Halloween In The Media
Unbelievably, Halloween-inspired scripts and stories first made their appearance not in movie theaters but in good, old radio. We owe the first scary and thrilling story for Halloween to the novelist H.G. Wells. If you remember Tom Cruise’s War of the Worlds, then you might already know of this novelist.
But how did a literary piece such as “War of the Worlds” scare people, especially when it’s been in circulation for a time back then? A radio production by Orson Welles turned the novel into a radio script that would serve as the first Halloween show.
“And in the news today Aliens!”
That’s right — Welles’s radio production served as the standard by which other Halloween shows would be judged in the future. His radio production turned parts of “War of the Worlds” into news bulletins that were announced between songs.
Imagine hearing news about aliens landing on Earth, sounding like the regular news you hear everyday. When Welles began the radio production, it was just a few days before Halloween, so the premise couldn’t have been better. People actually got scared and panicked around North America.
Actually, in New Jersey people were subjected to mass panic! Imagine the effectiveness of the move. It was pure genius, and a wonderful appropriation of a classic literary piece. In addition, this was just in 1930s. What would follow was a careful yet guided effort to use Halloween as a central theme in available media.
Halloween in Literature
The theme of Halloween also managed to make it into printed media. Barely 15 years after the very scary radio production, the writer Anthony Boucher wrote a noir story that focused on reality and the grisly. Boucher’s story was set in California, adding to its realism.
The North American comic series ‘Shock’ was published five years later. It made the perception of Halloween more frightening than it used to be. The story line was about the cruel head of an orphanage, punished and turned into a Halloween pumpkin. In addition, during Halloween, pumpkins are finely carved and hollowed, and some of its peel were also taken off.It was a daring step, but the public took the idea well, making Halloween a production where a certain handful of themes was supported.
EC Comics also created their own spooky comics, but censoring some parts of the stories was on the rise. Before the 1960s, the American Comic Code controlled the circulation of these stories, as some of the story elements were no longer “suitable.” This caused the horror comic books to subside.
Now, comic series like “Watchmen” from Alan Moore and “Sandman” by Neil Gaiman are showing to be lucrative enterprises in the comic industry. But these stories are not endorsed by American Comics Code. ACC only supports more wholesome comic books like “Archie.”
Halloween on TV and the Movies
It’s surprising to know that TV took its sweet time getting used to Halloween. TV was more closely censored by religious and conservative groups, so Halloween-themed shows were difficult to produce.
Here are the some of the first Halloween-themed movies that landed on the boob tube in North America.
- Whispering Ghosts (Milton Berle)
- Footlight Serenade (Betty Grable & Victor Mature)
- Frankenstein (Boris Karloff)
- The House on the Haunted Hill (Vincent Price)
- Rosemary’s Baby (Audrey Hepburn)
- Night of the Living Dead (George Romero)
- King Kong
- Godzilla
- Psycho (Hitchcock)
- Night of the Demons
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