Boys and girls of every age/Wouldn't you like to see something strange?/Come with us and you will see...
This is a setting with a creepy motif. The buildings are gothic in design (often clearly modeled on
The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari), there's always a heavy fog in the air that obscures your vision, and the full moon always lights the cloud-draped sky... even at 2:30 in the afternoon. Halloweentown is usually inhabited by
the usual assortment of horror trope creatures. The main color schemes are
black, gray, black, orange, sickly green, and black...sometimes in combination.
Despite the somber colors and the Horror Trope decor, this setting is not always played solemnly. Imagine the
Perky Goth or
Nightmare Fetishist character as a setting, and you've got this place. It's less
Eastern European and more trick or treat. Halloweentown is usually not that scary, at least not intentionally so. It's intended to be somewhat
playful and fun. A good way to tell if a series is set in a place like this is if there are jack-o-lanterns and it's not Halloween, although it's not a prerequisite.
A very popular video game setting.
Contrast with
Uberwald, a much more serious, and much less fun, take on the classic "spooky" setting. Not to be confused with
Halloweentown, a made-for-TV
Halloween Special by Disney.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
Film
Live Action TV
Video Games
- Animal Crossing has the Spooky furniture set, which can only be found on—of course—Halloween. It allows you to turn your house into one of these.
- Mad Monster Mansion in Banjo Kazooie.
- Croatoa, a zone in City Of Heroes, is fog-encrusted, and inhabited by ghosts, witches, Red Caps, and fire-breathing Jack-o-Lantern plant monsters.
- Horrorland in the now ancient Goosebumps point and click adventure game Escape from Horrorland.
- Conker'sBadFurDay has the aptly-titled Scary level, which seems to be this, except there actually are flesh-eating zombies and vampires that you have to kill.
- The Netherworld/Makai in every iteration of Disgaea and its sister series.
- Donkey Kong Country 2 has one of these.
- Speaking of Rare's Donkey Kong games I think Creepy Castle from Donkey Kong 64 probably deserves a mention.
- In Kingdom Hearts, the protagonist actually visits the trope-naming town a couple times. Then subverted somewhat, however, in Kingdom Hearts 2, where The Very Definitely Final Dungeon is a dystopian city.
- Haunted House on the Atari is one of the first games to be set here.
- Ooga Booga Land from King's Quest VII.
- The entirety of Luigis Mansion.
- The final world of New Super Mario Brothers has a distincty Halloweeny feel. And walking Pumpkins.
- Twilight Town in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door exists in a state of perpetual twilight, with a gigantic yellow full moon in the sky, and is inhabited mainly by crows and the gothic Twilighters.
- Niffleheim in the somewhat obscure MMO Angels Online.
- Actually it's Ragnarok Online. Unless they both have a town of the same name with the same setting.
- The original Niflheim was the frozen underworld of Norse m
- Pumpkin Hill, Aquatic Mine, and several other levels in Sonic Adventure 2.
- The setting of Soul Eater.
- Super Mario Land 2 has the Pumpkin Zone.
- Super Mario World has an unlockable skin that turns the game into this if you can beat the special stages.
- I can't believe no one mentioned World of Warcraft's own Undercity, home of the Forsaken undead. This is a city built completely underground. All the buildings are gothic in design, skull-shaped decorations abound. Green-yellow goo (in which you can surprisingly fish) flows in the canals. The city is guarded by giant abominations (read Frankenstein's Monsters). One of the quarters of the city is "The Apothecarium": a laboratory destined to the production of said monsters and the development of new Plagues. All the inhabitants are obviously undead. The ruler is a Banshee and the co-ruler (used to be, until his failed takeover attempt) a vampire-demon. This is the actual capital city for a player race, too. Not a vile dungeon you need to destroy.
- As far as actual dungeons are concerned, Naxxramas probably qualifies. A flying Necropolis filled with more indead horrors your mind can comprehend.
Western Animation
- The Neitherworld in the animated adaptation of Beetlejuice. It's full of bizarre buildings, gothic looking scenery, twisted backgrounds, and strange creatures of all shapes and sizes. Of course, the creatures are, for the most part pretty friendly if a little strange.
- Casper's Scare School has its school here.
- Ruby Gloom is set here.
