Mwahaha! Greetings to all of you. You're probably preparing for the eve of Hallow, where you will partake in the rituals that have been passed down from generation to generation. Now, everyone who makes content has to do some sort of gimmick for the holidays because that's what holidays are for. I was thinking of reviewing a movie, but I already did Blacula, and I'm not sure what other spin I could put on The Shining since everyone and their mother has some sort of alternate interpretation of it. Then I thought I would tell a scary story, but writing horror is a very tricky task to endure and I'd much rather try to wait a while until I somewhat understand properly how others managed to successfully scare the shit out of you simply with the power of words. As I kept skimming through the possibilities, I figured why not just get into talking about the holiday in a general sense. It's like killing multiple birds with one stone, only to find that they'll stay on my window-still and quote pretentious poetry driving me to either insanity or writing more pretentious poetry...which really isn't different from one another. But before we can even get to that, let's just get rid of the not-important stuff.
First off, the history of Halloween. According to History.com, Halloween began as a Celtic ritual where the drunk bastards would light a bonfire and prance around in costumes to scare off spirits. Then the Pope decided to make the day about saints and martyrs because the Catholic Church has to stick it's fingers into everything. Yeah, from that we came to what we have now. I'm sure there's other details I missed and nowadays the credibility of History has gone down the shitter ever since it decided to talk about aliens so maybe this is one whole fluke, but who cares? Valentine's Day probably has nothing to do with the Saint Valentine, Easter went from talking about Jesus's resurrection to a giant lagomorph hiding eggs and are we just gonna forget that Christmas used to be a time when Greek pagans would chug down wine and engage in orgies? But do we have to include this into what the holiday has become now? No, there's no need to do because we're fine with the new way we enjoy our silly holidays instead of going back to the old way of enjoying silly holidays. The only people who do are the ones that want to look like the biggest asshats. So there's really no point.
The other thing I want to talk about real quickly is Halloween-themed writing. Now as I've already mentioned above, writing something that really creeps people out is not easy. It's not impossible though since people like Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, H.G Wells and H.P Lovecraft managed to make the most iconic horror stories of our lifetime. Nowadays, the only one really churning out good horror is Stephen King and...uh...erm...maybe Neil Gaiman too? I dunno, there's not really many names to speak of. The crappy stuff on the other hand has gone through the roof ever since someone decided to make the creepypasta, which has the most ironic name since the Ministries in 1984. If that isn't bad enough, the whole "telling scary stories near a campfire" thing has died out, being replaced with "watching someone tell you an hour-and-a-half long scary story in a theatre that you have to pay for", but I'll get to that later. Point is, unless the person that wrote the story is an alcoholic who can't get enough of the lobster capital of the USA, there is absolutely no reason you should even bother with horror writing.
Now that we got the dull crap out of the way, let's talk about the important factors, such as costumes. I don't really know how people handled the costumes in the past, I assume it was just like another ball but with a more terrifying theme put forward. There was still the influence of popular culture in the choices that people would take no doubt, but it was usually the parts that were more horrifying such as vampires, werewolves, ghosts, witches and what-have-yous (those are so frightening that people melt right in front of you at the mere sight of your attire). As more and more stories started to enter into pop culture, there was a greater variety of creatures that you could disguise yourselves as for the occasion, but with that came the devolution of how scary the costumes would be. Today, Halloween is basically diluted to simply pop culture. With that said though, that's not to say that there isn't any effort put into costumes. Cosplay has been growing substantially throughout the years and people are able to make mindblowing costumes, some which will keep to the terrifying traditions. You'll just have to sift through the countless Walter Whites knocking at your door for candy. And you better believe one of those will be some chick who wants to make it unnecessarily sexy.
I'm sure "I am the Danger" means "I have crabs"
Speaking of sweet stuff, let's talk about candy. Now, one would think that I have to talk about trick-or-treating in here as well, but that's a different subject entirely. I'll get to it though. The treats that one gets on Halloween are subject to seven categories, the chocolates, the sugar powder kegs, the sweet-n-sours, candied apples, the inevitables, the miscellaneous and the hidden gem. The chocolates are by far the most popular with the kids as they will scarf them down first. It would be hard to speak for everyone on which one is the superior chocolate bar, but I'm sure one couldn't go wrong with Kit Kats. The sugar powder kegs would be the second ones that come through and these vary from being relatively okay for the youngins to turning them into pinballs. The sweet-n-sours are sometimes similar to the sugar powder kegs, at least in the wrapping. Kids will fall prey to one powerful mouth-vacuum accidentally thanks to this category and while some have the advent of being damn good, they're damn dangerous too. Candied apples are a nice little treat, and it's better to have that one first or put it in the fridge as fast as you can after a night collecting treats. The inevitables are the ones that no one wants to have, but will end up in the basket anyway. This is basically the black licorice, the raisin boxes and the mystery candy that no one wants to touch. You can guess what the miscellaneous are, but the hidden gem is by far the most important. It's the candy that everyone has had but no one can agree on. It's the best damn thing in the basket, bar none, and it's not as widely spread as the Hershey's or the Nestle's. Oh, I remember my hidden gem, it was quite the beauty...
I better not sidetrack myself about the talk about delicious candy, so allow me to collect my thoughts here...uh...what else...oh right! Decorating! It depends mainly on how enthusiastic the people in their house are around the holidays, and in a way it also depends on the house itself. Sure, one could spend all their time and effort buying props and turning their nice lawn into a graveyard. They could add little details to make their well-furbished house look like a monstrosity. Hell, they could even buy a fog machine and place stereos underground to really commit to the occasion, but I guarantee you that the nice old lady living in the crooked mansion up the hill, guarded by a large, black gate that seems to attract dozens of crows would win "Haunted House Of The Year" over that anytime. If we're gonna talk about decorating, we might as well talk about pumpkin carving too, because it's in the similar vein. The only difference is that effort actually accounts for something. It's a very tragic thing too because it's along the same lines as ice sculpting. Yes, it looks absolutely wonderful when someone takes time to add so much detail into the work, but it's a hell of a shame that it'll deteriorate faster than an internet meme.
I'm sure it was worth it to sculpt on something that'll last a week or two at most.
Getting back to candy, now we must talk about how one gets it as opposed to the candy itself. Through the trials of the trick-or-treat trail, one finds themselves looking upon many houses asking the owners for a delicacy. Much like the candy itself, there are select types of people you will meet along your quest for your cavity-creating rewards. There's the average Joe who might acknowledge how good you look in a costume and give you a reasonable handful of candy. Then there's the person who wants to go with a more personal touch and makes cookies or brownies and gives them to you. Sometimes, if you're lucky, you might find yourself with the humble rich family who will give you a full size or even king sized candy bar instead of those mini ones that all the other cheapskates throw in apathetically. Occasionally there might be the owner with some foreign/exotic candy and/or the house of an owner who's left and decides to put a bin of candy along with a letter that basically sums up to "hey, don't be a greedy fuck", but you'll go ahead and take as much as you can because you're not gonna listen to what a piece of paper says. Last and very much least is the jerk who'll either give you dental products, no candy or not even open the door. I'm not sure if the policy of tricking has changed recently thanks to this wave of PC-ness and/or pranksters going too far with the comeback, but usually that house ends up with the most eggs on the door and toilet-paper on the trees.
If you're too old for that sort of kiddy crap, you can always go to a Halloween party. Halloween parties basically substitute the overload of sugar with the overload of alcohol. All of them basically just dumb down to "make an ass out of yourself while in a costume" but some get inventive with stuff like jello shots with toy insects inside them or glowing cocktails that give you the feeling someone put glowstick fluid inside the drinks. As for the types of people, you have the people who put too little effort in their costume, people who put too much effort into it, the usual crap either consisting of cliche characters or modern references and my personal favorite, the super-sexy costumes. Though, it has become more and more of a touchy subject when it comes to the kinky costumes. And I realize that while that pun was unintentionally great, it's also unintentionally tragic for some cases. Now, it may sound like fun to go to a Halloween party, but you have to consider that when you wake up with a hangover, you might find your snazzy costume covered with puke (either from you or another party) and getting a picture on your phone where you were frenching some witch and bobbing her apples too...or maybe his.
By far though, the most iconic thing that has come out of Halloween is the movies. The black and white era practically had a field day with Universal Studios making the classics that we revel in. It actually was quite fitting to have these shock-filled films be without color as it really made the atmosphere that more eerie. Much of the stories said above were adapted to films and brought home some eerie folk like Vincent Price, Bela Lugosi, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff. Along with the real creepy stuff was the more over-the-top work which we refer to as B-Movies. They still had some semblance of scares, but the cheese factor was more prevalent. They were still fun, and in a way they captured the holiday spirit, but it's not as highly-regarded as the other work. Over the years, those two seemed to blend a bit more, but iconic characters still came out from it. Mike Myers, Jason Voorhees, Leatherface and Freddy Kreuger made their names in the holiday and left people screaming out the theatres. Though the one that did that the most is still the masterpiece of The Exorcist. How about today? Well, I don't wan't to sound like a cynic since I like movies like Saw, but horror really isn't that good today. There's certainly some good horror films and there are films that capture horror elements perfectly, but there's no denying there's a lot more schlock, sequels and remakes. And I swear to god if I see another Paranormal Activity or a Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I'm going to do something that will inspire them to make a story on my reign of terror, you mark my fucking words.
I swear to god I saw an internet ad for this that said "Keep calm and Carrie on", I shit you not.
The holiday has certainly had a weird evolution since it has become less about fear and menacing monsters and more about binging and banging. It's still certainly something to celebrate because it's the one time that you can wear whatever crazy thing you want without having to be labelled as a freak or convention frequenter. It's a time when we can see the night sky and find a little more than just the stars and the full moon. There's a sense of mystery and wonder there too and if you stop chugging a bottle or scarfing down candy for a second you can sense it and find yourself entranced by it. Plus, it's not like the fear has completely vanished. If anything, the fact that there seems to be less genuine scares helps it to hide in the mesh of everything else. It deludes you into thinking that you're safe from the vile unknown that will come to consume you. And when you're safe at home, relaxing, thinking that this holiday has become nothing but a former shell of itself...that's when it gets you. Sure, you might think that perhaps what will come after you won't be as creepy as anything else. Maybe you'll scoff the idea off and imagine some cheap cardboard cutout being tossed towards your direction for a cheap jump-scare. But as time has gone on, humanity has evolved, and as humanity has evolved, so has it's knowledge of itself. And when the most twisted and disturbed of minds are capable to dive deep into the depths of what we all are afraid of, when they can tamper with the world that we have set up in order to use it against us, that's when we have to realize that there is no place to be safe from what the day is really all about.
This will be you...jerry curls included.