I know today is the 1st of November here in Australia but as I write there are other countries in the northern hemisphere who are currently celebrating or commemorating halloween so I choose to write about it today especially as today is now All Saints Day. You can read more than I want to tell you in Wikipedia as I’m going to focus on other things I’ve found out.
Halloween has been something celebrated in America with kids dressing up and going door to door doing trick or treat but is moving to other countries. I recall it was something never done in Australia, last year it was talked about and some areas did trick or treat, this year I noticed the discussions on Twitter and Facebook have doubled and the incidences of people celebrating it are far more than in previous years. For the first time in some years we actually had children coming to our door, we happened to have some chocolate so gave them one each and they’d obviously had successful journeys to other houses as they had small buckets with goodies. They were young and beautifully behaved but there were no adults in obvious attendance, many of us on social media wonder about the appropriateness of the level of supervision, some children actually going into the houses; whatever happened to stranger danger? Halloween is no different to any other day in this respect.
A quick search of Halloween using google reveals a plethora of results. I was specifically looking for books and movies and didn’t even skim the surface of the available results. Going to Fantastic Fiction gave me 212 hits with books running the gauntlet from little kids books to very scarey adult books.
Two movies stood out. Halloween directed by John Carpenter released in 1978 and a remake directed by Rob Zombie in 2007 with a sequel also directed by Zombie in 2009, he declined to direct Halloween III. I have no idea of when and why he changed his name to Zombie, should you be that way inclined you can visit his website and join the Zombie Head Community. I found it interesting how he married his leading lady who added his name to part of her nickname to become Sheri Moon Zombie. I’m sure someone will tell me why it’s appropriate to have horror movies directed by a Zombie!
Anyway, I’m going to finish this with a little mention and link to OzHorrorCon, a convention dedicated to horror. 27th October was their last convention and the next is 19th and 20th January 2013. I can’t tell you where in Melbourne it is as that’s not mentioned on the website. I will be investigating the idea of having a stall there but can’t guarantee that as I’ve heard the prices are above my budget. They’ve got Ramsey Campbell as a special guest and it looks to be organised a little like Armageddon in that you can get autographs and photos but you have to pay for them. If you’re into horror then it looks great fun!