I was in a discussion a while back with a friend of mine and we started discussing Halloween and the symbols that draw us to it (i.e full moons ,stormy nights,jack o lanters etc etc)...And we were also dissecting what it is inside of each one of us that crave those symbols...live by them and so on..SO...Tell me what draws you to Halloween and if you had the choice what kind of vision would the perfect Halloween night look like to you?
Once my mother - a devout evangelical, hard-core Church Lady if there ever was one, asked me somewhat disapprovingly asked me why I was so drawn to Halloween.
Raised an eyebrow and replied, "Well one reason is that I have many happy memories of CHURCH Halloween parties and youth activities!" and I do, no lie.... and that really, really shut her up. Oops.
Halloween is a secret holiday, in a way. It takes place mainly inside your head, lighted pumpkins aside. Maybe you don't know many people like yourself, I sure don't. But Halloween enables me to "see" those who have interests akin to mine. Its a rare thing, and I cherish it. Even if I am just on my way to work in the dark, and I see someone's lit display. Ah-ha - someone with whom I share an interest or two. On that day people let their ids out to play a bit. [I think Freud was mostly as crazy as the people he tried to analyze, but he may have had a valid point or two with that id/ego/superego business.] They become not themselves.
One of my fondest Halloween memories: I was 14 or 15. I was at a church Halloween party, by myself that year. We went to what would now be termed a "mega-church," it was huge, had thousands of members and the Sunday School building had three floors. Up on the top floor they had a room in which they would have two showings of "Masque of the Red Death," starring Vincent Price. [They had tons of activities going on scattered throughout the complex.] On a projector, no less. This was truly back in the Dark Ages even here in America.
For a little repressed girl who had her father's foot very heavily on her neck, who had everything she watched and read very carefully vetted, who kept her head down and her mouth shut and read books at school in secret because reading was a way to get into really, really BAD trouble at my house.... this lavish tale of a Black-Plague-era royal party gone horribly, horribly wrong was a REVELATION. Everything was so beautiful. The costumes and makeup were perfection. And here was this guy, Prince Prospero! A SATAN WORSHIPPER, drinking out of gold goblets and really glamorous. Talkin' up Satan. And here I was, sitting in the Sunday School building in the dark on Halloween week, and did anyone actually vet this film before they let the kiddos see it....? NOPE. It was all too obvious. WOOOHOO!
But there was MORE! Here was Prospero's mistress [!!!!!] and she is going to do nothing less than wed herself to Satan. She puts on her plunging velvet gown and her jewels and let the Latin ceremony begin at the black altar!!
...The upside-down cross is a new brand sealing her pledge to Satan.
"I am now betrothed of the Devil."
This was way more interesting than church ever was, let me tell you. I watched both showings of that movie and emerged at the end of the night with my head reeling. WOW. Gothic glamour for the win!
So there you have it. I like Gothic glamour, and I like cool windy nights and candlelight and full moons and the sheer possibility turning everything on its ear represents. Otherwise normal people let their hidden sides out to play. It does not happen very often.
And I am glad I remembered this, because I bought a boxed Vincent Price set JUST to get my hands on this movie. I am going to watch it again this very All-Hallows, and smile at the girl I was, grown past all that repression into the formidable creature that I am now.
p.s. I am not actually a Satan worshipper, this is just a really cool movie. /disclaimer
