Gary Durante has opened body bags over the years, but the funeral director looks forward to wearing one Saturday.
A bag will serve as a costume Saturday when Durante, 45, of Chicago hosts a Halloween bash that began in the mid-1990s as a small birthday party for him and has turned into an annual celebration he likens to a wedding with spooky activities and special effects.
New this year is what Durante, who owns a funeral service in Des Plaines, calls a “mandatory donation.” Partygoers at the Des Plaines Elks Lodge, 495 Lee St., will write their favorite charity on a piece of paper. Three will be drawn and share the proceeds of admission fees.
A few years ago Durante designed a “house of horrors kitchen” in which he placed fake severed heads on plates and filled cabinets and a refrigerator with fake body parts. The most elaborate, he said, was a mock funeral with an open casket and corpse that jumped to life as partygoers walked a foggy aisle to pay their respects.
The spooky props Durante has accumulated can fill a van and take up a hunk of space in the basement of the home of his niece, Vanessa Camacho, who works with her uncle at the funeral home and helps plan the party.
“It’s always been his holy day,” Camacho, 27, said of Durante’s love for Halloween. “He gets a kick out of doing this and he is in the business, so he has more fun with it and feels more at home with it.”
Being a Halloween party planner isn’t a stretch from his funeral service job of 24 years, said Durante, who expects about 200 guests. “What people may think is gory to me is just everyday life,” he said.
Nancy Ingold, a funeral director at Weinstein Funeral Home in Wilmette, said she’s been to every one of Durante’s parties.
“Gary does something every year a little bit different,” always stepping it up a notch, she said.
The party is from 6 p.m. to midnight and admission is $15 per person or $20 per couple.
