Being something of a horror buff, I used to love Halloween. As a kid, it meant costumes and free candy, which is something of a miracle to a six-year-old. Once I got too old for Trick or Treat, I could always count on loads of horror movies on TV, maybe a classic being shown at a midnight screening at one of the local theaters. Costume shops would spring up, filled with gory masks and makeup. Local organizations would run some haunted houses/jails/forests and the like, full of scares and splatter. Creepy-crawlies, demons, zombies, vampires, serial killers back from the dead… great stuff.

What happened?

You go looking for a costume now and it’s nothing but licensed characters for the guys and slut outfits for the ladies (which I’m actually fine with, but it’s not very Halloween). The best horror you can hope for on TV is the really-reaching-for-it “spooky” haunted house specials on TLC. Kids don’t get to go Trick or Treating anymore, and if they do, it’s regulated during daylight hours and only to houses where you personally know the owners aren’t going to try to slip you a bar of Snickers packed with Dran-O. Instead of haunted houses we have “harvest festivals,” because Halloween is all satanic and evil, you know.

You couldn’t take all the fun out of Groundhog Day or something? You had to ruin my holiday?