Estes Park: How a Colorado mountain town became a hub for horror fans

A chilling new museum and horror film centre are transforming the Rocky Mountains into a horror destination.

In his more than 30 years at the helm of the historic Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, owner John Cullen has embraced the property's legacy as the horror-filled setting for Stephen King's 1977 hit novel, The Shining, and the inspiration for the Stanley Kubrick film of the same name. The allegedly haunted property is known for attracting travellers from around the world, and Cullen takes pride in offering visitors more than just a good night's sleep. "That's not enough," he said. "People want more: They want experiences."

So it wasn't out of character last year when Cullen proposed an unorthodox use for the hotel's obsolete 1909 ice house: add a famous frozen dead guy and open the world's first public museum dedicated to the science of cryonic preservation.

Launched in December 2023, the International Cryonics Museum educates visitors about the scientific practice of deep-freezing the bodies of those who have just died in hopes that scientific advances will allow them to be revived in the future. The museum's cryonics partner, Alcor, is a nonprofit cryonics-research organisation that played a key role in relocating and preserving the museum's centerpiece: the frozen body of a Norwegian man named Bredo Morstoel.

Between Estes Park's Frozen Dead Guy Days festival and Grandpa Bredo's status as the literal frozen dead guy within the museum, Cullen says the town is ensuring Bredo's legacy.

"We took him full circle," Cullen added.

And while horror fans may be drawn by the museum's morbid subject matter, there's nothing too gruesome inside, explains James Arrowood, Alcor's co-chief executive officer.

"You come into this [museum] expecting to see some horror-type show," he said. "And yet, you're given this huge education about hard science. That's the twist."

Exhibits feature a brief history and some artefacts, including a "sleeping bag" in which patients are prepared upon entering a cryonic storage chamber known as a "dewar".

Visitors learn about potential medical applications of cryonics in the near future, from improving organ transplants and trauma medicine to curing diseases such as Alzheimer's. Cryonics may even help preserve near-extinct animal species.

Museumgoers will also get to see Grandpa Bredo, though only in photos and likenesses adorning his wooden and glass enclosure. His frozen body is enclosed within the shiny steel confines of his dewar, a thermos-like chamber maintaining Grandpa's subzero bath of liquid nitrogen at -130 C (-202F), according to Alcor. Scientists monitor him remotely.

Grandpa Bredo's story began shortly after his death in 1989. Daughter Aud Morstoel and grandson Trygve Bauge, both cryonics enthusiasts, had his body shipped immediately to a cryonics facility in California, where he remained until 1993. The saga might have ended there, allowing Grandpa an anonymous afterlife in an eternal subzero cocoon, but his family famously relocated him to their property near Nederland, Colorado, situated roughly 40 miles (64 km) south of Estes Park. Word spread quickly: townsfolk were outraged to learn about a frozen dead body chilling on dry ice in a nearby residence. And so, the legend/icon of the Estes Park "frozen dead guy" was born. (A hastily passed town code swiftly made it illegal to store a frozen human body at home, yet, Bredo was grandfathered in.)

The Frozen Dead Guy Days festival has been celebrated in Nederland every March since 2002 (save for two pandemic years). The original festival honoured Bredo with live music, a hearse parade and a polar plunge. But its burgeoning popularity grew to more than 22,000 revellers by 2022, forcing town officials to cancel the event in 2023. Cullen seized on the business opportunity to draw tourists to Estes Park's small businesses during the dead of winter, buying the festival rights from organisers in December 2022.

This past August, Grandpa Bredo was transported to his new residence in the ice house after more than 30 years in a shed. And it's just in time for his 2024 celebration, which organisers hope will attract more than 10,000 attendees.

Macabre fans will, however, still need to wait a couple of years for the hotel's next fright-filled project: a more-than-10,000-sq-ft (25,900-sq-km) exhibit space for the Stanley Film Center, billed as a mini museum dedicated to horror.

Although Estes Park is renowned as a scenic basecamp for outdoor adventures in Rocky Mountain National Park, the town welcomes its alternate status as a horror hotspot.

"The entertainment and horror industry has been a driver of tourism for quite some time," said Rebecca Domenico-Gelsinger, chief operating officer of Visit Estes Park. "We're excited to continue to evolve the town to attract diverse audiences."

The International Cryonics Museum opens daily from 10:00 to 22:00 local time. A 60-minute Frozen Dead Guy Tour costs $20 (£15.55) per person.

This year's Frozen Dead Guy Days festival begins Thursday 16 March 2024, offering a host of satellite events hosted throughout Estes Park through Sunday, 17 March.

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