Goblins and ghouls and ghosts. The food of Halloween, not to mention the sweets ( candy) and trick or treat.
When I was living in the US in the early days, married with a very young son, I was asked if I was going to take him out trick or treating. I had no idea what they were talking about and had to have it explained to me. ‘Get him the costume of his choice and a plastic pumpkin bucket. Take him and knock on doors and say “trick or treat”.’ It was all a mystery to me, but my son caught on quickly and enjoyed the experience and the candy very much.
Superstition and fear has always been with us. All Hallows Eve still carries some of its mystique and has ever being used by many of those who want to keep,our attention, keep us in thrall to them. It has been weaponised over and over, by playing on peoples unvoiced fears and insecurities.
The media, newspapers, on screen, theatre love it for that reason – ghost stories, horror stories keep us coming back for more. Those of us in the entertainment business know that it will sell.
Horror and mystery has been very good to my career. Carmilla, The Night of the Big Heat, The Horror at 37,000 Feet, The Hands of the Ripper , The Haunting of Margam Castle etc. That was the reason for making New Chilling Tales- the Anthology a compilation of four short horror stories written by great classic writers, Edgar Allan Poe, WW Jacobs, Ambrose Bierce and Charlotte Gilman Perkins, who understood human nature and its deepest fears and weaknesses very well. The film is on Amazon, if you want to take a look and has been there since 2018. In the works is another Chilling Tales, which I hope we can make before the end of this year. This time the planned stories are written by Nathanial Hawthorne, HP Lovecraft, Mark Twain and O Henry.
I write more about that in due course.
In the meantime, Happy Halloween, kids -don’t eat too much candy and AI stop correcting or changing my words, I know better than you and it is wastes my time correcting your mistakes!!!
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