Wednesday 28 October 2015

Give me creeping fear any day

Halloween is coming up, and I remember the quiet sort of morbid fun I used to have when I was a kid.

A friend sometimes came round, and we ate baked beans on toast in the old wine cellar of our big house, with a hollowed-out turnip as lighting. That was it.

These days, Halloween has to involve blood and gore, not just spirits and ghosts. Why is that? Haven't we got enough real blood and gore in our everyday lives? Is it because blood and gore are far easier to believe in than spirits and ghosts?

I like fear, not shock.

18 comments:

  1. I never remember " celebrating" halloween as a kid.... We were more bonfire night people.....
    I guess the gore is mostly cartoon in nature ... What worries me more is the fact that the big supermarkets are advertising bottles of cheap spirits with a halloween slant!
    Whats that all about?

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    1. Us too, but I was a bit obsessed with Pan books. Remember them?

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  2. I usually receive a warning letter in my letter box that a crowd will descend on Cro Towers, at a certain time, etc. I haven't received anything so far, but no doubt they will turn up as usual.

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    1. Just after I'd written this, a small girl turned up with a notice.... they'll be here at 6.50pm on Saturday; very precise.

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    2. Are you sure you don't live in Germany? Maybe it is to try and prevent the French farmers from shooting them?

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  3. Halloween was not celebrated when I was a child and was never mentioned. We celebrated All Saints Day, the next day, at school but it was a solemn day with extra prayers. I think Halloween has come over here from our American cousins.

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    1. I think the gore came over here via America, but the dead walked on the Eve before All Hallows.

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  4. We celebrate the heck out of Halloween here in America. It was one of the biggest highlights of my childhood.

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    1. Oh, so I can blame you for being flour-bombed as I walk down the street?

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  5. When our son was little everybody was fascinated that I arranged a little Halloween party (a very harmless&nice thing with pumpkins and sweet jelly spiders and red tomatoe-soup) - meaning: it was in Germany almost unknown. Now it is a big economic event (like jewellery for Mother's Day, or giving bicycles as presents for Easter - the madness!) - everybody dressing up, the shopwindows decorated as for Christmas...

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  6. I don't relate much to Halloween somehow, although I loved the fancy dress extravaganza that was New York on 31 October.

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  7. We never had any sort of Halloween doings...although All Saints day was acknowledged.....but I do like the idea of the Mexican day of the Dead.

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    1. Yes, I was thinking of Mexico and all those dancing skeletons. The opening scene from Nosferatu was filmed in a Mexican crypt.

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  8. I don't think I knew of of Halloween as a kid! My boys never did anything for it either .( They are in their 30's ) It is just an excuse for shops to make pots of money selling " stuff". Some years ago about 6 teenage boys came to our door, saying trick or treat. They were not dressed up at all, and one of them was fingering a knife so that we could see it. My husband started to give them a lecture about protection rackets, and luckily a neighbour, whose plants they had pulled up, came up the drive behind them and they went away. Police were called, and the next day one of them was brought round by his father to apologise.

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    1. Yes, that is horrible. Maybe the boy became a professional criminal.

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  9. I can remember ( in the 1950s) insisting on doing "bobbing for apples" in the kitchen when I was about 11. My parents obligingly filled a huge enamel bowl with water and apples and my young sister and I tried to take a bite out of them with hands folded behind our backs. Much hilarity and not much success. I had no idea what the point of it was (though on Googling it is apparently something to do with looking for a husband so not very spooky or day of the dead etc.

    I have been "trick or treating" in the broad afternoon (summer) sunlight in Australia with my grandchildren and all their neighbours. It was great fun and quite harmless opportunity to dress up and use face-paint.

    As a Roman Catholic family November 5th celebrations were disapproved ( honest) but luckily my parents took us to our communal RAF bonfire night event. I loved that and the hot cocoa and baked potatoes.

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