Halloween in America: From the Eighties to the Present
Halloween today stemmed from the eighties, when the event gained recognition from a number of gory films and the idea that there’s nothing really wrong with celebrating such a holiday. It wasn’t always that way.
Spooky Fun
Halloween was once thought to be a time for rituals and divination, but it is now a time for adults and kids to get creative and simply have some spooky fun. Kids are now the focus of the event, as they without a doubt are the primary consumers of the Halloween season.
Haunted houses were the first line of defense of adults who couldn’t think of anything more interesting. Charity organizations in places like Detroit were the first ones that organized and promoted such places. In haunted houses, children could simply wander and find whatever thrills they may be seeking in this season of the year.
Will The Kids Be Okay?
Is it healthy for children to subject themselves to “scary thrills” such as those that are offered by Ripley’s tours, etc.? It seems so. According to child psychology, at a particular age, children are already capable of seeing and understanding what’s real and what’s not real.
This is the main reason why kids love Halloween so much. When they know their friends and family are simply dressing up for the occasion, they can go ahead and enjoy getting scared.
It’s important to remember that what a 5-year old child sees as scary may not exactly match a 12-year old’s. Adults also see things differently from children, so how they put up haunted houses and other spooky attractions should take this fact into account to avoid any untoward situations.
Types of thrills
These are some of the places that people in North America look for during Halloween:
- (Temporary) haunted houses
- City parks
- Haunted barns
- Ghostly gambols
- Movie theaters
As previously mentioned, many charitable institutions set up temporary haunted houses for the enjoyment of kids and teenagers. But as the 90′s rolled around, bigger companies began cashing in on their own thrill — profit.
By the turn of the century, there were already over 2,000 haunted houses in North America. During the Halloween season, these houses could thrill the public for three weeks or so.
The new boom in the Halloween season also opened the doors for fledgling entrepreneurs to find new ways to entertain people, who are becoming more and more used to the usual scares. For instance, how do you scare teenagers who have gotten used to the usual scary Halloween flicks?
The answer of course, was to bring the scares and thrills closer to home. Kids were no longer scared by conventional goblins and vampires. Nevertheless, they were still scared by the fact that a plain looking man could end up being a crazed psychopath out for blood.
Rats, eyeballs, blood and the prospect of decapitation and evisceration were the motifs that were made dynamic and usable for the purpose of scaring the kids. Sometimes, even adults let loose and allowed themselves to be scared, in this special time of the year.
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