Cute Halloween Sucks. Scary Halloween Rules.

Around October 1980, the year my college roommates and I dressed as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, something insipid crept into my favorite holiday. For the first time, I noticed nauseatingly cute teddy-bear witches and glittery, gentle ghosts for sale, alongside more traditional items like vampire fangs, Frankenstein makeup, and mummy costumes.

Disneyland, 2023

The incursion of cutesy dreck and sanitized silliness into the celebration of my favorite holiday has not lessened. Three years ago, I had the misfortune of being at Disneyland during its annual Halloween festivities. Mickey jack-o-lanterns were everywhere. “Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party” was a thing. Even my favorite attraction, the Haunted Mansion, which was the only reason I went in the first place, seemed cutesy upon reevaluation.

Before you start humming "The Monster Mash," I want to remind you that Halloween originated as a Celtic celebration, when the ancients lit bonfires and wore costumes to ward off ghosts. They were deadly serious. Casper, the friendly ghost, was nowhere in sight.

A suitably scary
female vampire

Halloween should be scary. Even terrifying.

I am a "scary Halloween" connoisseur, preferring witches, demons, and zombies to their saccharine cousins any time. As a late Baby Boomer (Generation Jones, actually) — a kid who tried to scare himself silly on Saturday afternoons watching the Universal Monsters on Cleveland's Channel 43 — I will always have a soft spot for Dracula, The Wolf Man, and The Mummy. They embody Halloween, as it should be. Significantly, Universal began licensing Halloween costumes of its famous movie monsters in the 1960s, my first decade (David J. Skal, Fright Favorites); I'm sure that contributed to my attraction to those creatures.

Brain-dead killing machine
Michael Myers

In 1978, Michael Myers first appeared in the original Halloween movie. While I like the theme music and general atmosphere, I am mostly opposed to associating Halloween with gore and the slasher genre. The Halloween franchise has plenty of jump scares, but Michael Myers is a brain-dead killing machine with no wit, game, or savoir-faire. Dracula, a classic movie monster, certainly has plenty of game.

As devoted readers of this blog know, I love Halloween. As Halloween has, over my lifetime, become second only to Christmas as the most celebrated holiday in the US, I am glad it is here to stay. However, I lament what seems to be an undying invasion of the cute.

I prefer the undead sisters in Dracula any time.

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