Historic Mansion Hosts Halloween Double Feature

The Carlyle House Historic Park is home to an 18th-century house museum and gardens in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. In addition to tours and exhibits, the park regularly hosts programming for its community that honors the Georgian residential architecture venue. Events include preservation highlights, yoga, whiskey tastings, craft nights and holiday celebrations. Last year, for Halloween, the park’s programmers decided that in addition to their trick-or-treating event and spooky scavenger hunt, the Carlyle House would also host a double feature movie screening event!

Their planning began with movie selection. “We initially selected six horror movies, all from the curator of education’s personal collection, and then allowed everyone in the community the chance to vote for which two they wanted to watch as part of the double feature,” shared Allison Kelley, the park’s curator of education. They shared this poll on their official Facebook account about two weeks prior to the event, with “Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Cabin in the Woods” coming out on top. And in case people didn’t want to attend both films that night, the organizer’s made sure to release the general start times of both films so everyone could plan their arrivals accordingly.

To further create a custom experience that suited each attendee, the organizers allowed attendees to bring in their own food and beverages. With attendance only costing $2 per person (only $1 a film), the option to bring-your-own-concessions further ensured this was an affordable Halloween programming option for the entire community. And in case attendees wanted the convenience of concessions, popcorn, water and sodas were also available for purchase.

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