Who’s afraid of a made-up murderous child? Well, me

The “well girl” from “The Ring”. “I’m aware the character has a name, I just refuse to say it because I’m still terrified.”

“They’re here…” I hope you read that in the “Poltergeist” girl’s voice, because I did. The spooky season is upon us, folks.

And with that comes the inevitable “we don’t celebrate Halloween in Australia”, “we’re not American!” and “if you don’t get away from my front door, I’ll let my dog out.” Did anyone else get that last one? Or was it just anyone unfortunate enough to attempt to trick or treat in the late ‘90s?

Anyway, I understand the reticence to adopt Halloween as a holiday with its over-the-top commercialisation and the feeling that it’s being foisted upon us by Americans. I get it, I do.

I always feel awkward about Halloween, and I never have any lollies to give to kids who even attempt to try and get past the front gate. Don’t feel bad kids, AusPost don’t know their way around it, either.

However, even if you’re unwilling to adopt Halloween as a holiday, I would argue that it has given us some of the most enjoyable movies and moviegoing experiences of all time. Also some of the most scarring, depending upon whom you’re talking to. We’re leaning heavily on the latter here.

For the sake of clarity, I would define a Halloween movie as something with even a slight connection to the horror genre or to the many things we associate with Halloween. Or for the sake of this piece, something I have probably watched on Halloween against all my best instincts, and thus now forever associate with Halloween.

My earliest experiences with Halloween were through various witch-related media. I was obsessed with witches as a kid. Probably still am. I wanted to be a witch, I consumed so much media about witches it was like I was willing it to magically happen.

I never did get that Hogwarts letter (although I did get one from the studio tour as a gift from my cousin, which was amazing) but as a result, witches and Halloween became inextricable in my mind.

I have seen “Hocus Pocus” approximately 50,000 times. I had a taped copy on VHS which I wore out to complete unrecognizability. I still watch it every year, it’s endlessly fun for me, even if slightly dated now. See also: every single “Sabrina The Teenage Witch” movie.

“Practical Magic” is also a constant Halloween favourite, though watching it several times a year arguably makes it more of an all-around favourite. It is now my life aspiration to be a cool witch aunt like Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest. Might start my own coven, see what happens.

On the flip side, I was also scarred forever as a child by Nicolas Roeg’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s “The Witches”.

The story of Erica was terrifying. I looked at every woman I passed on the street for weeks in fear that they would trap me in a painting for the rest of my life. I looked so hard for the purple tinge in their eyes and their sensible shoes I’d cause myself a headache.

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This, coupled with Anjelica Huston peeling off her face, made for an interesting few months in the nightmare zone. Extreme nightmare fuel aside, though, it’s a goddamn great movie, one of the best Dahl adaptations, and I say this as a fervent fan of “Matilda”.

Ending aside (I prefer the book ending) the iconography isn’t something I’ll ever forget. Let’s not talk about the remake. This is the only valid version of “The Witches”.

My next exposure to the horror genre was through the “Scary Movie” franchise. Looking back on it, I cannot believe they let my friends and me into a cinema to see “Scary Movie 3” when I was only eight years old.

I had seen pretty much none of the movies that were being parodied, and I really only went because my friends invited me. I came out of it with no further understanding of what “Pootie Tang” was and absolutely terrified some waterlogged young girl was going to burst out of my TV and kill me in seven days. I eventually forgot about it.

After failing to make trick or treating work with my friends, we did a 180 and tried to make Halloween an annual occasion by renting as many horror movies from Blockbuster as possible. Seven weekly films for $7, it was a great deal, and with three people renting seven each, we had 21 movies from which to choose.

This was a mistake, at least on my part. I am not a big horror movie person, I don’t go out of my way to watch them, I don’t enjoy being scared. But I thought it would be really cool if it seemed like I wasn’t scared of horror movies and I’d prove it by renting “The Ring”.

Needless to say, I played myself there. Absolutely terrifying. I thought I was going to see the well girl outside my bedroom door, in my bathroom, outside the windows on the side of the house when I went down the hallway.

I’m aware the character has a name, I just refuse to say it because I’m still terrified. “Why would an adult still be terrified of some made-up terrifying murderous child?” you ask. Well, let me explain.

I further tortured myself by deciding to see “The Ring 2” when it came up on a movie channel a couple of years later. And when I say a couple years later, I was probably 12 by this point. Older and wiser in my head.

Hubris. The absolute audacity of convincing myself I was ballsy enough to go through that again. I spent the next three weeks forcing my mum to turn on every tap in the house because I was terrified some psychopathic waterlogged demon child was going to drown me.

I think we should just ban all children in horror films. I’m sick of being terrified by eight-year-olds with an unbecoming cognisance of the spirit world.

I don’t care if Danny Torrance was iconic and has a great character arc in both “The Shining” and “Doctor Sleep”. I don’t care if the kid can see dead people. I don’t care if the kid is having an allergic reaction to nuts in the car. And well, I won’t go further into detail with that “Hereditary” reference. Let me just say I will never, ever watch an Ari Aster movie again expecting I know what will happen. “Midsommar” was great, though.

Anyway, If there’s any horror trope I hate, it’s the creepy kid. I still sometimes think I’m going to run into that drowned well rat girl at midnight outside my bedroom door, or in my bathroom mirror. If someone ever actually invents the ability to erase things from your mind, those movies are number one on my list. I’ll be sending the bills for all my future therapy to the producers.

The “Scary Movie” franchise has a lot to answer for. I watched “Scary Movie 2” after my horrendous experience with the third movie and “The Ring”. Clearly not learning from my past mistakes, I decided to watch “The Exorcist”.

I still haven’t successfully sat through it, because as I said earlier, children should be banned from horror films. Maybe one day, having been to a Catholic school and seeing Sister Michael read the book in “Derry Girls”, I will watch it.

However, it unfortunately piqued my curiosity just enough that I ended up watching “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” when it came on the movie channels some time later. It didn’t sound like it would be in the same vein. It sounded like a courtroom drama with a little exorcism thrown in.

At this point, I had had enough religious education to fully comprehend the implications of the whole thing. And somehow, it was even more terrifying to me than was “The Exorcist”.

I was convinced I was going to wake up and smell burning at 3am, that I knew how the devil sounded, and that if I ever witnessed something like those flashbacks showed, I was clearly possessed by him.

It was worse, because it all seemed a lot more plausible to me at 14 than “The Exorcist”. Mental illness misdiagnosed and it actually turns out your daughter is possessed by the devil? Totally bought it.

It also helps that Laura Linney, Jennifer Carpenter and Tom Wilkinson are very good at their jobs. I’ve been told I should revisit it, as it won’t be so terrifying a second time. And to that I say, absolutely f— that. It’s not happening.

So will Halloween ever take off in Australia? I’d argue there’s been a marked change in the last 20 years. Kids actually get lollies now instead of an orange and an insult. I’m impressed. Maybe they’ll get to “trick or treat” for a while before engaging in movie-going that will permanently haunt them for the rest of their lives. Maybe they’ll just end up watching “Hocus Pocus” 5000 times, which I fully endorse.

What will I spend my Halloween doing? I’ll probably attempt to watch something that will scar me for life. And then try to balance it out by watching “Beetlejuice”, “What We Do in the Shadows” or “Shaun of the Dead”.

I realise much of this is just a catalogue of self-inflicted trauma. But I think half the joy of Halloween is scaring yourself silly, really. It’s not Halloween unless I’ve accidentally terrified myself out of a night of sleep. Or several weeks of sleep. And I’m not sleeping well anyway, so who cares?