Halloween And Hollywood
Nothing represents the season of Halloween better than scary movies. Hollywood movies, both blockbusters and budget ones, serve as reminders about the mysteries of human life and existence.
After all, movies are simply mirrors of real life. While it's not reality itself, it's still a fun idea if Halloween was more than just the age-old tradition of giving kids and adults their yearly good scare.
Halloween and Hollywood
Certain aspects of culture complement each other. They seem to give each other a synergy that helps them develop and survive. This is how the movie industry defines and redefines the genre of "horror" each passing generation.
For instance, what scared people in the 60's aren't the same things that scare people today. By looking into the general public's deepest fears at the moment, Hollywood finds ways to come up with scary movies that are at par with the times.
How Things Started In The 70's
Horror movies started to take off in the 70's, and subsequently became associated with the season of Halloween. The usual images of scarecrows and Jack-o-Lanterns were given new meanings and symbolism.
These two images used to represent more mellow things, such as the harvest season. When Hollywood revamped the public notion of Halloween, the images suddenly gained an evil, demonic identity. Scarecrows suddenly carried scythes and moved with bloodlust.
That's pretty much what Halloween is — even the cutest rodents can become zombies out for human blood. It's a way of giving people a good scare without putting them in any real harm.
Wild, Contradicting Emotions
Yes, people don't like being frightened. However, what makes horror movies like Wait until Dark palatable to the public? It was the idea that something so scary could be packaged to become less frightening and controllable.
That's the difference between movies and real life — when tragedies happen in real life, it's often out of the hands of people. This is why people would much rather not deal with real life tragedies — they don't like the idea of not being in control.
Now, when something frightening had been re-formed to be consumed while sitting comfortably in a movie theater or in the comfort of your living room, it becomes less frightening. It becomes less hostile and more controllable even for kids.
All About The Kids
This is the reason why adults love celebrating Halloween — it puts them in control of things. Without Halloween, grown-ups would be hard-pressed to find ways to explain fear, death, and horror movies to their kids.
Halloween does this by making death seem less frightening. The use of masks, parties, costumes, and parades give the whole issue of death a rather festive atmosphere, communicating the message in a much more positive way.
In the end, Halloween gives us a measure of control over what would otherwise be out of our hands. It also lets us have a little fun while looking for ways to exert even more control over death.