What Halloween Means To Me Day 10: John Squires

 

Well folks, we’ve come to the end of Horror Blogger All-Stars week on the countdown, and we’re going out with a bang.  By the way, next week is Independent Horror Filmmakers week, so stay put.  You’re not gonna wanna miss it.  Anyway, I actually owe John Squires some thanks, because he indirectly played a role in the creation of Son of Celluloid.  John writes the blog Freddy in Space (HERE), one of the most popular and followed horror blogs out there.  It was the first horror blog I discovered and the first one I read regularly; thereby making it my introduction to the world of blogging.  John’s passionate ramblings about movies, memorabilia, toys, cool retro stuff, and whatever other corner of the horror world struck his fancy at the time made me realize that an obsessed horror geek can find his voice online, and that there are people out there that it will resonate with who will want to read it.  In that way, if there hadn’t been a Freddy in Space, there might not be a Son of Celluloid.  So John, it’s your turn to tell the Cellmates “What Halloween Means To Me…”

 “As any horror fan can echo, Halloween means pure happiness to me. But precisely what it has represented in my life has definitely changed over the years.

When I was a kid, Halloween was all about the big day itself. Going trick or treating on Halloween day was the big source of excitement, and what Halloween meant to me was primarily getting and consuming a shit ton of free candy. I don't think I referred to it as a "shit ton" back then, but rest assured, it was a shit ton.

As I got a bit older, in my early teenage years, Halloween became a sort of bonding experience with my dad. We'd go out to the Halloween shops and get a whole bunch of new decorations each year, which we'd put up together. Halloween became less about trick or treating and dressing up, and more about pimping the house out horror style, with big ass rubber demons and severed heads. I still have most of those decorations we bought together (well, he paid for them all!) in my basement, the stuff that made it through each passing year without someone jacking it from the front yard, that is. I also remember having a lot of fun scaring young trick or treaters, by putting on masks we had laying around the house and jumping out from behind bushes and such. Good old fashioned Halloween fun!

Nowadays, Halloween is less about the actual day of October 31st itself, and much more about the entire month of October. Well, I generally include September in that too. At least the majority of it. I still typically go out trick or treating on Halloween night, to keep the spirit alive, but if I'm being honest, Halloween day is more of a sad day for me nowadays, than it is anything else. To see how few kids come out trick or treating these days, and to know that the whole world returns back to normal the next day, quite frankly makes me downright sad. Which is why I generally don't like to see people counting down the days to Halloween once October rolls around. I countdown from September to October, but once October comes, it's all about enjoying that whole month of festivities for me. No reason to excitedly count those days away!

So what does Halloween mean to me, in the present day? It mostly means getting to have all sorts of Halloween fun with my wife; pumpkin picking and carving, eating roasted corn, watching more horror movies than usual, going to haunted houses, drinking pumpkin beer, eating enough Monster Cereal to turn my shit blue and pink, going out to parties and getting drunk in goofy costumes, and just all around enjoying an entire month of everyone embracing the stuff that we embrace all year round. I know a lot of horror fans get upset that suddenly everyone seems to love horror movies and horrific things come October, and then no more once October is over, but I personally delight in seeing that widespread love.

Another real joy of the Halloween season for me nowadays is going out to stores like Target and Walmart each week of October, pumpkin spice coffee in tow, and discovering new food products and goodies to blog about it. It's like a treasure hunt every time I go out there in the world, and I just love that. Never am I more inspired to blog and never do I have more to blog about than I do during the Halloween season. And since blogging is such an important part of my life, that makes me real damn happy.

Happiness. That about sums it up. Halloween, not just the day of Halloween but the entire month of Halloween, makes me happy. Same as it did in my childhood, only in slightly different ways. That's what it's all about. As I sit here drinking a pumpkin beer, watching horror movies on TV and planning out what to dress up as this year, all feels incredibly right with the world.

So cheers to you, Halloween!”

17 days ‘til Halloween, Halloween, Halloween.  17 days ‘til Halloween, Silver Shamrock.