So does one of those things involve no consent?
Because boxing and fast food both involved consent.
Would love to quote Red from that 70s show but I don’t think we are allowed.
As a kid one of my favorite horror adjacent films was Jumanji but it was so hard to take the villain serious because of how ridiculous he looked.
Halloween originated as All Hallows’ Eve, a Christian festival. Then at some point the ghouls took it over.
I think what people now know as Halloween originated in the US, and then spread here in Britain. I never heard of it until I was 17 (many decades ago!) when I was invited to a “Halloween party”. This shows how relatively new it was in Britain. Now we see “Happy Halloween” signs in supermarkets. I find the whole thing utterly depressing.
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AI Overview
- Halloween’s origins can be traced back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, which was a pagan celebration to mark the end of summer and the beginning of winter
- Samhain
- The Celts celebrated Samhain on October 31, the night before their new year, which they believed began on November 1. The Celts believed that the spirits of the dead would return to Earth on Samhain, and that the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead would blur.
- The Celts celebrated Samhain with bonfires, dancing, divination, and wearing costumes to avoid being recognized by the spirits. They also set out their favorite foods for the dead.
- Otherworldly visitors - The Celts believed that many types of spirits could appear on Samhain, including witches, fairies, demons, and elves. They also believed that the spirit of someone they may have wronged could appear.
- Matchmaking - In the 19th century, Halloween was a popular matchmaking opportunity for young women. A fortune-telling game involved choosing apples, with each apple representing a woman’s suitor. The apple the woman bit into was said to represent her future husband.
- Other influences on Halloween include:
- Feralia and Pomona - The Romans added their own festivals to the Celtic calendar, including Feralia, which commemorated the dead, and Pomona, which celebrated the harvest goddess.
- Catholicism - The development of Catholic lurgical practices led to the celebration of All Saints’ Day, or Hallowtide, which involved praying for the dead in purgatory.
- Colonial American culture - Colonial American culture emphasized harvest festivals.
- Hollywood and American culture - Hollywood and American culture have been major factors in the rise of Halloween’s popularity.
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November 2nd in the Catholic liturgical calendar is: “All Souls Day”, which coincides with the Mexican celebration of “Day of the Dead” which thanks to people like my wife’s sister and others who have actively promoted “Memorial Altars” for relatives, for the most part.
- " Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a traditional Mexican holiday typically celebrated Nov. 1 and 2, although it has grown to include the days before and after. Families and friends gather to honor and celebrate loved ones who have died by building altars, or ofrendas, decorating gravesites, and share stories.
- Day of the Dead
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I think it also depends on where you live. Is it true that in the US kids dress up as everything they want? Such as a princess or a superhero.
Here in the Netherlands only the horror-part is emphasised. Kids only dress up as vampires, zombies, witches and the like. That gives me a more negative vibe than if they would dress up like e.g. spiderman.
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To me it sounds like a better version there then here.
Yep, you see a lot princesses and superheroes among kids. As a kid I remember no adults in costumes, but among young adults it is common to have costume parties, often with risqué costumes.
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I have to agree with the changes over time; horror films used to amuse me and the wilder and scarier rides were just fun, and I delighted in walks on the beach during storms and bicycling in storms, but since my PTSD has turned into an almost constant anxiety situation that’s changed.
That’s all the farther I got in the podcast; it stopped and I got informed I need to get a membership!
Anyway . . . just a couple of days ago I heard some yammerheads pontificating on the idea that Christians shouldn’t have anything to do with Halloween because it “belongs to the demons”, and I wanted to holler at them, “Why are you surrendering to evil spirits? Why are you giving them that honor?”
I knew a doctor who as a hobby did wound make-up for a regional community theater.
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My first two years in college a bunch of us dressed up as saints or Bible characters. One couple said that they really wanted to go as Adam and Eve but the forecast was for freezing temperatures.
I went as St. Francis and everyone insisted that to be authentic I couldn’t wear anything under the robe.
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There are definitely adult costume parties with people 30+, even into their 70s. It could be that it’s within horror fan culture though. When you go to local horror conventions within an hour, or have something like a horror focused AMC theater near you that plays tons of Shudder films and plays older horror films every week of the year you’ll run into the same people often and chit chat and end up going to parties together and stuff. Few months ago went to a western focused horror party. There was probably 15 or so men and women in their 50s there. Everyone was 21 older with the bulk around 30.
The Friday before Xmas there is a family friendly event near me where they tend to play Burton films like The Nightmare Before Christmas or Edward Scissorhands at 6pm ish with rated R horror films after 830. The ages are all over but definitely older people. It could be that Mardi Gras is a big event where I live and almost all the adults dress up for that and so maybe that bled over into things like Halloween.
There are even cat and dog costume events lol.
I am not that big into Halloween myself. But… I support celebrating our pagan roots rather than demonizing them.
That said… I would call attention to a general trend in our fictional stories of turning bad guys and monsters into friends. Perhaps this is overly optimistic but sounds like a good thing to me nevertheless.
I have been writing Gothic and Horror for a few decades now, and had to, in an attempt to be “authentic” do a lot of research mostly on Eastern European tales and legends. Since I was rostered at the time, my friends expressed some “concern”. Fortunately one of my instructors for my Cont. Ed; was a former Catholic Priest who basically said to me "as long as you don’t personally believe what you write…it’s all good.
Now to the point; one of the constant themes that popped up in my research, is that you can’t use Power, unless you have the ability and the strength to use the Power. A three-year-old just dressed up as The Devil, or anything else evil or malevolent in a costume with a foam mask will do absolutely nothing. You have to be powerful enough to make a differemce.
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I agree for the most part. Not really sure what you mean by some being powerful enough to do something or whatever.
You have to have the ability to use power. Not everyone can harness natural forces or summon Evil; least of all a 3-year-old with a foam Halloween mask.
I mean I don’t believe in magic period and so I don’t think anyone can summon evil unless you call up someone who is ok with doing something evil. But that’s a whole different discussion and I understand your point now.
I was curious. You mentioned writing horror earlier I believe? What type of style? Novels, short stories, podcast episodes? Get anything published? Is it under your name?
Possibly found what may be you with a play/film script possibly? Something on a place called
stage32.
More Gothic than Horror. Nothings published right now. Yes I was on Stage 32 for a time.
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I came across this very balanced (imo) article:
I’ve often entertained the idea of trying to write some short stories for the contests on various horror podcasts but I’ve never gotten around to it. Years ago I wrote various stuff on some Reddit forums for fun. Never been published either. At least in my adult life. When I was in 11th grade a teacher had us all write a short story, a poem and a nonfiction essay. Everything I wrote was horror driven. She submitted the them to some contest and my short story came in third nationally out of all high schoolers who submitted and my poem came in first and went to a contest between Mexico, Canada and USA and my poem came in third place in that larger contest as well. I actually won a scholarship but I was 15 and unfortunately at that age last thing I cared about was going to college. I was already in trade school for a 2 certification and working part time with company I thought I was going to stay at until I retired at an old age. I think maybe next year in winter I’ll try to set apart 4 hours a week to try to flesh something out to submit to a podcast like Creepy. But I doubt I’ll ever actually publish anything other than if something gets basic publishing rights to if a podcast selects it. The desire is always fleeting.
Excellent. The only thing I would add is the perspective that any honor given to any spirits is stolen honor that belongs to Christ, so rather than abandon the holiday and letting the spirits have the honor we should be using it to honor Christ. After all, it is the night before All Saints Day, so it really belongs to that celebration.
One Halloween I thought about being Simon the Stylite, but I’m not good at sitting still on the top of a pillar and the weather was too cold to contemplate being in mostly bare skin by my porch.
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