Albert used to have a good head on his shoulders. Now it resides in a case at Cemetery Pulp. A human skull might sound wild, but it’s pretty tame compared to the rest of the oddities at this offbeat Las Vegas shop.
“We’re the fairy dead parents for a reason,” says Erin Emre, who opened the shop with her partner, Chris Kmit, in 2021. “There’s a lot of kids that are shunned for being the weird kids, you know? Or their families are like ‘Why do you like this stuff? It’s so weird.’
Cemetery Pulp functions as Kmit and Emre’s own bizarre little biome, where animal skulls are arranged by size, books on cemeteries to see before you die are the best-sellers, and taxidermied raccoons are frozen mid-growl and draped in tuxes and tutus handpicked by Emre.
There are glowing corners of uranium glassware, a wall of comic books, chemically treated photos from the 1800s (“They were made with cyanide, and the people making them actually died,” Emre says) and a custom ceiling of bronze tile accents. You know, for the vibe.
“We wanted to make sure when you walked in you didn’t think you were in a strip mall still,” says Kmit.
Owners Chris Kmit and Erin Emre at Cemetery Pulp.
“If we’re gonna be open seven days a week, we’ve gotta make it look like home,” Emre adds.
Wet specimens in jars, submerged in isopropyl alcohol, are also a sight to behold at the shop, offering customers a rare look at beautifully preserved animals in the last moments of their life.
“There’s a weird spirituality to oddities that a lot of people don’t really get until you come in,” Emre says, and that goes for taxidermy, too.
Kmit and Emre are adamant about using every part of the animal to honor them, and encourage guests to touch the taxidermy as a way to muster more appreciation and to conquer their fears. As owners of a rescue animal themselves (see: the 40-pound albino Burmese python, Eddie), they regularly raise funds for local animal shelters and sanctuaries, too.
So with so many dead things on display, do spirits linger at Cemetery Pulp? Emre confirms lots do. “People get kind of bummed out that they’re not punching us in the face or whatever, but they’re all very nice,” she laughs. “They kind of just want to be acknowledged, really.”
Cemetery Pulp has hosted paranormal classes, and if you ever want to learn other useful things like how to play Dungeons & Dragons, hold a seance or get into taxidermy, the shop has weekly events, including local concerts.
The owners credit the resurgence of D&D, the goth subculture and shows like Oddities on the Discovery Channel for making the weird “come out of the woodwork.” They’ve watched dates unfold at Cemetery Pulp. There have been weddings.
“Everyone is welcome,” Emre says. “I think that’s the big thing with the oddities culture: It’s not just dead things. It’s people of all different personalities who are normally shunned in a regular scene. They can come here, and let’s just all be weird together.”
CEMETERY PULP 3950 E. Sunset Road #106, 725-206-5412, cemeterypulp.com. Daily, 11 a.m.-8 p.m.
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