When did Halloween go from goofy to gross?

[TechBear_Seattle]

When did Halloween go from goofy to gross?

This year's Halloween decorations may not just spook you, they might turn your stomach.

Next to the standard witches, ghosts and black cats, many specialty stores and catalogs are selling creepily realistic corpses, severed limbs and butchered body parts. One catalog advertises an animated ghoul who can vomit into a barrel on cue (special order only, $2,750). An online company sells a Tortured Torso Prop ($149) you can lean near your front door to welcome trick-or-treaters.

Whatever happened to jack-o'-lanterns and Casper the Friendly Ghost?

From costumes and props to indoor and outdoor home decorations and table settings, experts and retailers agree that Halloween is turning to the dark side, becoming gorier, more violent and more adult.

The essay continues at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/living/2003975073_grosshalloween26.html

[bryant69]

1. Didn't you play that game when they turned out all the lights and then

jammed your hand into a pile of cold spaghetti and told you it was witches hair? Or esophogous or something?

That's pretty gross.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[ljm2002]

10. Nah, with us it was a bowl of peeled grapes...

...that they told you were eyeballs. EEeeeewwww!!!

[acmavm]

2. Our society is so violent, cruel, and extreme. Next they'll be

selling really body parts from cadavers that have been provided by Burke and Hare wanna-bes

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/weird/burke/foursome_2.html

[annabanana]

3. It's the "C.S.I. effect"

We see the graphic results of violence from the comfort of our livingrooms every night of the week. . .

[TreasonousBastard]

4. For a lot less than 2800 bucks I can get...

one of the locals to puke in a barrel on cue.

[MADem]

5. I think it started during the dawn of the slasher movie--the Nightmare on Elm Street

schtick, where they started doing lots of blood and body parts...

[mondo joe]

6. Halloween used to be a kid's holiday, for the most part. Now those kids are adults

and having a more adult version.

I don't see the problem.

[NeedleCast]

7. Just depends on your definition of gross I guess

None of the things listed there rank very high on my list of things that are "gross" because I'm able to seperate the staged grossness of Halloween from, say, a village of Afghni's recently hit by cluster-bombs, which is one of many memories I'd rather not have.

[Raejeanowl]

8. I See Just As Much Kitschy and Cutesy-Poo Stuff n/t

[PATRICK]

9. On a lighter note

I was just thinking that the generational cycle of Halloween had gone from adult partying pre-Depression
days and before in countless masked festivals on other dates adults partied at to the baby Boomer kiddy Halloween with all the bland plastic costumes and escorted friendly neighborhood pilgrimages. wearing costumes from movies never made for kids(Dracula and Frankenstein, and Disney fantasy and adventure films). My first was a little Devil which got me invited indoors at one party which never happened thereafter. The business of candy gathering became more serious and the costumes more competitive as we grew older. This kiddy Halloween made "serious" adults uneasy. Eventually the boomers became adults and the adult tastes crept in and supplanted the kiddy part even if we accepted the concept that it was for our own children. Getting into the act, setting up lawn displays, more teen oriented haunting experiences, tapping into the burgeoning horror movies for everyone splatterfest.

Parents have many many accumulating rationales to keep the kids off the candy circuit and into parties(controlling adult model creeping in fast there). The adventure is truncated and supplanted more and more by the adult tastes from every angle. The adult party animal has returned, masked, drunken and hiding behind the child's Halloween. Just the warp and woof of culture. Like making Easter a kiddy and Easter bunny day and Thanksgiving a pre-Christmas family orgy of sorts whether one has a conducive family or not. Or the weirdly odd children's Valentine experience of giving romantic love cards to both sexes of your pre-teen class. Or watching Mommy Dearest on Mother's day. Or Columbus Day as an Italian American pride day. Or celebrating the Sainted Patrick who signaled the end of paganism in Ireland by getting Bacchanalian drunk.

Nothing is too good to survive a dose of American creative adaptation.

[DireStrike]

11. And Saw IV comes out.

Torture and violence are just in the public consciousness more than ever recently. I wonder why.


Also technology is advancing, making more realistic props available. What might have been passed over as cheesy 10 years ago is now a shockingly real item. That's something interesting, no matter how you look at it.

When I was a kid, Halloween was about terror. Jack-o'lanterns and Casper? Halloween shouldn't be goofy. We don't need another holiday that's a celebration of cute things and consumerism. Halloween is about the unknown, the dark. It's a trickster's holiday. It's about reality, and perception, and where they meet and diverge.

Is there anything more frightening than being presented with the fact that your body is mortal? You will die. YOU.

Like Nathan Explosion says: http://youtube.com/watch?v=xuTNVrjKf2g

[toddaa]

12. It's always been gory

When I was a kid, we just didn't have the cool theatrical blood that kids today have. But we still wallowed in the whole blood and guts aspect of Halloween. I think in the third grade, about half my class was dressed up as vampires, complete with gory blood soaked shirts (hooray for ketchup). I fondly remember the late night creature feature movies running stuff like Hammer horror that was tame by todays standard's, but fueled our prepubescent gross out (and sexual) fantasies.