Though we have traded in the trick-or-treat bags for red plastic cups, there are still ways for us to enjoy the more innocent aspects of Halloween with a television. ABC Family shows 13 Nights of Halloween, and although I am now in college, I still find myself filled with excitement at the notion of watching Hocus Pocus for the twentieth time.
The notion of Halloween itself is very childlike. Dressing up as someone different from yourself for the night and consuming things that make you loosen up and act like a different version of yourself. Before it was sugar highs from candy, and now well, it is something else. In a way, the process of getting ready to go out each weekend is very Halloween. We put outfits together, we cover our faces with makeup, and we drink things we probably should not be drinking to become more confident, fun versions of ourselves. Halloween is just a more extreme version of this with even less clothing.
Though our tastes are different now, and may not find the same things scary that we once did (although I still find Zeke the Plumber terrifying), we can still revert back to our childhood with programs like the 13 Nights of Halloween with movies like The Addams Family, Beetlejuice, and Hocus Pocus.
“I really loved Are You Afraid of the Dark and it always seemed to really capture my attention and give me a good fright as a kid,” Haley Dunn, a Fibers Major at The Cleveland Institute of Art said.
Old favorites such as Halloweentown on the Disney Channel and the Scooby Doo cartoons on Cartoon Network can keep us giggling just like we did when we were young.
"I used to be scared of Scooby-Doo movies," Julia Goei, a freshmen Chemistry major at Pepperdine University said.
If you search around the trenches of YouTube you can find even older Disney films such as Don’t Look Under The Bed, Mom’s Got A Date With A Vampire, and Underwraps. Newer shows such as American Horror Story and The Vampire Diaries can be accessed through Hulu, but there are also old chills to be found in movies like Night of The Living Dead and House on Haunted Hill. Netflix has many of the old classics with Dracula, The Exorcist, Nosferatu, and The Wolf Man. So grab the red cups and the candy corn and take a trip down memory lane this Halloween week, no nightlight required this time around.
