Here I am, posing with a bust of Nosferatu (I’m the one on the right) at VAMPA, Doylestown, PA’s museum of paranormal antiquities, which I visited with my newspaper editor, Dan Aubrey (now retired), in March – on a Friday the 13th, no less. The place is a trip, in more ways than one, and of course perfect for the Halloween season.

If you go, don’t expect any vampire signage visible from the road. It masquerades as an antiques business, and I suppose justifies the bait-and-switch by loading the property with abundant lawn ornaments and a barn full of antiques and souvenirs, not all of which are related to the supernatural. (If you’ve been looking for cast iron Popeyes, you’ll find plenty of them here.)

But once you find the museum, get ready for room after room of vampire extermination kits, exorcism chairs, fetish statues, haunted dolls, a skeleton chair that belonged to Vincent Price, a whole lot of occult material that belonged to Liza Minnelli’s ex-husband, a vampire-killing kit that briefly belonged to Michael Jackson (some Jehovah’s Witnesses convinced him to get rid of it), an autographed photo of Caroline Munro from “Dracula AD 1972,” a 16th century statue of Mesopotamian wind demon Pazuzu (of “The Exorcist” fame), even a horse-drawn hearse, and at the end, a room crammed with enough religious paintings and statuary that you can be confident you’ve shaken off all the evil. When I was there, Gregorian chant played throughout.

There’s also a dinosaur park, a reflective pool with dolphin fountain and mermaid statuary, and a Zen sculpture garden. Peacocks roam the grounds.

If you’re looking for a unique and quirky way to pass an autumn afternoon, you can’t do better than VAMPA.

Check ahead for the business hours. The museum is open Thursday through Sunday, 10-5, but sometimes there are adjustments for holidays. Children under 6 are admitted free. That’s got to be a joke, right?

https://www.vampamuseum.com/