Nostalgia really hits hard with things we care and love to re experience…. it can be a family tradition or it can bring back some good ol’ times back when you sit back and watch the TV specials or some random movie that was part of the old programming back in the day.
I, for one, am a child of the 90’s. I was born in the 80’s but mentally active I was more aware in the 90’s so a lot of the TV specials, marketing and all that good stuff was hard back in that time. I experienced the Toy's R Us Halloween costume shopping and even ha done of those cheesy cheap mask/raincoat costumes because my parents where hard on money when I was little so the fact that we had some chance to have something for a Halloween made it even better.
At least for me… Halloween has been one of my favorite parts of my childhood. The memories of my grade school time, waiting patiently for dressing up at school and have a big party all day long was something I always expected… even when i was socially awkward and ended up by myself eating candy it was still my favorite day of school when I was a kid.
But like I said… I WAS SOCIALLY AWKWARD, my mom always wanted me going to parties and make friends and such, hang out with the kids in the block… BUT i was all in to the TV specials.
There's a bunch I can recall, some of them is kinda lost media I feel… that’s maybe because I did or haven’t tried hard enough to look it up…
BUT the ones I liked and enjoyed I have them physical and are part of my favorite times.
And also we move to…
Movies, shows… My Halloween.
So usually my tradition is to watch a bunch of flicks that are my favorites of the season… some of them not so much Halloween vibes BUT have a nostalgic hit in my brain every time I watch them.
Back in the day there where a couple of movies that I just saw them on the TV and I knew… IT’S TIME… some of them you probably don’t know about and some are like Oh yeah I remember that train wreck.
Usually the first things they used to do on my local public TV was a marathon a night of whatever saga was popular. USUALLY It started with the Halloween franchise… that personally I never did appeal to it.
Slasher movies where not part of my favorite genre when I was a kid, even when my dear granny LOVED watching those with me, she just thought they where funny and neat. I have very precious memories of us watching at night when I stayed over and watching them me completely terrified and her just having a blast showing me that it wasn’t real.
Also personal trauma with my father watching Chuky when i was a kid and just… yeah it hit hard… HIT HARD FOR YEARS. But that’s a story for another time.
My personal favorite was… and will always be a VERY random movie that they used to play back in the day.
So I was born, raised and lived in Mexico till… 6 years ago. And for me, this cheese ass dumb movie that was INDEED a knock off of The twilight zone/Night Gallery episodes with possessed dolls cause IT WASN’T EVEN SHY ABOUT IT. But when this shit hit the tv… I said IT’S TIME!
Some of the worse acting, some of the worse dialog and some of the most amazingly horrible bad effects that where even created by man kind reside on this piece of Gold Cinema. What’s even better IT HAS A SEQUEL… and it’s as BAD and HORRIBLE and I loved every second of it as well…
For us it was more of a Day of the Dead tradition but the movie is indeed on Halloween and it was precious to me. THERE AS MORE but this one is the one that you need to watch to get in the rabbit hole of WTF is Mexican horror movies because there is VERY great movies out there that are a mandatory watch even as of just cinema story on the spoopy times.
To name a few ( I can hear a loud sigh from people as of this point but it’s my substack y'all gonna read or hit the road) some of the actually scary and demented BEFORE even Hereditary even fucking existed:
La tia Alejandra 1979
I just recently saw this one a couple of years ago and BY FAR it’s one great experience. You can watch it in YouTube, sadly it probably doesn’t have subtitles but believe me the whole experience was just chilling to me.
Espiritismo 1962
I just watched this one this year and spoke of it in my past podcast. It was a very interesting take on how the church saw the satanic panic back in the day. It was surprisingly scary, even when they took a lot of the concepts as a joke… the effects are insane!
The devil’s backbone / El espinazo del Diablo 2001
I actually saw this in theaters and I was in love with it. Directed by Guillermo del Toro and I think it’s the first one I watched from him I was just mesmerized by his conceptualization of what a ghost was and the visuals. You can watch it on Prime… i bought mine because it needed to be in the bunch. A lot of the visuals of ghosts that Del Toro has on this are recalled on Crimson Peak which I was like YEAH!! That’s my type of horrible echoes of sadness!
But let’s move on…
The later years…
Like I mentioned before a lot of my nostalgia hits from the 90’s… also marketing is hard on that and always has been. I feel maybe back when I was in my 20’s the 90’s nostalgia vibe hit me harder because I so wanted it to be like back then…
One of the perfect examples is Nightmare before Christmas, that they just hammered to death in everyone's face… but I get it. I remember watching the first time the trailer and just told my parents I NEED TO WATCH THAT.
Literally me and my parents freaking out…
So I understand the hype but as the years passed it’s getting old and man the marketing machine is overwhelming.
I don’t wanna sound like old man screams at cloud, but it’s how it’s been visualized over the years to me. Still I enjoy watching it November kinda after day of the Dead because Day of the dead has another whole shit that i need to blabber about.
But… as of today I do have some weird watched that have turned in to my personal later years tradition and a lot has to do with what media is of as today. And most of is is Youtube stuff.
The one that is just a seasonal favorite and it’s the one that I enjoy watching it at Halloween night is…
The life and death of a Pumpkin, this is a 17 year old short… that has lived rent free in my head and heart.
Made by the Blame Society guys and it even won awards, tells the tale of a pumpkin since it’s picked, carved and destroyed from the pumpkins terrified perspective. It’s such a short and bitter short that I thought captured the old style of writing that just messed you up. I love sharing this short I don’t think it needs the views it’s sitting in a comfy 2.7 million views so it’s just for my personal sake.
Back then a lot of experimentation with film was done on the internet, a lot where shorts from New Grounds and a lot of them where highly waited… one of my favorite artists from back then did this beautiful and haunting short called…
The missing Halloween from 7 years ago…
I remember the whole campaign for it and it took YEARS for it to be done, because of the artist Mike Inel that had personal issues to a lot of logistics from his side… but when it was out everyone was just happy that the damn thing was done.
It’s a story about a boy having a friend on a Halloween night and… turns in to tragic and sad ending.
Speaking of Scary stories… there was a site that I used to scroll around every spooky season, it’s kinda funny because of this entree I go back to it… I feel it’s been years since I set a foot there, more because for most of her animations are already sitting on youtube.
Katy Towell has a great way to tell spooky stories, and just realizing it hasn’t been that long ago… she even did children books that every book fare I tried to find. But the stories where out here. Originally was set on Newgrounds and after that her site.
I can go forever and ever with my personal favorites but with this examples…but it’s more than enough.
But any way…
I just felt to write about my personal experience on this Holiday… and don’t get me wrong… I do love the time of the year because it brings back good memories… but I don’t live in it 24/7.
I used to be like that, every year hanging desperately to have a even better Halloween… even better memories… trying to shadow what was my past times and fun…
But like a drug addict, after the first … you can never really go back to what it used to feel like.
I see that in a lot of Halloween life goers that just CAN’T stop and WON’T stop trying and hoping the good old times hit back like it used to… I don’t have anything against that in the slightest, we all have personal traditions and rituals to do and enjoy because at the end of the day Who cares??
I guess we all deserve to be happy in the happy times that we lived. I can’t go back to that one night I went to a horror play of Woman in Black and then ran off in to a late night Halloween party and get partied up till my legs couldn’t handle me…I can’t be in every party every year, I can’t drink my eyes out of spiced rum apple cider …
I guess as I grew older i turned in a happy House cat, sometimes I bake ( if its cold… cause it ain’t most of the times), sometimes I put a retro movie on that special night. Sometimes in the whole month I watch a new series of horror which I adore.
So with this I end it…
We all deserve happiness…
Hope everyone is having a Happy and Wonderful Halloween.
Check also my recent story… It will hit Halloween Night! mean while… read a spooky prelude when you hit the button…
I’m glad I read this a bit after Halloween because it’s a bit sad that’s it’s over. I know a lot of ppl look forward to thanksgiving and Christmas but I feel like that’s just all expectations. With Halloween there’s no expectations. You can act like a kid and be childlike in your love for the holiday. I think when you stop looking for that next scare or adventure that’s when you stop feeling the wonder you used to feel. My halloweens sucked growing up. I didn’t find my admiration for Halloween until I was an adult. Because it allows you to be child like again. It’s ok to be scared, it’s ok to have fun and eat candy! It’s ok to dress up and pretend. Just like when we were kids. Idk for me I love being able to play spooky games that I might not otherwise play.
I like your YouTube tradition! I created a Halloween playlist with your videos l want to add my favorite Halloween YouTube vids too. Maybe that’ll be my new tradition! Or a way for me to cope with the passing of Halloween until next year. Cool article!