Missing Halloween….

Every year on October 31, Americans delight in scaring themselves with the tricks and treats of Halloween. Children dress up as ghosts, goblins and witches. Adults hang images of skeletons and bats on their doors and windows. Spooky music drifts out of storefronts.

However in Australia they celebrate Guy Fawkes Eve as the day for Halloween or as it is also known Mischief Night or Danger Night.

On this night it is a day for children to create mischief by doing tricks or getting a treat. Though is not widely done in Australia as it is in America and elsewhere, but the trend seems to be picking up. In fact most children in Australia celebrate it as dance at their schools or in other activities. Not as a day to create lawless or other mischief.

This reminds of my very own first and sadly last Halloween party in Sydney, about three years ago. Me along with my two Ozzie flatmates aka Dave and Elliot, decided to celebrate Halloween in a big way that year, since it was also Elliot’s 30th Birthday on 29th October. Luckily Halloween was falling on the weekend….so we knew we could expect a big turn-out.

So the three stooges…decided on the following things :

Venue – Obviously our place
Food – Western cum Desi BBQ (perfect for October weather)
Decoration – To buy everything in Black and Orange colour
Dress Code – Spooky character (only applicable to us three)
Special Note – Smiley face pumpkin

We made all the phone-call invitations a week earlier. And practically spent a whole day shopping for food cum drinks and decorations…a day before the party. Last minute stuff..kept popping up…till the very last minute. Guests started dropping in from sevenish onwards and soon our entire dinning room and porch are got filled up with goras and the kaalas…

Here are some snaps, which would give you a better jist of then entire evening…..

All in all, we all had a spooky time. ahhhhh !! how I miss that boo’licious rocking night. Sadly, here in Mumbai, we don’t anything of this sort. Then to think of it, here even to celebrate Valentine’s Day and Friendship Day….we have to think twice (thanks to Shiv Sena folks), Halloween celebrations seems like a distant dream..(or nightmare !!!). So I guess this year, just like last year…I will keep myself busy by watching horror films on HBO and Star Movies and definately won’t miss the ‘Simpsons Halloween Series’ on Star World..

Some of highly recommended horror movies for this Halloween are -

1. The Exorcist (1973) : Spinning heads. Vile expletives. Buckets of vomit. Sound like your last blind date? It was worse for Ellen Burstyn and Max Van Sydow, who had to play opposite Linda Blair in “The Exorcist.” When this puppy first hit the silver screen, people were running out of the theater in droves.

2. Halloween (1978) : It was all downhill from here on out for Jamie Lee Curtis. And I mean that. Would she ever scream like this again? Hide in a closet while a very persistent Michael Myers spent about oh, say, 78 minutes trying to hack through the door? Did we mention she’s related to the killer? Little known fact: John Carpenter wrote the theme song himself. A must for every..Halloween !!!

3. Dawn of the Dead (1978) : Director George Romero single handedly created the zombie genre with ‘Night of the Living Dead.’ But it was the sequel, ‘Dawn of the Dead’ that he really cranked the scares up exponentially by featuring some of the goriest scenes ever committed to film. It’s no wonder the film was banned in 17 counties.

4. The Ring (2002) : Try imaging a weird chick who really wants to climb out of a well and kill people and eat their guts. OK, well maybe she doesn’t want to eat their guts. But she does a good job of killing a lot of people in this cinematically beautiful horror romp – and she scares the bejeezus out of Naomi Watts (and us) in the process.

5. Janghwa, Hongryeon (A Tale of Two Sisters) (2003) : Never has a menstrual cycle been presented as more terrifying or as, well, a harbinger for doom, death, and ghosts. This Korean masterpiece, directed and written by Ji-woon Kim, is elusive, subtle and horribly, horribly frightening. It centers around two deranged sisters, one deranged step-mother, one deranged father, and one deranged phantom.

6. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) :What sets this movie apart from other slasher films? Perhaps it was Leatherface’s human skin mask, or maybe it was the roar of the chainsaw, or it could have been the “based on a true story” line at the beginning. Who can say? What is certain is that this is extremely scary movie – especially Leather’s happy-dance at the end of the movie.

7. The Changeling (1980) :The late George C. Scott plays a man who retreats to a long-abandoned mansion following the accidental death of his family. Obviously the mansion is haunted. The movie’s reliance on a creepy atmosphere, as opposed to more visceral fright tactics, makes this a favorite among horror movie junkies.

There are many more movies, one can watch such as ‘The Omen’ series, ‘Silence of the Lamps’, ‘Amittyville Horror’, ‘Evil Death Part 1′, etc.

Anyways, wishing you all a very frightening (and safe) Halloween !!!!