It was a cold, rainy morning. I drove to the abandoned building with a sense of foreboding. Getting to my destination was necessary to complete my mission, but I couldn’t shake the ominous sense of dread. I pulled into the parking lot, took a deep breath and braced myself against the misty rain and made my way to the front door. As I carefully pulled open the door I could hear an old woman cackling–sounding like a half crazed mental patient. I took a tentative step forward immediately losing the sight of my feet in the fog that somehow was rolling inside the building. Off in the distance I heard a banshee scream sending shivers down my spine. I wanted so badly to turn around and run–but, I had to move on. My heart was racing as I desperately searched for which direction to go.
As my eyes darted back and forth, I couldn’t escape the horrible images everywhere I looked–skeletal remains scattered all around the floor and on the walls, grotesque disfigured faces hanging on lampposts that were guarding a cobweb infested graveyard, and tombstones with zombie like creatures bursting through them.
“Can I help you?” The deep monotone voice came from behind me and nearly made me jump out of my skin. As I turned, I saw the dark haired pale sallow face of a 20-something who looked like he hadn’t eaten anything in days. He wore an old well-faded Grateful Dead t-shirt that hung loosely over his two sizes too large jeans all cinched in with a silver spike studded belt.
“Um…I’m a….looking for the…. the uh…” I fumbled. Finally I hoarsely stammered out “Kids costumes. I’m looking for the kids costume section.”
“Oh yeah, no problem.” he said. “Just keep heading to the back, when you see the scary clown masks, turn left and you’ll see them hanging on the back wall.”
OK–so maybe it didn’t EXACTLY happen like this, but it sure did in my mind. Every second in that Halloween costume store felt like I had entered a haunted house.
Is this what Halloween has become? I know that there’s always been the “scary” aspect of this holiday and there’s a tribe of folks out there that really enjoy the macabre, the grotesque and things that terrify them–Super Rockstar happens to be one of them. I don’t pretend to understand it–I personally do NOT enjoy images of blood dripping knives, heads looking like they have been torn from their bodies, and clowns with sinister smiles and razor sharp teeth. It is not fun. It is not joyful. It makes me feel very afraid and terrified and I do not enjoy feeling afraid and terrified. Neither do my boys and neither do most children. These images are for much older teenagers and adults–not for young impressionable ones who still have not learned to separate fantasy from reality.
When I was a kid THIS was about as scary as it got:
Creepy? Yes! Scary? Not really.
I don’t ever remember shopping for costumes being a horrifying experience. It just seems that I should not need therapy for myself and my children just because we wanted to find a good deal on a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles costume with matching sai’s.
Have we all just gotten so used to violence that nothing phases us anymore? I admit that I love action movies and I have sadly become unaffected to the body counts and loud machine guns firing. I also LOVE murder mysteries (Sherlock Holmes is my hero). But, I’m an adult. I am able to separate fantasy from reality and I can look at scary images from movies (and even in the Halloween store) and remember that they are just costumes and make up. But kids–often don’t. Studies have shown that they can have very adverse affects on them. https://ourpastimes.com/the-effects-of-horror-movies-on-children-12178244.html
My hope is that we as parents would not only shelter our kids from the scary stuff on television and movies, but also protect them in the retail world too. Maybe the stores will take the hint and make a safer more kid-friendly area in their establishments. I would love for my boys to get to enjoy the experience of shopping for their own Halloween costume in a store without having PTSD afterward.
