Childhood…the vault of horror

By Lindsay Bianchi

Maybe I’m from another planet or just another time, but Halloween was a lot different when I was a boy. You could blame Vincent Price or Christopher Lee, but you’d be wrong. Boris Karloff had a lot to do with it…and so did Famous Monsters.

Famous Monsters of Filmland was my favorite magazine as a small child. I used to beg my older brother to let me stay up and watch “Rodan” and “The Crawling Eyes.” I conned my parents into letting me go see “The Mask,” the original 1961 3-D Canadian release at the local movie theatre.

This was long before ratings. I cowered behind the seat with my school buddies, laughing and freaking out in the packed cinema. When you heard a voice say “Put the mask on now!” you whipped on your 3-D glasses and suddenly you were in Hell. Traveling down the river Styx with a rag-covered boatman. Creepy!

It scared the heck out of me, but I loved every frightening second of it. I have the version hosted by Elvira. I highly recommend it. Then again, I love a good scare.

That’s how we grew up, scaring the pants off each other. You’d go to hang up your cost in the front closet and someone would be in there waiting to jump on you or you would run upstairs after dinner into the darkness and be confronted with a creepy “Hello.”

I suppose it was the priceless look of stupid horror on the person’s face that made breathing old coat smell for 20 minutes worth the wait.

It is not difficult then, to see how all this ghoulish fascination spilled over at Halloween.

Around 10 years old is the prime Trick or Treating age. You are too old to be treated like a baby and still young enough to go door to door begging for candy. Yes, there is a point at which it just becomes sad. For a brief, shining moment the world seemed easy as taking candy from a baby, or your crummy little brother…whoever was closest.

And best of all back then, there were neighborhoods and streets where every door was another fun and scary surprise. We brought bags home like little pirates, showing off our treasures and adding them to the big bowl in the dining room.

Then there were rumors and stories about apples with razor blades embedded in them and popcorn balls covered in hydrochloric acid. Suddenly the older kids are soaping windows and egging cars. The trees are tee-peed and pumpkins are exploding from squirt guns filled with lighter fluid. The night goes up in flames… and then it’s all over. Time to clean up the mess.

Halloween is a lot of things to a lot of people. Some avoid it like the plague. Others have Halloween every day..they call them Goths. I do it for the candy. The whole horror and gore, Uncle Creepy , Cousin Eerie stuff is just a sideline.

“We have nothing to fear but fear itself,” some guy once said. He was wrong. Children can be a lot scarier than you think. Teenagers are even worse.