in order to protect the life of a 3-year-old who fell into his enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo on May 28, there is a gorilla costume present, but the clerk could neither confirm nor deny that the costume was meant to represent him. “We’ll let the customers decide that for themselves,” Paula said. This is to be expected as there has been a lot of controversy surrounding the shooting.
With Halloween just around the corner, there will be no shortage of costumes available at Halloween City, located at the Watertown Plaza in Leominster.