Ghosts of Halloween Past

 

All my relatives and acquaintances know my love for all things Halloween. My yard has been ghoulishly decorated for almost a month now and yet I'm still tweaking it, changing the mask on a dummy here or moving a coffin there so that it doesn't kill the grass underneath.

It was no surprise then when my daughter-in-law tagged me in a Facebook post to let me know that there would be a special showing of Night of the Living Dead at the vintage theatre in her town. The movie would show late at night and would be preceded by old horror movie trailers, scary cartoons and a video of Screamin' Jay Hawkins performing, “I Put a Spell on You.”

Best of all, you could wear a costume and get in free. How could I not go? My wife who puts up with all my October shenanigans even agreed to come, though sans costume. That was fine. I was sure the vast majority of moviegoers would be dressed appropriately. After all, this IS the iconic zombie movie.

I found an old mask that I nearly threw away a couple years ago but now looked creepy enough. Then I put a couple “props” into my pocket. One was a sound-making device that mimicked screams, howls and cackling laughter. I also had a very realistic disembodied silicone finger. The plan was to show it to the clerk behind the concession stand and to ask her if she had any of these fresh.

We showed up at the venue a half hour before the doors opened. I had visions of lines of zombies snaking around the block. But we saw only a couple people mingling about. When the time came for the doors to open I made my entrance into the old theatre lobby. To my surprise, hardly anybody among the dozen or so people there were in costume. And NOBODY was wearing anything remotely scary, let alone a zombie mask like mine. I got a couple bemused looks and a chuckle from the ticket seller but that was it.

My wife told the ticket seller she was coming as a “senior.” She still had to pay the four bucks to get in. So in a way, my costume was worth the trouble. But I forgot about the props. For all the horror and hype, it was just your average popcorn-munching, movie-watching crowd. I felt about as out of place as a Michigan State fan at a Michigan tailgate party.

Oh, another perk of attending that late night movie was that I missed watching the U/M/MSU football contest. Watching that is far more scarier than any zombie movie I can imagine. I never do.

But being at this movie brought back ghosts of Halloween past. Like the time my mother dressed me in costume for our kindergarten celebration and sent me walking to school. But she got the date wrong. Then there was the time I was dressed like a girl for a Halloween celebration another year at a different elementary school. As I stopped at a corner waiting for traffic to clear, a car stopped and its driver rolled down the window.

“Hey baby, how about a date,” he called out. I didn't answer but felt quite embarrassed.

Like I said, ghosts of Halloweens past.