REVIEW Trash Culture Journal: Vol. 1 No. 2, 2013 Trick R Treat: A Celebration of Halloween Trash By Hannah Irwin, Macquarie University All these traditions: jack-o-lanterns, putting on costumes, handing out treats they were started to protect us. But nowadays no one really cares. Principal Wilkins, Trick R Treat, 2007 Thus laments Steven Wilkins, a school principal who moonlights as a child killer, in Michael Dougherty s 2007 film Trick R Treat. This horror anthology unusually focuses on, and celebrates, the mythology and popular beliefs surrounding the holiday of Halloween. Although there is an existing tradition of making and screening horror films and television shows to coincide with the popular holiday on the 31 st of October, very few of these films actually engage with Halloween, despite its historical association with death, sacrifice and disguise. The term Halloween, derived from All Hallows Eve, is a Christian invention, attempting to convert a pagan festival into a day of worship for dead Christian saints, the 1 st of November being known as All Saint s Day. In pre-christian times, the 31 st of October was called Samhain, and was simultaneously a Celtic New Year s celebration, a seasonal harvest or herding festival and a day of the dead, involving ancestor worship. (Ward, 1981: 4) Human sacrifices were made to Samhain, Lord of the Dead, by Celtic druids, people later being substituted for black cats, who were burnt in wicker cages. (Linton and Linton, 1950: 4) In Ireland, the good people, or the fairies, were believed to be out in force on this night, intent on wreaking mischief or malevolence on any mortal foolish enough to be outside. (Yeats, 1888: 2) The pranks of the fairies may be one of the origins of modern trick-or-treating. The tradition of the jack-o-lantern also originates from Celtic Ireland, where potatoes and 1
turnips were hollowed out, and lit with candles. There is a folktale explaining this tradition, wherein an Irishman, Jack, tricks the Devil out of claiming his soul and as a result is barred from Heaven, forced to wander forever using a potato with a live coal inside as a lantern. (Belk, 1990: 509) Fires were lit, banquets held and disguises worn to confuse the ghosts, hobgoblins and witches who emerged on Samhain night, when it was believed that the veil between the human world and the world of the dead was at its thinnest. The transformation of Halloween from the Celtic harvest festival of Samhain to a night primarily associated with consumerism, pranks and trashy films is a path contested over and traced repeatedly by various scholars. The reason for Halloween s current status as a facet of trash culture may lie in the inability to ascribe a particular meaning or value to the holiday. In his article Halloween: An Evolving American Consumption Ritual, researcher Russell W. Belk writes that, The historical precedents of Halloween explain some icons and historical vestiges of the holiday, but they do not explain why it continues to be a popular American and North American holiday, despite its lack of clear meanings to participants. (1990: 511) Lisa Morton, author of 2012 book Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween, suggests that this lack of clarity is the result of inadequate historical sources, resulting in the exaggeration and creation of folklore that may never have taken place; Halloween owes part of its legacy of confusion and obfuscation to those same Celts who provided the basis for the celebration with their Samhain. Surprisingly little is known of them since they kept no written records. Our knowledge of Ireland s Celts is based largely on orally transmitted lore and scattered archaeological evidence. It s no wonder that writers dreamt of a race of savages who offered up human sacrifices to demonic gods and spent the autumn warding off evil spirits by constructing huge, roaring bonfires. (2012: n.p.) Unlike other holidays of pagan origin, such as Easter or Christmas, it is also unclear to which members of society Halloween is directed at. Samhain would have been a communal celebration, involving the entire family; the modern Halloween became popular with children, with the introduction of the ritual of trick-or-treating, dressing 2
up and walking around the neighbourhood in groups to collect offerings of food and candy. This innocent activity was ruined in the 1960s, when a veritable cult of urban legends built up around Halloween especially the notorious razor blade in the apple myth, which suggested that innocent young children were at risk although there were no recorded instances of real cases behind these modern myths. (Morton, 2012, n.p.) Whether these urban legends contributed in Halloween becoming an activity primarily for adults from the 1970s onward, particularly in America, is unclear. Huge gatherings and parties with sexually promiscuous costumes were introduced on Halloween, escapist extravaganzas that more resembled Mardi Gras than the candy-and-apple surfeits of yesteryear eclipsing the child-centred rituals of trick-or-treating. (Rogers, 2002: 126) Certainly, Halloween is now considered in some circles a degenerate holiday that has lost much of its original significance, (Belk, 1990: 511) and is condemned by religious groups as a night of devil worship and black magic because of its pagan origins. The relationship between Halloween and trashy horror films is best signified in John Carpenter s Halloween franchise, which comprises of ten films along with associated novels and comic books. The first five of the Halloween films (1978-1979) were released only days before the holiday itself, thus adding the consuming of horror films to the traditions of Halloween. Despite the film s title, only the third Halloween film, Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), made any attempt to engage with Halloween as a night of supernatural occurrences; the other films being concerned with the serial killer Michael Myers who happened to murder his sister on Halloween night. Of course horror is not restricted to the medium of film; the Halloween Special is a fixture of many television channels and shows, being either an episode of a particular show concerned with Halloween, or a show created especially for the holiday for viewers. Some of the most famous and long running Halloween Specials, usually directed at a younger audience, include It s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966), based on the Peanuts comic strip, Halloweentown (1998) and The Halloween Tree (1993). Films which are shown around the time of Halloween usually have a cult 3
following, and were not popular during their theatrical release, such as Hocus Pocus (1993) and Halloween (1978), or indeed were not given a theatrical release at all, like Trick R Treat, which gained its popularity largely through screenings at film festivals and on the internet, including an all-day marathon of the film on popular horror website FEARnet on Halloween, 2010. The cult status of Halloween films sits well with the concept of trash culture, being films that have been discarded by society for not being a financial success, or for being associated with a trashy, degenerate holiday like Halloween, having only found acclaim and popularity through bloggers, online reviewers and consumers of trashy television, who are thus altering the power of who gets to say what is popular and what is rejected. Trick R Treat was meant to be released to cinemas in 2007, but Warner Bros. refused on the grounds that its mixture of horror and comedy was confusing. Director Michael Dougherty protested that his film followed the traditions of classic horror movies, and anthologies such as Creepshow (1982), but had to eventually release Trick R Treat via a grassroots campaign. The film was based on an animated short created by Dougherty in 1996 called Season s Greetings, which introduced the character of Sam (presumably short for Samhain), who has the appearance of a small boy dressed in orange pyjamas with a burlap sack resembling a jack-o-lantern on his head. In Season s Greetings, Sam is stalked by a dark figure who has been stealing children, late on Halloween night while he is trick-or-treating. The figure corners him in an alley, and in the ensuing struggle it is assumed by the audience that Sam has been killed. Instead, he emerges from the alleyway dragging his attacker in his trick-or-treat bag, and the eerie glow emitting from the eye holes of the sack suggests that Sam is something supernatural. This idea is expanded upon in Trick R Treat, with Sam coming to signify the spirit of Halloween itself, ensuring that its ancient traditions are followed. When a woman extinguishes the flame of a jack-o lantern, which is against tradition, he immediately attacks and stabs her to death with the serrated edge of a pumpkin-headed lollipop. Sam is present in all four stories that make up the anthology, which skilfully intersect. In some he is only an observer of events; in 4
others, he takes an active role. When old and irritable Mr Kreeg frightens the trick-ortreaters from his door without offering them any candy, Sam infiltrates his house and physically attacks him. During the fight he is revealed to have an actual pumpkin for a head, with demonic features. The only thing which prevents Sam killing Mr Kreeg is that he happens to impale a chocolate bar lying on the man s chest; with the ritual of giving and receiving a treat fulfilled, Sam leaves him alive. Michael Dougherty celebrates the idea of Halloween with his anthology Trick R Treat, which includes iconic figures of horror such as ghosts, serial killers and werewolves, for both its ancient rituals and its modern large-scale parties and pageantry. He ensures that his audience is aware of the history of Halloween, speaking through his idiot savant character, Rhonda, who is obsessed with the holiday, and the school principal/child killer Steven Wilkins. When Rhonda, who has covered the front yard of her house with jack-o-lanterns, is told that she must really enjoy Halloween, she replies with You mean Samhain? Predating Christianity, the Celtic holiday was celebrated on the one night between autumn and winter when the barrier between the living and the dead was thinnest, and often involved rituals that included human sacrifice. Although her obsession is the object of ridicule among a group of her peers who have gathered to play a cruel prank on her, it is Rhonda s knowledge of Halloween traditions that saves her from the fate of the other children. Steven Wilkins, who hands out poisoned candy to trick-or-treaters, lectures one of his students, who has been stealing treats and smashing pumpkins, on Halloween; My dad taught me that tonight is about respecting the dead. This is the one night when the dead and all sorts of things roam free, and pay us a visit. All these traditions: jack-o- lanterns, putting on costumes, handing out treats, they were started to protect us, but nowadays no one really cares. Wait, that s right, there s another tradition, a very important one: Always check your candy. As he speaks, the boy begins to vomit up chocolate and blood, becoming one of Wilkin s victims, the poisoned chocolate bar being a reference to Halloween s urban legends of razor blades and drugs concealed in Halloween candy. In an interview in 5
2011, Dougherty spoke about his love of Halloween, and mentioned the lack of understanding about the holiday s origins in modern America; Having grown up obsessed with the holiday, I really knew about a lot of the traditions and a lot of the back stories and origins of these traditions why we carve jack-olanterns and why we dress up and hand out candy. Because as a kid, you just think, "OK, we wander around, we get free candy, we wear costumes." But when you research the history of these traditions and you realize they go back thousands of years, pre-dating Christianity, and the idea that you are trying to appease the spirits of the dead by doing the things we do, it suddenly takes on a much more serious and sinister tone. And I thought that was awesome, the idea that American culture just kind of does these things for the sake of having fun, not realizing that they're participating in ancient pagan traditions that's the best prank in the world, whoever came up with that. (Maki, 2011: n.p.) This sense of fun and enjoyment permeates Dougherty s film Trick R Treat, which refuses to ignore this holiday as so many other horror films have done, instead choosing to celebrate it in all its degenerate and trashy glory. BIBLIOGRAPHY Belk, RW, (1990),"Halloween: an Evolving American Consumption Ritual", in Goldberg, ME, Gorn, G and Pollay, RW, (eds.) NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 17, pg. 509-511. Dougherty, M, (Director). (2007). Trick R Treat [Film]. California: Warner Bros. Linton, R, Linton A, (1950), Halloween Through Twenty Centuries, New York: Henry Schuman. Maki, G, (2011), Interview: Trick R Treat writer-director Michael Dougherty, Maki at the Movies, October 6, 2011, accessed online September 20, 2013 at http://makiatthemovies.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/interview-trick-r-treat-writer-director.html Morton, L, (2012), Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rogers, N, (2002), Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night, New York: Oxford University Press. Ward, D, (1981), "Halloween: An Ancient Feast of the Dead that Will Not Die," Folklore and Mythology, 1, p. 4. 6
Yeats WB, (1888), Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry Edited and Selected by W. B. Yeats, London: Walter Scott Publishers. 7