The horror of Halloween

Temperate weather, perfect apples, and leaves turning yellow, red, and purple – ‘Fall’ ought to be the most charming time to be in the US. But the season’s natural beauty is defiled by a grotesque American obsession – Halloween.

For all of October (and most of September) Halloween kitsch is as ubiquitous as leaves and acorns on the ground. It’s there in offices, bars, restaurants, and coffee shops. It’s outside houses, inside houses, and on top of houses. Butcher’s knives hang from washing lines. There are six-foot tarantulas, eight-foot zombies, and twelve-foot werewolves, some of which move, cackle or howl as you walk past.

There are gravestones with tacky mottos like ‘Woulda, Shoulda, Couda’, ‘Rest in Pieces’, and ‘Deja Boo’. Skulls, loose bones, and skeletons – human and animal – cover front lawns. Cobwebs drape over flowering hydrangeas, and a doll – probably about the size of a one-year-old baby – dangles from a tree.