This Horrific Life: The Spookiest Night of the Year
Five of the Many Faces of Halloween
The Celts believed the end of October was a liminal time, a space between beginnings and endings. The harvest season was over, while the long darkness of winter was falling. Boundaries between worlds grew thin. The dead, enticed by a countryside that had similarly perished, walked the night and the faerie magic of the Aos Sí, the people of the mounds, grew in power. In order to ensure a safe and prosperous winter, these supernatural forces needed to be appeased.
These days, we still appease the spirits with some of our bounty. Well, they’re kids disguised as spirits and the tribute is usually in the form of a Snickers bar, but that is the beauty of Halloween. It is an evolving thing, made of countless traditions. For some, it is still a dire evening full of supernatural hazards. For others, it is a day for children filled with costumes and fun. Just as the Celtic harvest tribute to the spirits morphed into trick-or-treating — the face of Halloween is always changing. It is in our stories that we map its borders.
The Halloween Tree
Ray Bradbury’s seminal novel, accompanied by Joseph Mignaini’s delightfully macabre illustrations, charts the history of Halloween and its ancient influences. Eight boys are led through time and space by the mysterious Mr. Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud to see the holiday’s many origins, from the rituals of the druids to the sugar skulls of the Dia de los Muertos. It is a history lesson wrapped in a candy shell, but it is also one of the great classic Halloween stories. Bradbury does for All Hallow’s Eve what Dickens did for Christmas in A Christmas Carol: he distills its spirit down to its blustery black and orange essence.
This is the Halloween of our storied past.
A Night in the Lonesome October
A different kind of distillation comes from Roger Zelazny’s novel A Night in the Lonesome October. Here, instead of a lesson on history, we have lesson on archetypes.
The iconic figures of horror - Jack the Ripper, Dracula, the werewolf and more - have come together in a country suburb outside of Victorian London to perform a ceremony on Halloween night by the light of the full moon. Depending on who triumphs, it may bring about the end of the world. It’s a familiar setup, the kind of all-star cast that comes straight out of a superhero team-up comic, and in less capable hands, it could be a disaster. Zelanzy weaves a subtle and complex tale, however - one that examines why these characters are so iconic while also proving how adaptable they remain after so many years.
This is the Halloween of our favorite monster movies.
Halloween
John Carpenter’s classic movie invented the slasher genre, but it is also a terrifying monument to a parent’s fears about Halloween. Michael Myers is cut from the same cloth as the motiveless stranger who slides razorblades into candy apples, or sprinkles candy with rat poison.
Halloween saw its release in 1978, in the middle of a slow burn, media-fueled hysteria over Halloween that reached its height in 1985, when 60% of American parents were found to believe their kids were in danger from tampered candy and hospitals were offering free x-rays of trick-or-treat bags to ensure their safety.
No child has ever died from eating a poisoned candy received from a stranger on Halloween. We also know that real life serial killers would never act like Michael Myers. But as with so many things that scare us, knowing that they aren’t true doesn’t diminish the power they hold over us.
This is the Halloween of our irrational fears.
The Upturned Stone
Scott Hampton’s chilling graphic novel ghost story examines the intersection of childhood nostalgia and grim reality of adulthood. The childish chatter of a group of friends fills the first half of the book. It’s all pumpkins and campfire stories and footballs. It’s a perfect Halloween season, until the boys discover a neighbor’s dark secret and the supernatural intrudes. Then the book falls disturbingly silent as the ghosts, in possession of the boys, go about their revenge.
The Upturned Stone is a haunting book, both in the unexpected turns of its story and in the loose, atmospheric watercolors of the art. It is about transitions and losing things that you didn’t even know you had.
This is the last Halloween of our childhoods.
Costume Quest
When Costume Quest came out in 2010, I said it was a portrait of “a childhood we may not have had but still remember profoundly.” Playing it was playing through the dream of Halloween - the foggy memory of the year my kid sister got kidnapped by goblins and I had to, with my friends, use our magic costumes to go rescue her. Never mind that there are no such thing as goblins and that I am an only child.
Costume Quest belongs to the same universal childhood as Calvin and Hobbes or The Goonies. I’ve played through it every year since, each time capturing a little bit of that long lost magic.
This is the Halloween that should have been.
Just because Halloween is coming to a close doesn’t mean This Horrific Life is over. Since I was sick earlier in the week, and I find I still have a couple things I want to say, the daily installments will continue into next week, after which it will become an occasional series until next October. Until then, happy Halloween, you creeps.
This Horrific Life is a daily exploration of horror, covering movies new and old (and half-watched), games, comics, music and anything else even vaguely spooky. Follow the collection to make sure you don’t miss a single installment.
