I really love the town of St. Helens, Oregon. We filmed the first “Halloweentown” movie there and ever since then, in the fall, the town recreates the Town Square in honor of the movie.
I’ve had the honor over the past couple of years of visiting the town during the festival and leading the lighting ceremony of the jack o’lantern in the center of the town to kick off the festivities. It’s still amazing to me that after all these years people still want to watch and talk about our little Halloween movie-I’m always so touched!
This year, the rest of the Cromwell family came with me! Judith Hoag (“Gwen”), J. Paul Zimmerman (“Dylan”), and Emily Roeske Chapman (“Sophie”) and I reunited at the festival for the first time since we filmed “Halloweentown High!” It was so special to have the family back together again, especially because we all wanted to pay tribute to the late great Debbie Reynolds, who had such a massive impact on all of our lives. She passed away in December of 2016, and I couldn’t be more grateful that I got to spend time with her not only as a co-worker, but also as a friend. We kept in touch after we finished filming the movies and I’ll always cherish the fun adventures we had together.
During this year’s lighting ceremony the entire cast paid tribute to Debbie by dedicating a small monument to her in the Town Square and recalling stories and jokes she told while filming. We then all said the talisman spell from the 1st movie to light the jack o’lantern and officially kick off the festival for 2017.
I made a little behind the scenes video from our day in St. Helens. You can view it on my Youtube page here: https://youtu.be/ZWY8SmaC6AI
Thank you to everyone who made the trip out to see us and everyone who was with us in spirit! It was truly an awesome weekend to remember Debbie and relive the magic of the movie-Thank you to all the fans for always keeping that alive 🙂
🙂 KJB