Grounded in October: My Halloween Essentials – Part 1

by Nelson

I love Christmas. It’s sort of impossible for me not to. I was born a week before the undisputed Holiday Champion of the World and grew up as a spoiled only child that the world revolved around. December is my month. The toy collection grows, the alcohol consumption goes unchecked and unjudged, and Smashing Pumpkins are added to the household playlist with nary a gripe or snicker because my favorite band of all time recorded a Christmas song, and that means that we’re going to hear Billy Corgan sing about watching kids open presents and enjoy every sacred second of it. You could say it’s my favorite time of the year, but you can’t because October 31^st exists, and I spend 364 days a year waiting for its arrival. Even when I’m going through my latest Santa haul, I’m thinking about how I can still pull off a solid Joker costume while also hiding my shamefully bald head from onlookers.

It’s always been that way. I like candy; I like costumes, and I love scary stuff with the sort of burning passion that drove Rocky Balboa to KO Ivan Drago in Russia. As a kid, my parents played Drago to my Apollo year after year by ruthlessly snatching trick-or-treating away from me at the last minute thanks to my traditional “Needs Improvement” grades in conduct on fall report cards. Without the comfort of a stack of freshly rented horror tapes, I’m not 100% sure that I would’ve been able to cope with the trauma of sitting in my bedroom, in full costume, with an empty candy bucket in the corner. I can count how many times I’ve been trick-or-treating on one hand, but I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve been pulled back from the brink of madness by my morbid musts of the season. 

Beetlejuice

What better movie to celebrate the night spirits are permitted to freely roam the land than a movie that shows us just how dull and tedious the afterlife really is and why the dearly departed can’t wait to take a day off? Beetlejuice is legendary. Michael Keaton is amazing. Winona Ryder is a badass. The living sculptures are pure, unadulterated nightmare fuel, and Harry Belafonte’s “Day-O” is as important as “The Monster Mash” and “Somebody’s Watching Me” on any self-respecting October playlist. This all helps make Beetlejuice a Halloween Must Watch, but finding out that, once you die, you’re presented with a complicated manual that reads like stereo instructions and forced to take a number and wait for an appointment with your assigned caseworker is a lot like winning the Nickelodeon Super Toy Run; you’ll cherish the memory and relive it in your dreams forever and ever. 

The long and short of it is that Beetlejuice is one of the most essential Halloween Essentials of the season. The movie’s version of a DMV-esque eternity is such a brilliant twist that the inclusion of Keaton in a black and white striped suit comes off as a bonus – a lot like the pickle spears Firehouse includes with their sandwiches. Sure, you’ve already got a meal that tastes like it was touched by the hands of God, but it never hurts to add a little extra oomph to an already divine experience. It’s showtime. 

Halloween Havoc 95

“Astoundingly huge man runs over orange man’s motorcycle with a monster truck” may not sound like the set-up for the most Halloweentastic wrestling event in human history, but this foul deed led to the horrifying, the ghoulish, the UNSPEAKABLE battle for ultimate supremacy: Man vs Man and Machine vs Machine!!

WCW’s Halloween Havoc ‘95 is a perfect snapshot of what the company was like before the New World Order changed the pro-wrestling landscape forever. Fans who complained about the WWE going “PG” have zero idea what actual cartoony wrestling is and wouldn’t be able to handle Earth-shattering developments like the 400+ pound Avalanche realizing that he was part-fish all alone and decreeing that no Hulkamaniacs’ toes would ever be safe in the water again. WCW’s Dungeon of Doom consisted of a bunch of guys who looked like they traveled forward in time to raid the discount bin at a Spirit Halloween Store, and Havoc ‘95 was their show. We saw The Giant plunge from the top of the Joe Louis arena into the Detroit River after being defeated in one of the most gripping Monster Truck battles ever – only to reappear, like Frankenstein’s monster, for his main event showdown with The Hulkster (who just so happened be wearing black as a part of his “Dark Side Hogan” phase because Hulk likes Halloween, too). All that, alone, makes WCW’s signature October event the spookiest wrasslin’ show in town, but Eric Bischoff’s 90s ambition knew no bounds. October 31st is just another day on the calendar without a 7-foot-tall mummy emerging from an iceberg to destroy The Mega Powers and end Hulkamania forever, and, dammit, WCW wasn’t about to under deliver on one of their signature pay-per-view events. Thanks to the emergence of The Yeti, Halloween Havoc 1995 will go down in history as the wrestling equivalent of Jason Goes to Hell. 

Halloween 1 (TV Version) & Halloween 2 Back-to-Back

Halloween is the perfect horror movie, and Halloween 2 is the perfect horror movie sequel. I will die on that hill (only for my body to mysteriously disappear when Dr. Loomis looks away). An October 31st that passes by without watching these movies back to back is more tragic than the growing realization that there’s never going to be a Beetlejuice 2. Together, these movies are the definitive “Night HE Came Home” spectacular. Anything after Halloween 2 is a lot like the movies after Terminator 2 – really cool “what if” sequels that you can take or leave if you want. Of course, if you opt to “leave” a Halloween film featuring Donald Pleasence, then you’ve probably got no business watching a Halloween movie at all. 

The television version of the original film added new scenes that better connected it to its follow-up and gave credence to the sequel’s reveal that Laurie Strode is the long lost sister of Michael Myers – which, as verified by the latest series entry, is clearly the superior approach to Tommy Doyle’s pumpkin-toting babysitter. The additional footage offers the chance to combine the two movies and create The Godfather Saga of slashers and firmly establish the fact that there wouldn’t be a chaotic Halloween Multiverse full of conflicting timelines and Busta Rhymes if they’d just left well enough alone and allowed the smooth sounds of The Chordettes’ “Mr. Sandman” mark the definitive end of the world’s most committed trick-or-treater. 

….then again, it’s frightening to think of the barren wasteland we would most assuredly inhabit today without Halloween 5 and the cookie woman scene. 

Of course, it took more than The Yeti, Dr. Loomis, and The Ghost with the Most to get me through year after year of October cruelty, and I loooooove sequels, so tune in next week for more sanity-preserving monstrous madness!