By Keri O’Shea
Over the years, the festival of Halloween and the horror movie industry have become almost symbiotic, extensions of one another, with one feeding the other. Take Scream, for instance: I remember the exact model of mask used in the film being around way before the franchise came into being; it was another mass-produced piece of merchandise which was in all likelihood chosen because it was so generic rather than because it was special or remarkable in any way. And yet now, the same mask is commonly known as ‘the Scream mask’, not a common-or-garden Grim Reaper mask (although whether makers today say so on the packaging is another, potentially copyright-threatening matter). This has been going on for a long time. The whole host of werewolves, mummies and vampires which have their likenesses strung with elastic for children to wear whilst Trick or Treating owe the way they look to the most famous incarnations of movie monsters, most notably the Universal monsters – creatures which appeared on screens for the first time before today’s kids’ grandparents were cinema-goers, but such is the power of an image, once it gets out into the mainstream. Of course, it works the other way too: for example, old anxieties about witchcraft (which may date back significantly further than cinema) have given us an archetype of the dangerous crone, with her warty, hook nose, sharp chin and malevolent brow; this image has joined the ranks of the Halloween masks, and has been influential in its own way too, appearing in horror films in its own right. Ditto the Jack O’Lantern, another striking visual now associated with both Halloween and the silver screen.
Considering this close relationship, it’s little wonder that a number of horror movies have been set on Halloween itself, and even less of a wonder that the common Western tradition of mask-wearing at this time of year has figured in these films’ plots. Now, a proviso: I decided early on whilst planning this piece that enough has already been said about John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) to last us a lifetime; that is not to denigrate the massive influence which said film’s own mask-wearing character has had, but rather to acknowledge it (and why yes, to go back to my earlier point, you can purchase ‘Michael Myers masks’ to this day, though I couldn’t find any William Shatner ones, albeit based on a very cursory online search). Anyway, with regards Halloween, I don’t know if I can add a great deal, and as I’ve confessed enough times, I am just not a fan of slasher movies: Halloween is one of the best-known and seminal examples of this genre, but as a classic of its kind, I feel like there are other films, also set on October 31st and also featuring mask-wearing characters, that are perhaps fresher to discuss (or just more within my remit). So, Mr. Myers, this one isn’t for you.
Here are just some films, then, which feature Halloween and Halloween masks, and weave something wonderfully entertaining out of them. There are many more, but I’ve aimed to pick out either lesser-known films, or else films which are Halloween-noteworthy for a variety of reasons.
Satan’s Little Helper (2004)
I remember this one heavily doing the rounds on the UK-based Horror Channel some years ago; I also remember it popping up in some of the £1 shops on the high street at around the same time, and ours not to reason why some films find their way there, as there seems to be little rhyme or reason to it (I’ve found Barbara Steele films in Poundstretcher, for pity’s sake, though hey – bargain). The important thing, though, is that Satan’s Little Helper is rather a witty little film which spins a yarn about a gaming-mad child who elects to dress as a Satanic minion to go Trick or Treating (hence the title, both of the film and the game). Dougie, the kid in question, is a suitably malicious little shit at the start, so it’s entirely fitting that he gets his way on his choice of costume; he’s angry at his family and in a riff on the whole ‘media makes monsters’ idea, his preferred video game has apparently made him this way, plotting against his sister’s boyfriend and rather impressed when he sees someone, also clad in a mask, behaving in a suitably deranged way. Bingo, Dougie thinks. He decides to join forces with this guy dressed as Satan, not realising he’s wearing his mask because he is in fact an escaped serial killer. Kid and killer join forces, and grisly, fairly snappy hilarity ensues. Mistaken identities, topical issues, family dynamics – all these intersect on a Halloween evening like no other, especially considering Amanda Plummer is the mother in this. Oh, and Katheryn Winnick, now famous for being the hot shield maiden Lagertha in Vikings.
Lady in White (1988)
From a child wearing a mask because they want to channel some serious aggression to a kid who’s wearing a mask, but ends up on the receiving end of a supernatural visitation, we have Lady in White, an understated little ghost story with an almost Stone Tape-style, repetitive haunting which is genuinely creepy (and is apparently based on a local legend, according to some Rochester, NY residents). When little Frankie (Lucas Haas) gets locked inside his school one Halloween night (more trick than treat, thanks to some of the other kids), he’s the one who ends up scared, mask or otherwise. He witnesses an apparition, in which a little girl his own age gets murdered. From the ghostly to the fleshly, the already terrified Frankie is then attacked and partially strangled by an unseen assailant, though not before seeing the ghost again – this time, she begs him for help. Thus commences a chain of events which follow Frankie into adulthood, enmeshing the otherworldly and the physical along the way. Is there is a significance to the initial event happening on Halloween? Well, aside from the obvious factor of it being a night when children are (or were) traditionally left to their own devices, the old beliefs about Halloween – and indeed, its predecessor Samhain – tell us that on this night the divide between the land of the living and the ‘land of the dead’ is particularly thin…an engaging, touching film in any case, Lady in White consolidates an intriguing local ghost story with an atmospheric treatment. (Note also, if you will, Frankie’s trad vampire Halloween mask.)
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
To be honest, it still pains me that this film has been misidentified as part of the Halloween film franchise via the title, because of course – as most of us are aware – it’s not actually related to the slasher films and is in no way a ‘part three’. However, although I have already talked at length about this underrated film, it absolutely needs a mention in this feature too.
In Season of the Witch, the commercial Halloween we know and love erupts into the old horror of the Halloween festival’s antecedent of Samhain. And how does it do this? It does this via selling a very particular kind of horror mask, one which actually threatens to harm its wearer, rather than its wearer appear scary – though harmless – to others. It’s also a very modern spin on an ancient set of anxieties; one namely that the Celtic tradition isn’t all about cheeky scalliwags and songs about the ‘auld country’, and they might just be the ‘other’ which modern culture ought to fear (and some do fear, given the yearly hand-wringing about Halloween’s pagan origins). The Silver Shamrock empire might be bang up to date then, and it may have a catchy jingle, but it’s all just a front. A witty, pithy film all in all, Halloween III: Season of the Witch turns the harmless practise of trick-or-treating back on itself, links it to ancient traditions of slaughter and sacrifice, and achieves it all via a sneering, yet humorous look at the power of mass marketing, TV and TV advertising. It’s a unique film which deserves its slowly, still building reputation and respect.
Trick’r Treat (2007)
For our last film, I of course need to talk about Trick’r Treat; it’s hard, mind, to believe that Trick’r Treat is already eight years old, but then again, it did so well with what it set out to do that it’s already become a classic of its kind. Whether it’s the way in which the film craftily resurrected the anthology format (which had been undergoing something of a lull for many years, though now seems on the up once again) or used its Halloween setting to give us back that most traditional of ideas, creepy seasonal storytelling which channels urban legends, or even its subtle introduction of our sinister little Sam, the silent common factor of all the tales told, it’s certainly a film which genre fans wholeheartedly – and almost instantaneously – embraced like an old friend. All the stories which make up the whole are excellent, but for my purposes here, I’m going to go with the School Bus Massacre story-arc: in itself horrific, it details the attempted murder and eventual deaths of a group of children, thirty years before the Halloween night featured in the film, whereby a group of friends tell the urban myth of the schoolbus to an ever more scared character called Rhonda.
Of course, the story turns out to be true, and with it being their anniversary, the drowned children return – firstly, they don’t seem to approve of the prank which the others have played on Rhonda, and this initiates their revenge on her tormentors, though they have others they wish to see before the night is out. We never see the children’s faces, and in this case the masks they wear really do keep at us arm’s length as to just who, or what, has come back. These kids are definitely bloodthirsty and strong, though, so it seems as though their masks have seen them through their complete powerlessness and victimhood to their omnipotence – even if that omnipotence is for one night only.
But then, that’s Halloween at the movies; by taking up the oddities of our Halloween traditions, trick or treating, mask wearing and stories have offered a range of possible avenues for the urban myths and storytelling so beloved of horror cinema in its far broader sense. Halloween masks on-screen can hide identity, confuse identity, place characters in situations they wouldn’t ordinarily be in, endanger characters, even convey something genuinely supernatural, but however they’re used, they’re a rich source of entertainment which really can work wonders.