Actually I didn't need Halloween to scare me. I grew up in a scary house. It was a big, rambling country house with corridors long enough for me to practice my roller skating. My brother and I slept on the top floor, up a twisting flight of stairs from our parents. And I was convinced the house was haunted. The rug outside my bedroom door would flap by itself.... flap, flap, flap in the darkness. My window opened once in the middle of the night. And I used to dream about a procession of hooded figures coming up the stairs toward me. I suppose in an old house a draft could make the rug flap, the window blow open, and the hooded figures were because that staircase stood between me and my parents. However... years later I mentioned to my brother that I thought Britomart (the name of the house) was haunted. He replied, 'Of course it was."
So I didn't need things to frighten me, but I'm curious as to what scared you when you were a child. Did you think there was a monster under the bed? Did you have to have a nightlight on? Did you like being scared at Halloween? Confession time....
HALLIE EPHRON: No night lights or monsters under the bed for me. And I confess, I never found Halloween scary. Wasn't it about candy? Maybe because those rubber Halloween masks hadn't been invented yet and I'd never been to see a horror film. We lived up the street from a famous 'witch's house' which was built for a movie. Here's a link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spadena_House - The big thing on Halloween was to go there trick or treating. Or to the house around the corner where Lana Turner's daughter killed Johnny Stompanato. We carried pillow cases for our loot and filled them.
LUCY BURDETTE: Ooohhh, Rhys have you written about Britomart?? If not, you must! I don't like to be scared, not one bit. Maybe I'm managing that by writing mysteries?? anyway, I agree with Hallie, Halloween was about the candy. But also about being someone other than myself by wearing a costume. Maybe my favorite ever was going to a party in grad school as Wonder Woman...
RHYS: Lucy, I've just written about a spooky house in Cornwall for my next Royal Spyness book! And I love the uh...breastplates???
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I scared myself in my formative years by watching The Twilight Zone, so my entire pre-teen life was spent trying to figure out what horrific and life-changing twist was about to happen. and YIKES, the pod people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I was terrified of that. Halloween, though, doesn't seem scary to me. And yes, Lucy, the good part is getting to dress up as something else. And the Twizzlers. But the decorations some people have in their yards are more grotesque than scary..unless, I suppose, you see them at night . Which, duh, is the point. Never mind.
Oh--I was at an event today with another author--who said her son was not scared about the monsters under the bed because every night they used a special spray to keep them away.
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I love scary books and the old-fashioned scary movies, now and when I was a kid. I had several "Tales of Terror" books which, I realized as an adult, were classic short stories repackaged with a few illustrations for kids. Very smart of my mother, who got me reading Poe, de Maupassant and Henry James before I was twelve. I still think those older tales are the absolute creepiest - I defy anyone to read Shirley Jackson and get a good night's sleep afterwards.
We lived in my grandmother's 1840s country house for a couple of years, and of course slept over many other times. I used to be scared of the mysterious thumps and creaks, until my grandma pointed out that we had owned the house since it was built, any ghosts residing there were family members. She used to swear she could hear her grandmother in the kitchen, rattling pots and pans, getting ready to feed her large brood. Now I own a 200-year-old house in the country, and I'm afraid all the mysterious noises are caused by mice. :-P
JENN McKINLAY: I'm with Julia! I love the scary stuff! Candy helps, too, of course. I was always scared as a kid since my brother, who is eleven months older than me, just thought it was the funniest thing to hide around corners, under stairs, behind doors and jump out at me. I am the scream queen, seriously, Jamie Lee Curtis has nothing on me. I remember one night while I was doing the dishes, we lived in a remote area in a house on a lake, my brother crept up to the kitchen window, which overlooked the lake, and popped up wearing a rubber mask from The Creature from the Black Lagoon. I think I screamed for five minutes straight. And yet, I still love all things scary. There is clearly something wrong with me. By the way, I already have my tickets to Zombieland this weekend!
DEBORAH CROMBIE: I don't like scary. Not when I was a kid, not now. My brother was too much older than me to have bothered teasing me, or I might have developed a thicker scary-skin. And I don't ever remember being scared on Halloween. It was just about dressing up (which I wasn't very good at either) and the candy. But I do love Zombieland, Jenn, so am all in on the new one! My hubby, by the way, is the oldest of five, and LOVED scaring his siblings.
RHYS: So how about you? Who likes to be scared? Who is a wimp (or maybe a sensible person) like me ?
