When I was young the main feature of this time of year was called ‘guising’ and was pretty embarrassing. You had to go round people’s houses and ‘do a party piece’ for them and in return get some sweets. I never wanted sweets that much! I couldn’t do more than tell the lamest joke. You’d never have got me singing in public (I faced enough family ridicule when I tried to sing in private) and there didn’t seem much else a five year old could do to entertain the neighbours. Especially not when dressed up in some lame costume.
The first film I saw (stick with me here, this will all come together) was The Wizard of Oz and it terrified me. I had nightmares about the green faced witch for months. I convinced myself that if I lay still, on my back, in my bed I’d be safe. I misinterpreted the line ‘and the dreams you dare to dream really do come true’ to mean that if I dreamed about the witch she would come true. This was my first introduction into a fear of witches, ghosts and the supernatural.
But for me, that time of year was more about building a ‘guy’ and going round asking for a penny for it (easier than guising!) and then burning it on a bonfire in which we baked potatoes (so it wasn’t all bad!). We at least knew who Guy Fawkes was (and I always felt kind of sorry for him, so quickly gave up on the effigy building) And ‘Fireworks’ night was not without its own fears. I remember going to a family friends fireworks party held in their garden and the dad wasn’t that careful and a spark got into the box of fireworks and I remember being chased down the garden into the house by a load of horizontal rockets. It may not have been the same day (childhood does tend to merge such memories) but the daughter of the house (as I remember, on that day) ran through the glass fronted door and was carted off to hospital amidst much blood and had a lot of skin grafting on arms and legs.
Okay. Maybe now you can see why I’m a bit nervous of Halloween and fireworks and this time of year in general. Or maybe this is exactly the kind of tale you enjoy at this time of year?
I was not much older when things happened that meant that my life changed irrevocably and I subsequently grew up in circumstances which today would be called ‘domestic abuse’ but for me were just years of constant fear interspersed with random acts of extreme violence (often around ‘events’ such as Christmas and, yes, Halloween). So I became somewhat ‘risk averse’ and disinclined to engage with anything that promoted fear – I had enough fear in real life not to go seek it out in fiction.
Which brings me to my real point. I’m wondering what it is that makes people so enamoured of the whole ghosty, Halloweeny thing? It’s a genuine question. I’m not disparaging it, I just cannot ‘get’ it. I accept this is because of my own unique and strange ‘personal’ life experience. But I want to know.
I have always worked on the premise that people like ‘horror’ stories because they come to them from a ‘place of safety.’ That they don’t believe these awful things could actually happen, or not to them. Is it just a bit of fun? I find it hard to understand how one can engage with the notion of zombies or ghosts or whatever as a rational adult other than as some form of escapism, and I cannot understand why one would ever want to ‘escape’ into fear. But I’d really like to know. Because I can never find out for myself. I’m still too scared of the whole thing. It took me into my 40’s to find a ‘place of safety’ in my life and I’m not inclined to leave it. I have nothing I want to escape from any more.
When in my late teens I tried to ‘man up’ and engage with the genre, I watched a Stephen King horror film -‘Carrie’ and it left me a complete gibbering wreck. I still get completely freaked if anyone stands around behind me. I tried again. I read my way through the Gothic Horror Novels of the 18th and 19th century. Actually I liked them. I liked Frankenstein and Dracula in their original forms because they didn’t seem about ‘horror’ to me but about society and sexual repression. The ‘fear’ factor wasn’t there for me. I didn’t think any of this would happen ‘to me.’ But point me in the direction of anything resembling intense psychological fear and/or horror and I just can’t handle it. So I’ll never learn what it is and why it is that people write and read these genres unless I ask people to tell me why they read/write the things. And I do, really, want to know.
So if you are into zombies, ghosts, horror, or psychological thriller and can explain to me why films and books of these genres are so compelling to folks, please leave a comment and start a debate.
And if anyone can explain why it is that ‘guising’ has turned into Trick or Treat and the entire world seems to become swathed in cheap plastic (and other materials) crap for a month when we are in a time of economic recession and why we choose to ‘entertain’ ourselves by parties where ‘fear’ is the key, I’d be glad to hear about that too! Me, I’ll be staying indoors until long after the last firework has sped its way vertically or horizontally into space.
I just can’t help but thinking that there must be plenty of other people (and not just animals) for whom the setting off of explosives (something we try to avoid all the rest of the year except in a war situation) and general ‘fear’ factor is quite difficult to take. And yet, all around me, everyone seems to be ‘getting into the spirit’ of Halloween and as usual, I am in danger of being a party pooper. I hope at least you’ll understand where I’m coming from. But do please, give me your best reasons why it is that this is such a GOOD and POPULAR thing. It will serve as an education for me, and maybe even as therapy.
Cally Phillips 