Halloween Stories

Its that time of the year again, October brings an end to summer and welcomes in the fall harvest season. It also means that Halloween is just around the corner. Decorating the house, costumes, trick or treating and festivals are all part of enjoying this holiday.

Another is gathering together around a fire or candlelight and telling scary stories. The supernatural has always sparked the imagination of storytellers for centuries. Some based on local legend, old folklore, and  even nightmares.

The theme of  death, evil and the occult are what some of the most recognizable horror stories are based from. Characters like Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolf man and The Mummy have been replaced with more familiar characters who, like most big celebs, need only one name. Jason, Freddy, Michael.

Recently the vampire genre has undergone a complete makeover with the introduction of the Twilight Series. The Cullen clan, who not only can go out in daylight ,but even work and blend in with regular humans are simply portrayed as a little peculiar, goth types. The werewolf is also reinvented with the indian legend of the skinwalkers, shape shifters that take the form of a giant wolf instead of simply a large hairy man.

One of the all time favorites is The Legend of Sleepy Hollow depicting  a small town, a school teacher Ichabod Crane, the love interest of his, Katrina Van Tassel, and the two protagonists, Brom Bones, and the headless horseman.

Zombies have recently been given new life (no pun intended) with the creation of the AMC series The Walking Dead. The story chronicles a group of survivors of a zombie apocalypse trying to search out a safe place to restart civilization while fighting their way through the country now covered by the undead. The human relationships are what makes this a winner with the zombie battles an added bonus instead of just constant gruesomeness and carnage as with other previous zombie movies.

In general the horror movie has became somewhat stale with the onslaught of Saw movies that were timed to release on Halloween or the remakes of some of the classic movies like Nightmare on Elm St, or Friday the 13th and Halloween. While some redefined the character and told the story from a different point of view, they tend to take away from the original frights that we all enjoyed.

Whatever your personal preference is, or even if your not a scary story or movie person, this time of year makes for great imagination and  fun for the kid in all of us to enjoy a little rush of adrenaline and chill down our spine. Keeps the blood flowing.....