No other reminder of Halloween is more visible than Hollywood movies themselves. In addition, we’re not just talking about high-budget horror movies here. Even the budget movies (B-movies) or “splatter” films are firm reminders of the strangeness and utter mystery of human life itself.

After all, movies are simply mirrors of real life. While it’s not reality itself, it’s still a fun idea if Halloween was more than just the age-old tradition of giving kids and adults their yearly good scare.

Halloween and Horror Movies

Cultural issues often complement each other. They develop beside each other, offering each other a sort of synergy that helps them survive. This is the main reason why the movie industry continues to slowly define (and redefine) what “horror” really is.

To find out what scares people, Hollywood goes deep into the imagination of the general public. They take note of the desires, fears, and motivations of groups and individuals. This is how they come up with truly scary movies — those that remind people of what they truly fear, such as the absence of freedom.

How Things Started In The 70’s

It was in the 1970s that horror movies really took off and became associated with the celebration of Halloween. The stock images of scary scarecrows and Jack-O-Lanterns were integrated and given a new life.

Before then, these two items had more genial identities. After all, they were symbols of a good harvest. But as Hollywood changed the perception of Halloween over the years, thees seemingly harmless items suddenly became very scary.

That’s pretty much what Halloween is — even the cutest rodents can become zombies out for human blood. It’s a way of giving people a good scare without putting them in any real harm.

Wild, Contradicting Emotions

Yes, people don’t like being frightened. However, what makes horror movies like Wait until Dark palatable to the public? It was the idea that something so scary could be packaged to become less frightening and controllable.

You see, real tragedies and unfortunate human events are often beyond the control of people. This is the reason why people often recoil from real life events because it would be painful to watch and not be able to do something.

Now, when something frightening had been re-formed to be consumed while sitting comfortably in a movie theater or in the comfort of your living room, it becomes less frightening. It becomes less hostile and more controllable even for kids.

Yup, The Kids.

This control is the main reason why adults still like celebrating Halloween. After all, it would be difficult to teach a child about horror, fear, and death without it.

How do you make something as horrible as death less intimidating? You use Halloween, masks and parties. Parades are good, too. By dressing up the unknown, a message is being communicated.

The message is this: no matter how horrible real life may seem, there’s always a chance that we will be able to control it. The way seems to be muddled at the moment, but let’s enjoy ourselves while we seek it.