Trick Or Treat @ MindSay

Call me crazy, but I've got good memories associated with horror films, one of which is 1986's "Trick or Treat" about a loser kid who idolizes a rock star, Sammi Curr, who comes back from the dead to haunt his hometown's high school that rejected him.  Featuring a kick ass soundtrack by Fastway and cameos by Gene Simmons and Ozzy Osbourne, this film has to come out of obscurity to haunt a new generation.  When this film came out, I was still living in Springfield, Missouri as a mixed up teen myself rebelling against a preppie middle class Christian society determined to rein me in.  Heavy Metal was the kind of music that scared the shit out of the people I went to school with.  Ozzy, Gene, and even Alice Cooper were the boogeymen of the music world.  People associated metal with Satanism, black magic, and pornography.  Hell, it was considered worse than porno, it was the soundtrack of a horror film.  The music was enough to influence my mother to send me into Christian counseling and eventually get kidnapped by a cult deprogramming group.  That experience taught me to lie and has instilled in me a love for the dark side.  In 1986 it's no surprise that eventually a horror film centered around an undead rock star.  I can't think of anything that was more powerful than Heavy Metal back in the mid '80s.  Metal still holds a power over me even today. 

 

If I had the power and influence, I'd revive this film for today's audiences.  Can you not think of anyone more scarier than a 1980's metal icon come back from the dead?  Take a peek at the first chapters of the film I found available on YouTube:

After reviewing this film, it puts me in a mood to list all my favorite metal inspired films...

Call me crazy, but lately I've been homesick for a good old fashioned Heavy Metal horror film. The above clip is from 1986's "Trick or Treat". Ozzy Osbourne makes a small cameo as a televangelist:



I can totally see this movie as a good remake for the 21st century. Can you think of anything scarier than a 1980's metal legend come back from the dead to kill teenagers of today? Sammi Curr needs a revival. He's way better than Freddy or Jason. Whaddo ya say, rockers?

He simply hasn't wanted to go for the past few years.

I mean -- he can be very shy around strangers. And although we have had some kids in the neighborhood his age (who, unfortunately, have moved away), the whole notion of going up to people's houses, knocking on doors and saying "Trick or Treat!" hasn't appealed to him.

Until this year.

I guess it's the peer pressure from the kids at pre-school who were all going and looking forward to it. (By the way -- he was "Super-Av" again with his homemade cape that socKs made him last year. He didn't want anything else. Not even a matching t-shirt with a "SA" logo.) So -- imagine our surprise when he announced this afternoon that he wanted to go trick-or-treating!

He did have a condition, though: he only wanted to go to the house that belongs to Lynn, one of our neighbors. She has a cute little dog who has been friends with Avi since birth. We got his cape on and prepped him with the possible expectation that Lynn might not be home.

Of course -- he insisted I wear a costume.  He got me his fuzzy set of dilly-boppers which I wore on my head to be an alien.  And we went to Lynn's house across the street and knocked on the door. The lights were off, but we knocked just in case.

At least we knew the dog was home...

But I was able to motivate Av enough to go two doors down -- to a home with orange lights around the door and jack-o'lanterns at the steps.  He didn't want to knock on the door, so I did that for him.  But he smiled and said "Trick or Treat!" right on cue.

Now -- we don't have a ton of kids in our neighborhood, and it's still quite early. Which means these folks had been waiting for someone to come by. Av was the first. Which meant a lot of candy. He said thank you to these kind folks. And then I let them in on the secret -- that this was the first house at which he has trick-or-treated -- ever.  They were proud.

We tried another house down the cul-de-sac.  Again --  brightly bathed in orange.  They had Reese's mini-peanut butter cups.  Jackpot!  Again, they were also waiting for kids to show up.

And then he proclaimed he was done.  After two houses. Not bad for an amateur...

We're still waiting for our first kids to show up -- but it's still early.

Trick or treating this year was a lot more comfortable, considering that the weather was sunny and everyone seemed to be in a cheerier mood.  My eldest nephew, Josh, dressed up as an alien.  In the first photo he is wearing his mask, but he soon realized that wearing a hard plastic mask can be very uncomfortable and so he didn't wear it for very long.  My younger nephew, Nick, is an executioner who carried his pumpkin of candy on the end of his battle axe.  My nephews come up with all sorts of interesting choices for costumes, many during the year, and I'm always pleasantly surprised to see what they finally decide to do.  Since Nick is the most goth of the family this year, he did me proud.  Now all he needs to do is get into heavy metal music... oh, wait, they both already are courtesy of Guitar Hero!

 

After stopping at a local K-Mart, my brother Mark started to get into the spirit of things and decided he should also dress up a little.  I think he would've made a perfect Nathan Explosion, lead singer of death metal band DETHKLOCK from the adult swim animated series, Metalocalyse, but that would've required him to straighten his hair, shave, and put on black nail polish.  We didn't have time for that.  So Mark decorated his head with orange, black, and purple spider antenna that had me giggling all while we walked the neighborhood.

 

As for me, well, the simplest thing for me to do is do the witchy thing.  My nephews and I kept joking that I'm a REAL witch dressed up as a pretend witch.  Yes, my family is priviledged to have a Dianic Witch in the family, so the boys know all about me being Pagan and why this time of year is special.  Still, no matter what the spiritual significance, it's really all about the candy to them... that and getting to dress up!

 

So, yes, we had some fun.  It's amazing how much people decorate and go all out for this holiday.  There was even an adventurous "werewolf" in a tree handing out goodies.  Too cute. 

 

Oh, and I got compliments on my costume.  Actually, we all got compliments.  We seemed to be the only family that was all costumed up together.  What can I say?  It's a tradition.  Still, gotta wonder who is crazier looking -- me as a fantasy witch, or my brother grinning maniacally behind me?

I don't have any children. I have god children but they are almost all grown up. My youngest god child is now 7 and the other two are 21 and 17.

 

That hasn't stopped me and NurseLola from buying like $100 worth of candy and toys to give away for Halloween. I also bought fixings for more spooky cupcakes, popcorn balls and gourmet candy apples. As well as home made mini pizza's and nachos for the kids that we know stay at our house. Our cousins all came to our parents house to trick or treat when they were kids and now they are bringing their kids.  The kids we grew up with on our block now bring their kids over to our house as well. Shit, people I was friends with in highschool bring their kids to our house. 

 

After 911 when the big scare ended almost all Halloween activity our house had 100s of kids come by. We didn't want to stop it because of some freaking terrorist so we decorated and put out lights and made baggies putting our family name on them so the people who knew us knew it was safe. 

We are so well known that people we don't know tell us they come to our house every year and even though they  moved they still had to drive back to our house.

 

 

  There is a drunken witch leaning on the left but she didn't fit in the picture..she's drunk because she keeps tipping over.

 

 This isn't even all the decorations..we save the rest for that day because it involves our production. There is a canopy we are going to decorate and we are going to get dressed up like Harry Potter characters and set up games for little kids to play for toy prizes.  We also have a crap load of glow in the dark bracelets for kids to put on. They loved that last year.

 

Look its Count Eddie Money..come on you know he has bug eyes! This is where we bury the bones of bad children who try to do bad tricks to our house. Trust me I have no problem telling those badass kids off either. Last year when those fully grown teenaged moochers tried to trick or treat without a costume ...ahem...SOMEBODY..we all know and love told them. "If you have freaking hair between your legs and your nuts have dropped your too freaking old to trick or treat."

 

BUT I'm not saying who!   but the pinches really hurt.

 

 

 and I'm saying it again this year.