Hallowe’en Has Become An Orgy Of Blood-Spattered Nonsense. But We Trivialise Spiritual Forces At Our Peril

Oct 28, 2016 by Jill

by James Cary, Christian Today:

[…] Why is Hallowe’en now like this? Hallowe’en has switched from spookiness, which is tiresome enough, to blood-spattered, internal-organ-removing horror. It has quadrupled in size in the process. I’m not one to harp on about what happened back in my day, but back in my day, in the 1980s, Hallowe’en was meant to be just a bit spooky. People put on bedsheets and ran around saying ‘Wooooooo!’ There were cobwebs, the odd witch’s hat made out of cheap black card, some apple bobbing and that was it. There was no question of bloody violence.

This was back in the days when Children’s BBC refused to broadcast Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, unless they changed it the ‘Ninja’ to ‘Hero’. Yes, the actual word ‘Ninja’ was banned.

Nowadays, children seem entirely conversant in the language of horror, and all things related like vampires, wraiths and lycanthropes. This is completely normal. I occasionally wonder what would happen if there were to be a genuine zombie apocalypse in my home town. It will be a total non-event. At the sight of the risen dead walking in schools and playground, the kids would tut, roll their eyes and complain that the whole thing was a bit hack.

My revulsion to all things Hallowe’en is, I confess, partly one of personal taste. I’ve never watched horror films, or video nasties – another product of those innocent 1980s. In my teens, some friends offered me the chance to watch the original Freddie movie, Nightmare On Elm Street. When I asked what it was about, and they told me, I was very puzzled that anyone who ever wanted to sleep again would want to watch it. When it comes to horror, I like it very, very mild. The early episodes of The X-Files – before it went all alien conspiracy – are about as far as I go.

My family’s revulsion to Hallowe’en must, in some ways, be related to our Christian faith but we cannot hide behind that. The Bible has zombies rising from the graves on Good Friday, the Witch of Endor, the Angel of Death, demon-possession and all kinds of distressing manifestation of spiritual realities. Maybe that’s the source of my reservation. Spiritual forces – both good and evil – are real and we trivialise them at our peril. But I realise that warning about trivialising sounds a bit rich coming from a comedy writer like me.

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