1. Halloween Is A Time For Family And Friends To Come Together... (The Nightmare Before Christmas: 1993)
Awww! Isn't that sweet? Not cool perhaps, but certainly lovingly sentimental...except Halloween is nothing of the sorts. It's not Christmas (or Thanksgiving for you all over in the US). It's not even a real holiday. But yet in the movies, Halloween is depicted as a wonderful time to unite with your loved ones. Perhaps its because of the horrible death and carnage. Watching your best friend gutted with a fishhook or surviving falling from a second story building. Or the trauma of being shot by the man / woman you've been madly in love with for the entire film. Or relieving a childhood incident where your sibling was carried off by a mad man and never seen again...my point is, surviving all that...it might just bring you, your family and any other surviving cast members together, united in your shock and grief. At the other end of the scale, we also have Tim Burton's
A Nightmare Before Christmas, a film that conveys the joy of community and celebrations as the inhabitants of Halloween Town come together to celebrate this annual holiday. It's a lovely message. Accepting everyone's differences and coming together for a common cause. Christmas it isn't...and yet again...it kind of is... Take a look at this opening of
The Nightmare Before Christmas and get yourself in the festive mood! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHLgob-PpIk And there you have it. Halloween in the movies is cool. It makes heroes out of the best of us. You're going to have fun. Wild parties. Sexy times. It brings people together (because of all the death and heartbreak it inevitably brings). Even the most mundane things are cool. If you haven't been trapped in a possessed house and hunted down by a psycho killer sibling, you really haven't lived. And even the kids will have fun. Halloween is the safest night in the year. Nothing can hurt you...until you reach those teenage years. In reality, I'll take my kids out in the cold, dark streets, probably battling the rain so they can have a load of sugary sweets from those few neighbours who actually open their doors to trick or treaters. Then I'll come home and try the most random horror flick on Netflix (once the kids are in bed) before wondering where the last two hours of my life went and wondering why I didn't just watch John Carpenter's
Halloween instead. Then again, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Halloween really is cool. And if it is, please comment below!