Halloween!

The High Unholy Day is here again, and the usual religious nutters are denouncing it as demonic and a celebration of deviance -- sounds cool to me!  While they're busy being dourly serious, everyone else will be having fun with it in their own way.  For my own post on the real origins of Halloween, see here.

The ancients believed that on Halloween night, gateways to another world of evil beings of various kinds were opened, and those entities could thus get into our world and menace humans; people tried to scare such monsters away from their homes or offer gifts to propitiate them (jack-o-lanterns and trick-or-treating are surviving traces of these practices).  This raises the question of whether these gateways allow passage in both directions.  I have a vision of some spectral world where goblins, vampires, zombies, etc. are the normal inhabitants, and set out jack-o-lanterns to ward off terrifying creatures like puppies, girl scouts, accountants, etc. which wander there from our world.

(Come to think of it, I saw what looked like a couple of Mormon missionaries on my street a few days ago.)

Anyway, Ranch Chimp has some creepy haunted house videos, and here are some mini horror films. If you want something a little different for decorations, try these spectral moggies of fire, but be glad this candy isn't still being given out (both links via Mendip).  I'll be busy with Satanic rituals for the rest of the day, if only to annoy the killjoys.