lifestyle | Nightmare Nostalgia

I’ve been reflecting lately on experiencing Halloween as a child in the ‘90s – why it was great and what made it special? It really felt as if every house on the street celebrated this whimsical, dark holiday that manifested our natural fascination with all things occult and paranormal that go bump in the night. TV offerings of seasonal specials were just as rich as the surprises to be found within my candy bag – treasures earned from surviving a scarecrow that came to life suddenly on someone’s porch. I’ve come to realize a recurring element to these memories: each was possible thanks to an individual’s effort. A parent, a relative or a neighbor who did their part in unknowingly cementing an experience that I’ll never forget.

Decades later, many of us can still pinpoint the house that gave out full-size chocolate bars, or with an elaborate garage setup of strobe lights and fog machines. Just as memorable was that specific year where your uncle & his partner (before they got married) put on a Treehouse of Horror marathon as you sorted through your haul, your vast array of goodies spread out on the living room floor. Nearby, a menacing Count Dracula standee over in the front hallway kept guard as the jack-o-lantern outside sustained the spirit of Halloween by burning just a little bit longer.

There are very simple ways that you can reintroduce these traditions and all the feels not only for yourself to enjoy but to allow a new generation of trick r’ treaters to experience what Halloween was like in the 1990’s! Here’s four simple, time-friendly practices that will make this Halloween a special one – ’90s style.

Keep it Spooky – Inside & Outside

Outdoor decorations are obvious (I’ll get to those shortly) but indoor ones are just as important! If you’re not someone like me who has a Universal Monsters circa 1991 Happy Halloween cover on their office door, then you should absolutely consider putting a few things out to help enhance the mood. Table-covers and garbage-bag-strip entrances are easy, and even with the vast amount of dollar store options nowadays, you can be creative: cut the bottom of a plastic jack-o’-lantern and shove in a fake flicker candle for a cozy night-light in the kitchen! Having a dedicated seasonal décor box adds to the magic feels of taking it out each Fall (even if you’re a year-round decorations person like myself).

It’s wild to think projected imagery and inflatable displays are what replaced far simpler outdoor options like hanging paper ghosts, Styrofoam tombstones or my favorite: pumpkin leaf bags! Is it just me or do these things seem to not be as popular anymore? You can easily go get leaves at a nearby park if you don’t have immediate access to any in your yard or on your street. Pumpkin leaf bags are also multi-purpose: keep the leaves to cover your garden or lawn, as they can support an ecosystem and even bring fireflies for the next summer!

Holiday Specials & Movie Frights

A big part of experiencing Halloween in the ‘90s was the season’s television content: holiday specials, horror movies and themed episodes were plentiful across many channels leading up to October 31st. While there are many more sources now than cable, take it upon yourself to arrange for movie nights leading into the end of the month. Have a back-to-back screening of Halloween & Halloween II so it’s one long movie! Reach out to distant friends and family for a remote watch-along session where you pick a few titles to scream over. If you’re looking for something to hit those spooky background vibes, consider snagging one of those 6 hour Here Lies Halloween Experience tapes!

Participation Setup & Indicators – Ring The Damn Doorbell!

If you’re committed to handing out candy this year, this is a vital area to prepare yourself for: you may get 10 kids at the most. I experienced this last year when I stood on the street dressed as Michael Myers attempting to gain attention from a nearby intersection while a van pulled up along a row of darkened homes to unleash a group of un-costumed kids who rushed my house like it was McDonalds circa 1993. Despite the small amount of visitors, it’s still worth the effort: those 10 kids are going to experience that ‘90s Halloween magic. It can be frustrating & disappointing to see far less trick r’ treaters these days and less houses participating, but here’s where taking the extra effort to collaborate with friends and neighbors can help – it’ll even make for a really fun experience for the grownups!

I can’t tell you how often I’ve seen parents / kids decide to skip a house only because they didn’t have a particular indicator to make it clear they were handing out candy (despite even outdoor / indoor decorations). Be it a jack-o-lantern, adequate lighting, or even a person standing outside with candy: people will still be picky and impatient. If you’re going with the doorbell method (which honestly needs to come back more), ensure your lighting is appropriate for kids to see where they’re going and obvious enough so their parents don’t decide to skip your place. Music helps quite a bit here – if you don’t have a boombox, play an old Sound FX tape off some wireless speakers. Go the extra mile with the previously-mentioned scarecrow bit or garage of horrors if you have one!

Treats – Candy, Pencils, and Soda Cans

One of the most topical parts of the nostalgia around Halloween, treat offerings have seen a significant shift in what’s been handed out over the years. Peanuts in a ziplock bag sounds absolutely ludicrous but this was actually a common enough thing up until the 2000’s. Boxes of mixed fun-size candy were not common, so you saw much more variety and MANY more Chiclets. Nut-free options are incredibly important to consider now, as more kids have more food allergies – their experiences are equally as essential to consider! You can get creative with treat baggies consisting of a variety of goodies, including those classic orange n’ black pencils or novelty vampire teeth! If you really want to get inducted into the Halloween Hall of Fame, take the initiative to become the full-size candy bar or soda-can house (I hand out full-size Mars bars, which are nut free).

Halloween only comes once a year but there’s a reason why those memories continue to stay relevant. Take it upon yourself to make some new ones in the spirit of the 1990’s – have a safe & happy Halloween!

Halloween throughout the 70s seemed like a special time for the holiday. Granted, I was only a twinkle in my father’s eye during the 70s (born in 1982 here), but with plenty of family, friends, and the good ol’ internet handy, to tell the story of a magnificent decade that really began the mainstream commercialized hype of Samhain, Halloween in the 70s looked to have kicked all kinds of ass. While Halloween’s traditions were well established in the U.S. decades earlier, it became a national, mainstream celebration for both adults and children in the 1970s, driven by the rise of horror films, increasing commercialization, and the growth of adult parties.

And to be quite frank, those parties looked like PARTAYS.

The Decorations

The 70s is when that vintage decor Halloween junkies search for, everyone has at least one Holy Grail vintage item, went from mostly handmade, to commercialized die-cuts that were mass-produced and placed on store shelves. Stores also began decorating more for Halloween themselves with this decor to showcase and a buying incentive. Of course, the infamous Beistle and Dennison had been doing this since the early 1900s and only grew stronger with the rise of the Halloween culture in the 70s, but a slew of production companies and new KINDS of decor had entered the market like Empire Plastics Inc., Bernard Edward Co. (later called Beco), Poloron Products, Dapo, General Foam, and many others, that became a mainstay in Halloween traditions ever since: the Blow Mold. And in the 70s, the Blow Mold was as hot as ever since making its initial appearance a few years earlier during the 60s. After some decline after the 90s began, Halloween blow molds became almost extinct and has only in recent years made a comeback to Halloween. Nostalgia is a powerful tool, folks!

The Costumes

Picture it: The night before Halloween, mom takes you into K-mart, where you look through the picked-over plastic masks with matching costumes. You clutch that $5.99 Wonder Woman or Spiderman mask and matching costume to your chest on the way home as you slide around on the bench seat without a seatbelt in the back of your parents’ wood-paneled station wagon, while your mom smokes in the front seat. You immediately run up stairs to your room and place your beloved lucky find on All Hallows Eve on your bedroom wicker chair for the next day’s exciting events while you can smell the frozen Salisbury steak TV dinner cooking in the oven (and this time, mom remembers to pull back one corner of the aluminum foil on top, so the sauce isn’t frozen popsicle gravy). All is right in the world.

While homemade costumes from sheets and everyday items were common, the 1970s also saw a surge in store-bought, plastic costumes, often featuring popular TV and movie characters like the Universal Monsters, Star Wars, and even Alien! Largely thanks to the now infamous Ben Cooper company for providing kids with a smack of pop culture and barely breathable masks for trick-or-treating.

The Candy

Halloween candy culture in the 70s saw the beginnings of a widespread fear surrounding Halloween candy, stemming from an op-ed in The New York Times in 1970 and escalating with the Ronald Clark O’Bryan case in 1974, where a man intentionally poisoned his son with cyanide-laced Pixy Stix. Though these were isolated, publicized incidents, they fueled the “Halloween candy scare” and a lasting urban legend of random tamperings, which studies later found to be unsubstantiated. But that didn’t stop people from making those homemade popcorn balls or candied apples to give to kids coming to their door on Halloween night, Whether mom allowed you to keep it was entirely on her and trying to hide those in your pumpkin pail or pillow sack didn’t seem to work much. Also, she inspects every one of your pieces of candy for pinholes before allowing you to keep it. This was the beginning, folks. A few years later, HALLOWEEN II features that parental fear into a side scene in the film that was actually, one of the terrifying moments of the movie itself.

The Horror Movie Influence

The rise of commercially successful shock horror and slasher films like THE EXORCIST, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, and, of course, the one and only, HALLOWEEN gave some much-needed holiday OOMPH for the adults and their enjoyment of Samhain. And any kids that happened to sneak into the movie theater to watch any of these, added an either amazing or traumatized element of horror to the holiday for them; one that is highly played on now rather than just plastic skeletons and sheet ghosts.

Imagine sitting in the theater and watching Halloween for the first time? In case you’re wondering what that’s like, check out this audio from 1979 from an audience viewing HALLOWEEN for the first time.

Halloween Television Specials

Before the 70s, Halloween television specials were nonexistent except for “IT’S THE GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN”. But with the rise in television programs and public interest, cozying in that crocheted blanket on your parents’ couch in the days leading up to Halloween and tuning into Casper’s Halloween, Witch’s Night Out, or my personal favorite, The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t, while perusing the Kmart or Woolworth ads in the local newspaper searching for your perfect costume sounds like heaven on Earth to me. I mean, I pretty much did this in the 80s too, so I can imagine it wasn’t all that different. But credit to the 70s and for starting a Halloween Special revolution.

Also, shout out To Paul Lynde and his Halloween special that pretty much rules to this very day.

Neighborhood Haunted Houses

As previously mentioned, the emergence of horror films spurred a significant transformation in Halloween culture, leading to the rise of neighborhood haunted houses, catering to both trick-or-treaters and emerging horror enthusiasts. These homemade, community-driven affairs, in contrast to today’s high-tech, professional productions, the ones I grew up with as well in the mid to late 80s, were full of passion and a promise to scare the piss out of you because these adults did not give one fuck about traumatizing you. In fact, they made it their business to do so. Kids today are too damn soft and will never have their balls molded of steel like the generation of the 70s and 80s.

Although because of the popular interest and success in these little haunts, full-on production haunted houses began in the late 70s and man, they looked richly aesthetically gothic.

Again, being only a nut in my dad’s sack at the time, I can only believe Halloween in the 70s was nothing short of a religious experience. And given what knowledge I do have and the faithful internet archives, it’s safe to say I’m probably right about that.

If you liked this piece, check out my Halloween in the 80s, and Halloween in the 90s articles. Happy Halloween Season!