The Museum of Death gives me a new appreciation for life

When you visit the Museum of Death in Hollywood, California, the first graphic thing you will see is a photo—undated, but very 1970s-looking–of a motorcycle rider who has been in an unfortunate accident that ended with the rider’s body parts strewn around the road. On some level, I was expecting something like this, but the notes I took after my visit (taking photos is not allowed) carry this warning: “DON’T RIDE MOTORCYCLES; THEY ARE BAD.”

I have been wanting to visit the Museum of Death for over a decade, after I learned in 2003 that its collection boasts a recreation of one of the Heaven’s Gate mansion rooms, post-mass suicide. I’ll get to that part of the collection later; and yes, it was worth the wait. MOD is a small museum, but there is a lot of material in it—to the point that I missed a couple of displays that I had wanted to view. It’s divided up into various rooms and collections: the serial killer room, the Manson room, the specimen room, and more.

There is a hallway dedicated to “heads and tails” that showcases photos of human heads removed from their bodies. The first room in the museum collects odd serial killer and prison memorabilia; highlights include an actual pair of clown shoes that belonged to John Wayne Gacy, a miniature guillotine and gallows (complete with tiny nooses) crafted by an anonymous San Quentin inmate, and a very 1990s set of “Serial Killer Action Figures” still encased in their original display boxes. There is also the preserved head of the French serial killer Henri Landru on display. The head is dried in a way that makes it resemble beef jerky. (This observation prompted me to wonder what it smells like, although I would never want to find that out.)

One larger room is dedicated to funereal practices of the past and present; as clips from an instructional video on embalming play on a loop, a visitor can survey an exhibit on Victorian mourning practices (if you’ve never seen a Victorian mourning dress, you will get to see one here) and death photography, the Dia de Los Muertos holiday, and modern autopsy practices. There’s more in an adjacent room: custom coffins built by a husband-and-wife team of local artists, a life-size mannequin of shock musician GG Allin, and a taxidermied pet pig named Chaos, who once belonged to the museum’s curator-owners. The smaller “specimen room” shows off various preserved creatures, including one adorable puppy in formaldehyde, a Pomeranian that just slightly tips into Uncanny Valley territory, and an almost translucent human fetus in a tiny jar. A small card notes that the fetus was donated to the museum by musician Dave Navarro.

The Heaven’s Gate display was next on my MOD bucket list—of course, it was my favorite. Not only does the room boast a set of the actual bunk beds from the macabre event—and from one angle, a wooden keyhole that you can peek into, which cleverly references the group’s logo—but the room is wallpapered with news articles on the group that you can peruse as the taped final statement of leader Marshall Applewhite plays on a television. Next to the TV are a bottle of vodka, a six-pack of applesauce, and a can of Comet kitchen cleaner. I was reminded of Andy Warhol’s series of prints depicting car crashes and other human disasters, and while I am not sure that this was intentional, it did make the whole display memorable.

The thing that makes ending this article (heh) so difficult is that I have not even covered much of the collection; however, by the time I reached the Charles Manson room and viewed an eerie floral swastika quilt created by some of the ladies of the “family,” I was ready to reemerge into the sunlight, and the attendant sweltering heat of Los Angeles. The whole point of the Museum of Death is to be thankful that you are alive—and, in the words of a sign on the admission desk, “have a nice life!” Suggestion noted.

I still won’t ride a motorcycle, though.

Photo: Unruly Stowaway/Creative Commons