IT'S HALLOWEEN TIME ALREADY!

Hey folks! How was the holiday? Get to use the grill? See your family? Keep all your fingers? That's good! Great even! It's the fifth of July right now and The United States of America is officially 250 years old! Unfortunately, I'm told that new research shows the pre-frontal cortex ACTUALLY stops developing at 300, so I guess we've still got some time there. But my feelings about the state of the union aside, it's always nice to have an excuse to party.

The fourth of July offers a lot of fun possibilities here in the states and most Americans fall back into some great traditions. Myself, I usually schedule in a showing of Independence Day if I can. Then I get the pleasure of celebrating with my lovely boyfriend of four years now. Our first date was on the 4th of July. Though I'm assured that our anniversary is actually the 31st of August, I still like to try and do something nice.

But for me personally, the best part of the fourth of July is the fifth of July. That's Halloween baby.

Fun fact, I actually had three different blog posts that I was thinking about publishing today and I abandoned all of them for this. One of them was about the recent Supergirl movie, comparing it to the book Woman of Tomorrow, and discussing how both of those deals with the idea of Kara as a sort of against-her-will feminist icon. That one's still coming at you sometime, it was just getting to be too long. Another was about Spielberg's Disclosure Day, Coogler's upcoming X-Files reboot, and what it means that alien conspiracy is back in the zeitgeist. We'll save that for a time when it's more "SEO friendly." The last one was about what the movie Independence Day can teach us about the art of screenwriting. I love talking about that so I'm sure it'll pop back up eventually.

However, I was all too happy to abandon all of them! You see, when I woke up this morning, scrolling through Instagram, I saw the most glorious thing. Every other reel or photo I saw had somebody wishing me a Happy Halloween! All across the nation people were taking down their American flags and putting up their Jack-O-Lanterns! The fireworks were over and the bonfires were starting! Uncle Sam is dead! Long live Uncle Sam (1996)!

Actually, we should all be watching that on the fifth every year. Especially me. But I digress.

My point is this; I've been telling my friends and loved ones that I start celebrating Halloween on July 5th for maybe my whole life. I've always loved Halloween. I know there's a community of Halloween lovers who go as hard if not harder than I do. They drive the prices up in New England for one thing. But the attitude seems more seems widespread this year already. Why is that?

Granted, I'm sure part of it is me. I have an algorithm on social media that's at least ostensibly tailored to my interests. Halloween? Horror? The macabre? That's a pretty big deal for me. I see that stuff a lot. But even so, the specific sentiment of "Independence Day is over, the next party is Halloween, and it starts today!" is one I've only ever heard myself express out loud. Maybe it's a fluke, that's always possible, but I suspect there's a deeper reason. In fact, I bet you could guess what it is. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'd like to pose a question to any American readers that might be out there.

Feeling patriotic lately?

I'd like to point it out again, The United States of America turned 250 years old yesterday. (I know, the fourth of July is not America's birthday, and Jesus wasn't born on Christmas. Stick with me here.) Some of you reading this may be old enough to remember the bicentennial. The rest of you surely remember that first group of people never shutting the fuck up about the bicentennial. Answer honestly, do you think you're going to remember this Independence Day next Independence Day? You'll probably remember the things you did, the people you saw. But the fact that it was the big 250? I doubt it. Family history implies I'm never going to be 75 folks, I ain't seeing year 300. For most of us this is probably the only really BIG fourth of July we'll see, and we just let it roll on past.

I saw a Where's Waldo for this America State Fair they're doing over in DC. Found him in less than a second. He was the only guy there. And honestly? What are doing up there Waldo? I know you didn't come to see Dr. Oz in conversation with Kid Rock or whatever.

Here's a fun fact; did you know that there was already going to be a big "United States Fair" type of thing throughout Washington DC? Yeah, a different one. It was called America 250, as opposed to Freedom 250. The Smithsonian started planning it back during Biden's presidency and it seemed like it would've been quite the party. Free concerts from honest to God Coachella-headliner level pop stars, booths and presentations from every state, all sorts of fun stuff. But then somebody came in, took the Smithsonian name off of things, and rebranded. Now you don't even have all 50 states represented.

I'm not here to pretend like this lame-ass party is the greatest sin of the United States. There are real reasons why things are bad. Whether you're an "Antifa Terrorist" or a "MAGA fascist" or a "blind conservative" or a "soy boy liberal cuck," it's not great out there. And believe me, I would love to dig into that. I'm not going to though; I've been asked to be less purposefully inflammatory lately. If you're on the gay bear-themed comic book company's website reading the gender-queer editor's blog, you can probably guess a couple of our political inclinations. My point still stands, the only thing anybody's celebrating is a day off work.

So why jump straight to Halloween? Well, there's two reasons I can think of. For one, it's the "scary" holiday. More than fitting for the "scary" times. Secondly, you can celebrate Halloween whenever. Nobody's gonna say anything. Not to your face at least.

Horror media, and by extension Halloween, imparts on us the gift of "The Protective Screen." This is a term I first saw used by The Mary Sue writer Rachel Ulatowski, but I don't know if it originates with her. In her article Why Do We Like Horror Movies? The Psychology Behind Our Love of Fear Explained, she lays out the idea pretty clearly. We like horror movies because they're fake.

There are plenty of reasons to be scared in real life and you can't really do anything about them. Global Warming's not getting reversed, the economy's not getting better, you swallow spiders in your sleep every night. Those things are scary because they're real and they're not going away. That fear builds up as dread inside of you and it needs a release. Horror movies (or books or whatever) can give you that release.

This is thanks to the protective screen of fiction. For most of us, once we reach a certain level of maturity, we know that Freddy Krueger isn't going to crawl out of the TV screen and get us. (This is actually what makes Freddy so effective. He breaks through that screen for the characters even if he can't for the audience.) As such, Wes Craven's New Nightmare can take on the fear that we would normally be stuck with. The scary story builds up dread in the audience. Your brain doesn't necessarily differentiate between the "turn around, the monster's right there" type dread and the "turn around, you've missed your only chance at love" type dread. So, when you scream, you scream for all of it. It doesn't always work, but when it does it works wonders.

I look around The United States today, and I see people in need of a release. Horror media, being as insular as it can sometimes be, is only experienced around Halloween for a lot of adults. It makes perfect sense, then, that some people would want to take one month of catharsis and stretch it over a quarter of the year. And why shouldn't we? We've earned it.

Now, not to go without saying it, but we've also been primmed for this for a while. Us "Halloween All Year" freaks have been a notable presence on the internet for a while. Goth and Emo sub-cultures are swinging back into style around their 50- and 25-year nostalgia cycles, respectively. The two biggest movies of the year so far are horror movies. Last year's biggest movie, the immaculate Sinners was horror as well. None of them released anywhere near Halloween. (There are actually really interesting reasons for that, but that's not what this post is about.) Those Reese's Pumpkins come out a little sooner every year. Spirit Halloween opens in August for Christ's sake. And now they have Christmas themed Spirit Halloween stores too! Looks like us freaks have won the culture war. And here's Alex Jones without a job. Shame.

But really, if the rest of the world joins me in putting on their witches' hats and plastic Frankenstein faces before the back-to-school commercials start, well more power to us. It helps get through the day when you've got something to look forward to. It feels good when you can let go of the release valve a little. It's always nice to have an excuse to party. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to find a good double feature for Uncle Sam (1996). Happy Holidays, fingers crossed I'll see you all at 275.

(For the record, it's Maniac Cop. Obviously.)