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Halloween 2025

 I am experiencing Halloween through the lens of a grandma of a 22-month-old girl. 

As a fearful child, I did not like scary stuff. If people in the '60s had put up the kind of "decorations" I see today, I would have been terrified and unable to walk the streets to school. On my street there is a twenty-foot skeleton of a human and a five-foot skeleton of a dog. I'm not sure which is worse. (I may be wrong on the heights, but they are huge.) This house also has two dressed skeletons waving at passers-by. Others have blow-up figures of cartoon characters and typical Halloween personages. In my son's neighborhood there are witches, ghosts, and a slightly demonic scarecrow. 

Annie can't miss them when we take our walk, but I don't draw her attention to them. My son says she isn't scared by them; perhaps she has no context. She is more frightened by the fact that a tree landed on their house last week due to high winds and sent large limbs through the roof in three places (also leading to water damage in heavy rains, despite a tarp). Some of the damage is still visible and she might come running for comfort if she sees it or hears a loud noise. It traumatized her. I cuddle her, which is always a good thing. 

I will give out candy tomorrow night and not be a crank-butt about it.  Sometimes I get a crowd, sometimes not. Annie will dress as a cow (she loves farm animals) and looks like an ad for Chick-Fil-A. 

On the Christianity Today Bulletin podcast, a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary spoke on the place of horror movies in Christian teaching and experience. He seems to think we can learn something from them.

I take issue. 

That's not to say I do not watch films, but horror? Well, there's horror and then there's horror. 

Psycho? I don't like taking a shower when no one is in the house because of that one. Exorcist--never. Stuff that is put out today? Are you kidding me? True crime about serial killers? Why would I expose myself or anyone to those images and story lines, even if the bad guys get punished or, as in Exorcist, one of the priests is a Christ figure (or so he said). Rosemary's Baby--a parody of Mary? Saw? Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Friday 13th?  Cheap thrills?

Sure, a good ghost story can entertain. Beyond that, no thank you, and I don't believe I can be convinced that The Substance, Nosferatu or any other vampire tale, and the slew of horror movies (which can be made cheaply) that come out every October have any value. 

Real evil exists; we don't need "framed" evil. 

I don't think a professor needs to be justifying our wasting time on horror that glorifies evil when the world cries out for deliverance from murder, torture, sexual violence, and despair.

CT needs to rethink this. 


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