Halloween

Today is Halloween.

As a kid, Halloween was the all-out 2nd most exciting day of the year for me, trailing only behind Christmas and pulling slightly ahead of the 4th of July (although those two would switch places once I was old enough to blow up fireworks). The candy, the costumes and those orange frosted cupcakes with the candy corn in the middle were all good and fun, but it was the horror movies on television that was the real highlight of the entire week leading up to the day itself.

My parents were weird when it came to what I was allowed and not allowed to watch. Going to the local video store (yes, the pre-Blockbuster mom and pop video store with the adult section in the back with the swinging saloon doors) was always a crapshoot. My first instinct was always to check out the horror section. I was fascinated by the video cover art..."Horror Hospital", "Blood Feast", "Nightmare on Elm St Part 4"...It usually didn't take long for me to find some sort of silly, depraved movie. When I picked whatever it is I wanted to see, I'd bring it to my parents, sometimes trying to just get it to the counter without letting them see what it was, because once it was in the store clerk's hand, there was a much smaller chance they would argue and make me pick something else. But much of the time, I got the usual interrogation: "What is this?" "Is this Rated R?" "Oh, no way, you're not seeing this. Put it back". It drove me nuts, because the other half of the time, they either weren't paying attention or the morality police were off duty on that particular day.

Most times, I was always able to finagle getting what I wanted. But even if I didn't, the disappointment was always tempered by the fact that most network TV channels showed plenty of horror movies (albeit edited for content) on the days leading up to Halloween. One in particular was long-gone WPIX channel 11's "Shocktober", where a horror movie was played every night in the week leading up to Halloween. Most years, they showed the same movies, most of which were more or less contemporary for the time..."Creepshow 2", "Friday the 13th Part 4", "Deadly Friend" and a few others.

Here's a promo for it (gotta love the magic of Youtube)



That pretty much sums up what Halloween was all about back in the day. Today, things haven't changed a whole lot. Last night I spent a half hour of quality time watching Linus wait for the Great Pumpkin while chowing down on some "fun size" Twix and M&M's and a few candy corns. Tonight, I'll most likely find myself watching one of these same movies I was watching 20 years ago, because as you know, most things with me never change.