Halloweek, Day One
I admit, I don't love Halloween the way I did when I was a kid. I don't spend hours trying on the rubber masks in the costume aisle at the drug store anymore, and I don't stay up late with the monster movie marathon. Don't get me wrong: I still love it, but it's not marked with a big red circle on my calendar anymore.
Which is sort of sad, because it seems like everyone else in America has finally gotten into the habits that made me weird and strange back then. Paranormal Activity 2 opened with the biggest box-office gross of any horror movie ever this weekend. There are at least seven ongoing series with the word "paranormal" in their titles; that doesn't even include shows like "Fringe," "The Event," "Supernatural," "The Vampire Diaries," and all the rest that feature monsters, conspiracies and mad scientists. And one of the most anticipated new fall TV shows, "The Walking Dead," will premiere on Oct. 31, and it's expected to draw huge audiences, even though my pal James Hibberd describes it as "the most gory series ever to air on TV."
These are high times for a horror fan. I was a guest on a talk show a couple weeks ago on Minnesota Public Radio, the home of Lake Woebegone, talking about the reasons we're all so enamored of the undead now. I heard the question a lot when I was on my book tour as well, and for me, the answer seems pretty simple: people are scared. And when they're scared, they want to tame monsters. Scary stories — whether in books, or horror movies, or TV shows — are the way we confront fears that are too big for us in the real world.
A lot of other people have already pointed this out. In the 1950s, people were terrified of Soviet hordes overseas and hidden Communist moles in America, so the theaters were booked with invaders from Mars and body snatchers.
Sixty years later, many of the ideas we only saw in horror movies in the past have become part of the everyday culture. There are significant numbers of people in America who believe we've got an Antichrist Manchurian Candidate in the White House; that there's a secret conspiracy waiting to round up citizens and place them in hidden underground prisons; that blood-drinking humanoid lizards are manipulating all of humanity.
If that's what people are scared of in real life, then hordes of zombies and vampires are practically comforting. At least those can be slain with a stake to the heart or a sharp blow to the head.
This is why I chose to meld the paranormal and politics, the War on Terror with the War on Horror. There's probably a reason Halloween is so close to Election Day: they're both the times when our fears and demons come out to dance. And as frightening and frightened as our culture has become, I don't see any of the ghouls shuffling back to the graveyard any time soon.
Happy Halloween.
