No surprise, then, that Nightmare has company. Just up the Hudson river is Headless Horseman, where Washington Irving’s fictional and famously decapitated equestrian has returned with dozens of creepy friends in tow. At Terror on the Fox in Green Bay, Wisconsin, visitors can look forward to vertigo, claustrophobia and the scurrying and slithering of live rats and snakes. And Mountville, Pennsylvania’s Field of Screams unleashes a bloodthirsty butcher on adults while youngsters are shunted off to Little Screamers, a non-scary hayride. In fact, some 30m American adults will spend over $650m at America’s more than 1,200 haunted attractions this year.
This is all part of a broader boom for Halloween, which bridges the retailers’ gap between the return to school and Christmas. Stores like Target and Wal-Mart start selling costumes, sweets and other ghoulish offerings as early as Labour Day in early September. Total spending is up more than 50% since 2005, with Americans poised to lay out a record $5 billion this year, according to the National Retail Federation, a trade association.
I can understand adults wanting an excuse to have a party, but really, this extreme spending on Halloween is worrisome. Is America searching for something to believe in? Is the taste for the occult and the gruesome a reflection of the disease in our souls?
I think it’s a sign we have too much money and too much time on our hands, to be investing so heavily in events like this.
We bought our Hallowe’en stuff several years ago, some at 50% off, some at 90% off, and have been using the same gear over and over again. Nothing elaborate, it all fits into one box afterwards, and goes back into the garage until the next year.