There’s a scare in the air this Halloween
By Michael Lafferty

Boo!

The celebration (or non-celebration) of Halloween is an important one ­ at least from a retailer’s standpoint. It seemingly marks the beginning of the holiday season in their minds, which means as mere mortals, we are reminded of how many shopping days left till Christmas, or how quickly the year has passed.

As for Halloween itself, the origins are steeped in myth and colored by centuries of embellishment. One account has it that Halloween, October 31, marked the end of summer in Celtic Ireland. The new year was known as Samhain. The word ‘Halloween’ is purported to have its origins in the Catholic church, and is a corrupted form of All Hallows Eve.

Myth attributed to 5th-century Celtic Ireland has it that on Halloween the spirits of those who had died in the previous year would come back looking for a living body to possess. Villagers, to ward off the possession, would dress up in ghoulish outfits and bedevil the area to scare off the spirits.

Another interpretation of the day has it that Halloween was a pagan feast of the dead, and that it has strong links to the Druids of Ireland.

Regardless of the origin, today’s celebration offers the opportunity for people to step outside themselves, dress up in outlandish costumes, insure their dentist remains gainfully employed for the coming year, and to try to scare each other with a viable excuse.

It is a night when we not only try to scare others, but ourselves as well. Movies that terrify glue wide-eyed spectators to televisions, ghastly pranks chill and thrill, and the smile of human kindness is replaced with the mischievous grin of ghoulish gags unbound upon the unsuspecting.

The idea is to scare. The louder the terrified scream, the higher the ranking.

So what scares and terrifies you the most?

Many things come to my mind, but a few stick out as memorable, or unforgettable. As a child, there was a fascination with a series of Aurora models (the old plastic-formed ones held together by glue and paint) based on the cinema’s most renowned monsters. Bought ostensibly for the child, the father would allow the youngster to watch as he meticulously glued each piece into place, then painted them as realistically as possible. Because the child was merely a spectator in this process, the completed models were then placed out of reach in the child’s bedroom window, which was in the upper third of the wall.

Herein lies the problem with that. About 40 feet to the side of the house there was a streetlight. Late at night that light, when the inky darkness was at its peak, would hit the window in such a manner to cast shadows upon the bedroom wall. Imagine hearing a noise, waking up and have a 7-8 foot shadow of the Mummy, Wolfman, Frankenstein or Count Dracula looming over your bed. It took a while for the parents to understand why their third-grader was screaming late at night while they were trying to sleep.

Pop culture added to the terror. There was a ‘B’ movie that was particularly terrifying to the young child. Sure, "The Beast with Five Fingers" (a disembodied hand that went around leaping off shelves and strangling folks) was bad enough, but "It Came From Beneath the Sea" (1955, featuring the animation of Ray Harryhausen) was the one that spawned a lot of nightmares. Vivid images of giant suckered tentacles, reaching through the windows of the third-floor apartment building still dance in my head.

Many, many years passed when the movie was featured on Cinemax. It was definitely worth another look ­ after all, a child can be terrified but the world-weary adult surely would laugh it off. True, the movie wasn’t as frightening as when a child, but those younger memories still produced a chilling tickle that danced along the spine of the grown-up.

With that in mind, it was time to turn back to the world of software. Some of the folks I work with were asked about what terrifies them most. The questions were broken down into three categories:
1. What is the scariest movie you have ever seen?
2. What is the scariest game you have ever played?
3. What scares you the most?

Here are their answers. Please note that these answers are personal, and do not reflect the views or opinions of the companies these good people work for.

First up is Annie Eckles, PR manager at Sierra Entertainment.
Movie: "It’s a toss-up between "The Exorcist" and "The Shining."
Game: Resident Evil.
Overall: "Being trapped in a sinking ship."

Adam Kahn, who also works for Sierra Entertainment, had a completely different view:
Movies: " ‘The Hitcher’ still kinda creeps me out — it was super scary when I saw it back in the day!"
Game: "System Shock 2, by far!"
Overall: "Deadlines, for sure."

Kelly Ekins, a PR associate for Strategy First, concurred with Annie on the movie, but not in other areas:
Movie: "I think the scariest movie I've ever seen has to be The Exorcist...partly due to the fact that I saw it when I was 10 years-old! I remember being too scared to take my feet off the couch to put them on the floor! I thought someone would grab me from under the couch.."
Game: "Return to Castle Wolfenstein freaked me out a bit actually! My heart was racing when I played that game."
Overall: "The possibility of ghosts and the supernatural scares me the most. I think it's because it's completely out of your control."

Kevin Hunter, Public Relations for Saitek Industries, cast his vote alongside Annie in the game department:
Movie: "The Omen."
Game: "Resident Evil."
Overall: "Death."

Denny Chiu, PR coordinator at Eidos Interactive, agreed on a movie title, but went in another direction in the other two categories:
Movie: "The scariest movie has to be Exorcist. Spinning heads, spitting goo, shadows, it's got all the goods to scare anyone."
Game: "The scariest game would be the old Sierra Phantasmagora. It was the scariest game at the time for me anyways."
Overall: "Unemployment scares me most."

Happy Halloween !!!

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