Halloween comes at a curious time, especially for children, children of all ages. The excitement of the new school year has just worn off, and Halloween is the first of the holidays for the holiday season. Children wait in anticipation at school and with their friends for the first holiday, playing simple pranks on each other, waiting for the enormous amount of chocolate, and watching trailers for the upcoming horror movie festivals on TV.
Halloween wasn’t always like this, in fact, it’s almost come full circle. What had scared everyone for hundreds of years had turned into a TV-like commercial of it’s sacred past. People have even conquered their own fear of the world of Halloween; making jokes and parodies of the religious spirit world from which all holidays got their start.
Pagans who had existed long before the monotheologic rush across the world made Halloween their first holiday for the year knowing how important the spirits of the past were and are. For unlike many of the present day holidays, they knew which day the spirits rose, and they protected themselves from these spirits. So knowing, they decided upon making this the first of their holiday calendar, the first and the deadliest.
Yes, Halloween has come a long way since its ritualistic beginnings. As children we’ve all come to wait for the moment of the Halloween season. The procuring weeks of shopping in the malls, with stores of wall to wall costumes and candy and more recently the movie set-like decorations for your home, just in case you want to scare the bejeebers out of your friends and relatives. All this for some measly second rate occasion that has no meaning in present time but for fun and games. Halloween is no longer second rate any more.
The present day ritual of “Trick-or-Treating” is coming to its end, being replaced by house parties and “haunted houses” which really aren’t haunted at all, or are they? We’ve been led to believe that these so-called haunted houses are safe, friendly places that we can join our friends for a fun evening of frolicking through a quickly built, jerry-rigged partitioned maze for the sole purpose of some meager excitement.
Most haunted houses look like mock sets from the horror movies we have come to love. Cheaply built and not really impressive, these houses are good for a scare or two, or just trying to impress your friends and your girlfriend or boyfriend as the case may be. They are mostly made of blackened walls with a few decorative touches to give you an eerie feel. Usually, somewhere in the maze is a large open area with some cardboard looking gravestones used to represent a cemetery. Other areas have darkened corridors for actors to scare some unsuspecting guests. On the whole, they give you a good run for your money, but they’re not too memorable as far as horror goes.
Then came along a place called Frightworld. The idea behind Frightworld was to give those unsuspecting guests something great to remember, and to get them back year after year. Detail was given to every nook-and-cranny of each and every house they had built. When you entered Frightworld, you were literally transferred into another reality altogether.