Halloween, USA

Have you ever had a moment where all of the sudden you are sucked back to your childhood?  The world becomes vast.  Colors are more vivid.  You smile so hard it hurts your face.


I experienced that today.


To get you in the right mood, we may need a little music. Play this this and come back.  Listen to it while you read.


Ahhhh, that's better.


Let's get something straight.  I love Halloween.  Not "like", not "strongly admire" either.  I truly LOVE the holiday.  I'm not talking about gory, blood-soaked, horror movie Halloween.  I'm talking about bobbing for apples, making your own costume, Boris Karloff as Frankenstein, ghost stories, carving pumpkins, hayrides, "Trick-or-Treat-bag-so-full-you-get-a-hernia" Halloween.  As soon as the first days of September begin I start getting excited.  By October 1st I'm practically drooling.  And it's been like this for as long as I can remember and I honestly don't have a specific reason as to why.  


Maybe it's because I'm naturally a performer.  I always loved writing stories and pretending to be someone else as a child.  For the majority of the year I only had a couple of close friends, but during Halloween season I was always asked to tell scary stories on the playground.   Imagine a group of eight year olds circled around a chubby boy in giant bifocal glasses animatedly describing the ghosts that walked the woods behind our school.  


 Maybe it's nostalgia.  The 90's were the golden age of Halloween for me.  The candy was better, the movies were cooler, and I have to say that  Nickelodeon had some of the greatest Halloween specials of all time.  Click here to see what I'm talking about.


In third grade I held a Halloween party at my home for my class.  I made coffin invitations out of black construction paper with skeletons drawn in Wite-out.  Much to my mother's shock and joy (along with my father's exasperation) the entire neighborhood showed up.  It was loud, crowded, and ruined our brand new carpet.  It was talked about for months afterwards.  These are some of the happiest memories of my life.  


So, as you can probably guess, whenever a Halloween superstore opens up in town I get pretty pumped. As a child we would have our annual trip to Party City, then behemoths like Halloween Express started popping up.  When those simple signs appear, blazing orange with black letters announcing "COMING SOON", I light up inside.  


Recently a new (to me) store has opened close to our apartment.  Spirit Halloween.  Never heard of it.  The hype for it has been huge.  Throughout August the doors have been boarded and black with no sign of activity.  I finally got to visit today.  The doors were still black, but a small neon sign flashed "open."  I mumbled underneath my breath "please don't disappoint me, please don't disappoint me.."  I walked through the doors.  The walls were high.  I couldn't quite see what was going on inside, but I could hear it.  Howling wolves, clanking chains, organ music blaring.  My pace quickened.  


And oh...oh what I saw.  


I grinned, laughing out loud in pure amazement and joy.  Costumes, decorations...and monsters.  The MONSTERS!  Zombies!  Vampires!  Giant Spiders!  FRANKENSTEIN!!


Down the road I'm going to make a post all about my obsession with movie monsters, special effects, and animatronics.  For now let's just say that this place more than wet my appetite.  And more than anything else it stirred in me a child-like excitement.  I turned to an employee walking next to me wearing a giant multi-colored afro and said "Can I just live here?"  


I spent the next two hours just walking around, soaking it all in.  And then it made me remember something, an idea I had as a teenager.  A seasonal Halloween theme park.  


It was simply called "Halloween, USA."  Open from September 1st to December 1st.  It would have the look of an early 1900's New England town.  

In the town square would sit a MASSIVE pumpkin with a clock in its center.

The town shops would include "Headless Horseman's Hat Emporium", "Mummy's Wrappings", "Eyegor's Spare Parts", "Van Helsing's Odds and Ends", "Fangs for the Memories", and other bad puns.  


There would be hayrides, corn mazes, and pumpkin carvers.  And the carousel from Something Wicked This Way Comes that would run both backwards and forwards, a large seaside Victorian mansion acting as the local haunted house, a tree covered in pumpkins like in Ray Bradbury's The Halloween Tree.  There would be a water ride with sea monsters, and a Frankenstein roller coaster.  Carriages pulled by phantom horses.  On one side of the town there would sit a street dotted with homes called "Trick or Treat row" where children would be greeted at the door by classic monsters, awaiting to give them candy and prizes.   It would be slightly steampunk. It would be spooky. It would be funny.  And most importantly it would be designed for families.  


As I walked through the store, memories of all of these things flashed through my mind.  I remember even drawing a detailed map and showing it to my mother.  In complete seriousness, she said, "Promise me you'll do this one day.  You have to."  


Perhaps one day I will.  The past few years I have been dissatisfied with where Halloween is going.  (I'm looking at YOU, Universal Studios theme parks.)  It's focused solely on the scares and violence.  What about the mystique?  What about atmosphere?  What about imagination?  What about the kids???


I don't know.  Maybe my nostalgia goggles are on a little too tight.  


What do you think, folks?  A seasonal, family-friendly, Fall/Halloween theme park.  Pros?  Cons?  Disney does it every year.