Monroe — Downtown Monroe is dead today. Few storefronts are open, and everyone is driving through town.
According to one lifetime resident, Monroe was once a walkable city. As a child, she would walk to the store, to her school, and to her parish. But now, the city is a beautiful and empty shell.
Monroe’s cannabis shops are what bring people to town these days, but there is one attraction that is open all year on the main drag. It is the Michigan Museum of Horror.
Yep. Close your eyes if you want, but Monroe has more than a dozen marjuana dispensaries and a Museum of Horror that is open year-round, not just around Halloween.
Nate Thompson, a local horror filmmaker, started the museum back in October 2022. He used to play in metal bands, but in 2020, he began his career in film with the release of his short film, “What Lives in the Dark.” The museum is his passion project. Born and raised here, Thompson wanted to bring his love of horror to the downtown he loves. He is an example of Monroe’s loyal residents.
Thompson also created Horror Town, a haunted Western ghost town in the Irish Hills, and recently opened The Ohio Museum of Horror in Galion, Ohio. He told me the Michigan location was his favorite and serves as the benchmark for all his other projects.
If you google pictures of Thompson, he is scowling and looks heavy metal. But when I asked him some questions, I was surprised to find he didn’t sound anything like James Earl Jones or Bela Lugosi. He was a gentleman with a Michigan accent. The museum’s grotesque side didn’t match the owner’s demeanor.
I asked him why he chose to keep his museum open all year. He said he wasn’t entirely sure it would work at first, but he quickly found out Monroe had a community of horror fans.
“When we aren’t in our slow season, which is from December to February, we usually get about 1,000 people a week. Fridays and Saturdays are our busiest days,” he said.
On a Wednesday evening, I visited the museum to investigate. Upon entering, the man at the welcome desk informed me that everything I saw in the museum was “ethically sourced.” Before I continued on to the exhibits, the attendant told me there was a taxidermy room on the second floor. For a second I thought, “What kind of freak show is this?” But then I realized he meant animals.
I toured the second floor first and found a Mogwai fur ball from “Gremlins,” a costume from “Alien: Resurrection,” and an outfit from “Scooby-Doo 2.” That was the fun stuff. The rest of the room contained dark memorabilia, including a wall of Ouija boards. I didn’t go over there.
In the corner was the taxidermy room. It was tight, with the faces of animal mounts inches from my face. Two shelves filled with jars were to my right. I focused on the zebra skull and the wolf head, mostly because I didn’t want to know what was floating in the jars.
When I walked back down to the first floor, I noticed the exhibit for dead body parts, mostly old bones. I averted my eyes and walked over to a small vial of Charles Manson’s cremated remains.
Next to the bone display was a walled-off area. Red lights, like the ones for developing photographs, shone out from the edges of a black curtain. This 18+ area was called “The Red Room” and contained gory true-crime photographs. Listening to my conscience, I didn’t go in.
After that, I left. I don’t think I was in the museum for more than 10 minutes.
Much of the museum is for people who like fun spooky stuff. But the rest is no carnival. It’s not trick or treating in white bedsheets. I think the freak show goes too far.
If a homicide detective, a policeman, or a doctor walked into the Red Room at the museum, he would be displeased. Why? Because those professions require a loss of innocence that we plumbers, teachers, engineers, and housewives have the freedom to maintain.
Some professions involve seeing the insides of bodies. But a homicide detective doesn’t think his job is fun. He does it to protect the weak. And after he retires, he is worn down. You won’t find him at the Museum of Horror.
The horror genre is known for reflecting the guilt a culture feels. “Dracula” is an allegory about rape and syphilis. Frankenstein’s monster represents the ugly state of man when he rejects God’s moral order. “Alien” reflects the guilt our culture felt in the 1970s for severing sex from reproduction. But sometimes people separate the morality of the horror genre and simply make it a flavor. Or a bloodbath.
Thompson, who seems like a decent man, thinks he’s set up a novelty shop, not a porn shop. But that’s what some of the Michigan Museum of Horror is.
Within all of us is a carnal desire to see the forbidden revealed. We want to know things, to test our consciences, to cross lines, to see the truly horrible. And by doing this, we befriend death.
Maybe the pot shops and the horror museum here are a reflection of what happens to us when we embrace that desire.
Noah Wing is a contributing writer for Michigan Enjoyer. You can subscribe to his newsletter at noahwing.substack.com.
