He-Man

When I was a kid I became He-Man.

At least that was my goal. When I was seven-years-old I decided to go as He-Man for Halloween. I would’ve liked to achieve this by hoisting my Power Sword into the sky and bellowing out “BY THE POWER OF GRAYSKULL! I HAVE THE POWER!!!!” but that wasn’t an option. So it was off to G.L. Perry for some costume shopping.

As their jingle correctly claimed, Perry’s did indeed have something for me. Every year Perry’s had a giant wall of boxed Halloween costumes. Boxes with pictures of your favorite cartoon characters and a little plastic window to show you the mask that would transform you from a hyper-active child to a hyper-active child in a cheap plastic mask. Looking back now these costumes were horrible. No matter the character the costume was basically the same. A plastic jump suit and a mask. The jump suit often featured a picture of the character looking awesome, even dynamic. Which wasn’t exactly how the garbage bag made you look. The plastic masks had tiny holes in them. The thought being that you would use them to see and breathe.

Heh.

Before you were thirty seconds into your Trick-Or-Treating the mask was filled with condensation. Another thirty seconds and you started to sweat. By the time that first Snicker’s bar hit your sack you were on the verge of passing out. Who knew that dressing yourself in a garbage bag could be so dangerous?

After a couple of houses you’d give up walking with the mask on and only cover your face the second before you rang the door to beg strangers for candy. As the night went on you’d momentarily envy the kids dressed as Dracula or some other creature not featured on Saturday morning cartoons. But the envy quickly passed, soothed by thoughts of how awesome you looked and how much candy you’d gotten. Assuming you didn’t get your bag snatched by some older kid.

Schoon Fact: I’m convinced that there is a special place in Hell for anyone that ever snatched a bag of candy from some little kid.

Fast forward to modern day and kids costumes are far cooler. You wouldn’t dare catch a kid today dying in some plastic nightmare. Hell, last year I was shocked by the amount of kids that didn’t have costumes at all. I’m not talking about the twelve-year-old with the pillow case that’s too cool for dressing up but still wants free candy. I mean little kids in street clothes and an orange wig or a Payton Manning jersey. Sure there were still lots of kids thrilled to assume the identity of Spider-Man for a night. But I saw more then one nine-year-old in jeans and a sweatshirt just out for M&Ms. Sad.

Could the loss of G.L. Perry’s be a factor in this growing attitude? Do kids walk into Walmart, wander down the costume isle and sigh. “They have nothing for me.” ?

--Schoonaert

Halloween

Do you have your Halloween costume yet?

True, the month just started but I tend to start thinking about Halloween by Mid-September. It and Christmas battle for the title of favorite holiday. I don’t have a specific reason why I enjoy Halloween so much. I don’t have that one childhood memory that drives so much of my adult enjoyment. It’s just fun. Happy kids, bad monster movies, and otherwise conservative ladies dressing up like cheerleaders equals fun. I enjoy the holiday so much that I plan to write about it all month long. (Of course I also planned to update this sucker on a weekly basis so we’ll see how this goes.)

To start things off I have another question for you. What’s the scariest movie you’ve ever seen? Note that I didn’t say favorite. I’m talking about the movie that kept you up at night out of fear that your soul was in danger. The movie that you can’t watch again unless you’re with a group of people. That one.

Now if you ask my sister to answer this question about me she’d laugh and say Ghostbusters 2. What? That one didn’t make your list?
When I was a pre-teen the family and I went to see this flick. You know the scene where the Ghostbusters are in that dark tunnel and a bunch of ghoulish faces pop up? Well that had me closing my eyes and turning away. Which, to my everlasting shame, my sister witnessed. She reminds me of my cowardice as often as she can and rightly so. What can I say? Disfigured faces scare the shit out of me. I can watch vampires and blood shed without flinching but show me a nose falling off and I’ll freak. Which brings me to the scariest movie I’ve ever seen.

Have you seen The Ring?

Now, I’m not much for modern horror flicks. The type of “scary” movies I enjoy usually have names like Roger Corman, Vincent Price, and Godzilla in the credits. But shortly after graduating college I was working a crappy second shift job. I’d get home around Midnight and be way to wound up to sleep. For some reason there was a copy of The Ring in the DVD player so I fired it up. I figured there’d be some Jason style psycho and some teens that I could yell at for being stupid. I’ve been know to yell things like “Kick him in the face!” or “Stop falling down you moron!” at these sort of flicks.

So I started watching The Ring.

Alone.

At Midnight.

(Spoiler alert on people)

I should have stopped the flick after the first ten minutes. When they found the dead girl in the closet with the screwed up face. Instead I got drawn into the story. The videotape, the phone calls, the girl in the well. All creepy and all captivating. I was pretty freaked out as the movie was coming to its close but I was ok. They solved the mystery of murdered girl and I was already thinking about turning in. But then…

THE BITCH CRAWLED OUT OF THE TV!!!!

There’s no defense for that, people! You can’t stab a magical dead girl! Can’t set a trap and run out of the house. Plus the TV was my friend, my comfort on bad days. How could it betray me like this? Bitch crawled out of the TV and I recoiled in my chair.

Two hours latter I was still wide awake. I had tried to sleep but the fact that I had a television at the foot of my bed wasn’t helping matters. If the phone had rang I would have wet the bed.

I haven’t seen the movie since and I have no desire to.

--Schoonaert.