Halloween in Comics, Radio and in the Movies
Unbelievably, Halloween-inspired scripts and stories first made their appearance not in movie theaters but in good, old radio. We owe the first scary and thrilling story for Halloween to the novelist H.G. Wells. If you remember Tom Cruise’s War of the Worlds, then you might already know of this novelist.
What makes “War of the Worlds” an effective scary story when a simple fiction? Orson Welles came up with a radio production that created a genius adaptation of this story for Halloween.
“And in the news today Aliens!”
Yep, that’s true. Welles is commemorated in Hollywood thriller, horror and comedy movies rolled into one. Parts from the famous novel “War of the Worlds” were exploited as news headlines that can be read between songs on the radio.
Visualize the morbid situations depicted in the story of “War of the Worlds” — like aliens arriving a day before Halloween, as real news on the radio. It’s been said that there really were listeners in North America who panicked from the story. They were terrified.
Actually, in New Jersey people were subjected to mass panic! Imagine the effectiveness of the move. It was pure genius, and a wonderful appropriation of a classic literary piece. In addition, this was just in 1930s. What would follow was a careful yet guided effort to use Halloween as a central theme in available media.
Literature
Aside from the radio, Halloween stories had also conquered printed media. Anthony Boucher wrote a noir story fifteen years after the success of Welle’s radio production. Boucher’s story was a combination of reality and horror. In fact, the setting of the story was in one of the most famous states in the US, California.
The North American comic series ‘Shock’ was published five years later. It made the perception of Halloween more frightening than it used to be. The story line was about the cruel head of an orphanage, punished and turned into a Halloween pumpkin. In addition, during Halloween, pumpkins are finely carved and hollowed, and some of its peel were also taken off.It was a daring step, but the public took the idea well, making Halloween a production where a certain handful of themes was supported.
EC comics also came up with their own Halloween-inspired comic series, many of which featured limbs being cut off and such. But before the 60’s rolled around, comic books were regulated by the American Comics Code (ACC). Such gruesome comic series were deemed unacceptable and soon died down.
Today, Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series are proving to be profitable ventures. However, they aren’t really endorsed by the American Comics Code, for the ACC rewards comic books like Archie.
Free TV and the movies
It’s surprising to know that TV took its sweet time getting used to Halloween. TV was more closely censored by religious and conservative groups, so Halloween-themed shows were difficult to produce.
Movies, on the other hand, fared slightly better. These were some of the more popular Halloween shows and movies made:
- Whispering Ghosts (Milton Berle)
- Footlight Serenade (Betty Grable & Victor Mature)
- Frankenstein (Boris Karloff)
- The House on the Haunted Hill (Vincent Price)
- Rosemary’s Baby (Audrey Hepburn)
- Night of the Living Dead (George Romero)
- King Kong
- Godzilla
- Psycho (Hitchcock)
- Night of the Demons
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