r/unpopularopinion • u/Ok-Amphibian9104 means well • 3d ago
People Need To Dial Back The Public Facing Scaries for Halloween
I feel like people lean into the terror of Halloween a little too heavily and disregard how much of the celebration is geared towards children.
Some of the decorations I've seen in my surrounding neighborhoods, and even the available decorations in the Lowes meant to be placed in yards are a bit much. Seems heavier on the gore than I remember in recent history. One of my neighbors has a snarling, bleeding, more than life sized direwolf with exposed gore and ribcage in their yard every year.
I've even seen a recent commercial during a football game that was meant to be humorous and the make up for the zombies was way more graphic than necessary to sell a product. I don't expect people to consider the kids entirely but, like, should we not at all?
disclaimer : my bias is that of a parent, there is a limit to how much of shit I expect you to give about my kid and any others. however, that (collective) limit is not zero.
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u/Oro-Lavanda i hate sand 3d ago edited 2d ago
meh when i was a kid i loved trick or treating and seeing all of the cool decor in people's houses. yes sometimes the decor and costumes scared me, but that was part of the halloween experience.
only types of halloween decor i do not like are when people do stuff like hangings/lynchings or something purposefully vulgar like that. However i dont think its a problem to have gory zombies out during halloween.
edit: i wanna add that idk why but i feel like when you're a kid, you go thru a spooky phase. im gen z but for me i remember when as kids we were obsessed with creepypastas and telling each other urban legends or other scary stories. I think it is normal for kids to go thru a spooky phase in their lives so we really don't need to overly sanitize and make everything into a disney movie. HOWEVER, my point still stands that I think some people take things too far like again having extreme gore or purposefully edgy/racist stuff outside of their home as "decor" is just gross for everybody.
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u/darnyoulikeasock 3d ago
agreed, I think there are clear lines of anything too realistic (like a hanging, or one time a neighbor had a disturbingly realistic display of a mannequin who’d shot its brains out). zombies, monsters, etc are fine imo. it’s good for kids to be a little scared.
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u/Oro-Lavanda i hate sand 3d ago
damn your neighbor was wildin out wtf. see i think excessive vulgar gore like that is unnecessary for some public halloween decor, especially outside of your house. it'd be a different story if it was a paid haunted house event, but having a mannequin blowing its brains out on your front lawn is crazy
also i agree i think horror is necessary when you are growing up. it teaches you that the world can be dangerous and you should look out for things, be aware of stuff etc.
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u/AnaisNinja76 2d ago
suicide mannequins seem an odd choice anywhere to me actually
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u/mailslot 2d ago
Kids are supposed to be scared on Halloween. When I was younger, there were the scary houses little ones dared not approach, but they had the best candy. It was like a right of passage to finally build up the courage to walk up on the first year along side all of the teenagers.
I feel like kids have been missing out on that for a very long time. The holiday has been watered down and stripped of the fun & excitement for something tame & lame: “fun” sized.
Church folks were the scariest, with their “you’ll become possessed and suffer an eternity in hell” warnings about participating.
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u/mikewheelerfan 2d ago
One of my neighbors filled their tree with hanging skeletons. Then they decided it was too difficult to take down, and the skeletons have been in the tree all year long for about four years now. 🤦🏼♀️
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u/PantheraAuroris 2d ago
Y'know fair enough, I can entirely agree that we don't need *racially charged gore* on our lawns. You did find the scary thing I *don't* want.
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u/amandany6 2d ago
I loved scary stuff as a kid (old millennial here), but scary then was like, eerie lighting, ghosts, graveyards with skeletons popping up, costumed adults, maybe gargoyles. I think mangled corpses, Satan dragging people into Hell and splattered fake blood and gore looking like a crime scene is just a bit much for someone's lawn. Christ. I mean, you can but... maybe you shouldn't?
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u/meumixer 2d ago
Honestly yeah, I agree. I’m not even 30 and I don’t remember nearly as much gore in Halloween decorations when I was a kid. Sure, there was some creepy/gory decor, but it was typically PG-13 at worst — green zombies, an obviously fake severed hand, a Jason Voorhees animatronic with fake blood splatters on it and a motion-sensored knife arm. Scary for little kids, fun for anyone over 10, you know? You had to go to an opt-in activity like a haunted house to see anything really “bad”.
I do think it’s still mostly that kind of PG-13 creepy/gory, to be fair, but it does seem like there’s been an increase in “haunted house” levels of Halloween decor in people’s front lawns, which I think was OP’s intended complaint.
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u/Jayn_Newell 2d ago
Yeah you can be scary without being gory, and there are people who are particularly sensitive to blood and stuff. There’s a house in our neighborhood that scares my daughter but at the same time there’s nothing I would say crosses a line, just skeletons and spider webs and the usual spooky stuff.
But I will be avoiding that block for trick or treating.
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u/Rat_Poison_Milkshake 3d ago
The way I see it, Halloween is a celebration of courage, the same way Valentine's Day is a celebration of love and Christmas is one of family and friends. The children put on "armour" (costumes and masks) to face their fears, and obtain a reward at the end of the trial (candy). This in part encourages them to build confidence and go through tougher times, even if they can seem daunting. I think especially in the current climate, that's an important lesson to teach our children.
I don't have kids of my own, but I build haunts every year for them, and even though I avoid things like swears, I do try to make the haunts as scary as I can (while still being reasonable) to give them the opportunity to test their courage and come out stronger. I actually had some kids come back and give me candy as a show of thanks, while I was in full skeleton costume!
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u/Comprehensive-Menu44 3d ago
I have found that when my kid says a house is “too scary”, I’ll say “okay let’s move on then” and she’s like “WAIT. I can do this” and she chooses to be brave about it. If she truly doesn’t want to, I don’t force her, but in the last 6 years, she hasn’t said no to a single house.
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u/Nightwailer 2d ago
This is a GREAT image and tips me over the fence, makes me want to have kids
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u/alabardios 2d ago
When my kid was 2.5 she saw a haunted house at a fair, she wanted to just see inside to know what it looked like. I asked the attendant if it would be OK to take a peek, as I didnt expect her to want to stay in there for more than a few seconds. It was super cartoonish, like a Tom and Jerry Halloween special, so nothing gory or gross. After a quick peek she wanted out, no biggie. I thanked the attendant and was on our way.
10 minutes later she wanted to try again, so I said sure, and the attendant let us go for a second try, and I paid this time. After 3 minutes she was done, wanted out, ok no problem. The attendant gave us out tickets back, thankfully.
Another ride or two later she wanted to give it a third shot, so I paid and we went in. She made it all the way through! I was so proud of my kid for overcoming her fears that day! It wasn't the cheap dollarstore masks that were scary, it was the pistons firing for the jump scare sets that freaked her out. But she did it, she made it through.
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u/itsfourinthemornin 2d ago
One of our neighbours lays it out pretty much how you described it. They have a couple noise/jump decorations, they make a "web maze" to get through, a witches cauldron (usually green and slimy), they dress up (wife is the witch, husband varies) and so forth. They do it the same every year, their kids are grown now but they aren't grandparents yet.
We started going out when child started walking confidently (2/3yo). I've watched the kids on the street as toddlers go from screaming at this garden, not wanting to go in (had some brave ones ofc) to present day where most of them are approaching teen where they help siblings and other littles of the street through it.
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u/Dock_Ellis_Fastball 2d ago
Halloween is by far my favorite holiday and I absolutely love this. I'm going to be adding this to my answer for the inevitable "why?"
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u/SWAGGIN_OUT_420 3d ago
This is a pretty cool perspective, i don't think it always applies but it definitely can.
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u/BlaineMundane 2d ago
This is why I don't ever do Trunk or Treat with the kiddies.
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u/torisbagel 2d ago
not to be overdramatic but trunk or treat should die
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u/stopXstoreytime 2d ago
As someone who grew up in a rural area where going house to house was not an option, I’m really surprised that trunk or treat inspires such vitriol.
My church hosts one every year and we do up our cars, dress in costume, plus have yard games, hot cider, and a weenie roast. Sure, it’s only for a couple of hours in the early evening and not on Halloween, but we still get a good turnout, have some pre-Halloween fun, and chances are, the kids still get to go trick or treating on actual Halloween.
At this point, it’s more of a supplement to Halloween proper, plus, in our case, it’s a good opportunity for neighborhood outreach. I don’t get all the hate.
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u/KilD3vil 2d ago
Halloween used to be damn near a melee. Parents would drop us off at the end of the street, drive to the other, and let whatever happened happen. We were out on the streets of my little ass town, not in a parking lot. It took all night to get a good haul, not a few hours walking in a circle. We went out on Halloween night, not when it was a convenience for the neighborhood, didn't matter if it was a school night, that was just a part of it, the cost of doing business, for us.
Trunk or Treat isn't in and of itself bad, it's just wildly different from what a lot of us grew up with, and it's missing some points.
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u/PapiSilvia Your friendly neighbourhood moderator man 2d ago
Yeah this was how it worked when I was growing up, too. The country kids were either dropped off in town (or went directly from school) and roamed around until they landed at a friend's house and/or were picked up. Trunk or treat feels very sanitized and dystopian to me and honestly lacking as far as a Halloween experience goes.
It also used to go way later! Had my first small-town Halloween as an adult last year and we were shocked that trick or treating was practically over by 6 and entirely over by 6:30. I guess times have changed because my friends and I used to be out until 8:30/9pm and only came home after the porch lights turned off and the other kids had all disappeared.
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u/mentalissuelol 1d ago
I trick or treated AND trunk-or-treated as a kid, and I LOVED trick or treated and HATED trunk or treating. I always remember viewing trick or treating as “you go out with your friends and you might get scared but you get a lot of candy and you all have fun”. Trunk or treating was just going to a country club parking lot full of boring people where a scary man grabs you and you get a snickers bar as a bribe to stop freaking out. Maybe I got too traumatized by the scary man that one time.
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u/Runescora 2d ago
It’s an abomination and and offense.
Where I live they’ll pick the most convent day to do it. Not even on Halloween and not at night. Not even in the evening.
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u/mentalissuelol 1d ago
I have distinct memories of being a child in a parking lot full of boring people at like 4pm on a Thursday, just being like “what are we even doing this for?” I did not have fun lol.
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u/iggysmom95 2d ago edited 2d ago
Trunk or treat is a scourge on the earth
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u/Dawn-Storm 2d ago
IMO it's so the Evangelical kids can go trick or treat without all that nasty satanic Halloween stuff attached.
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u/ButtercupsPitcher 2d ago
I hate trunk or treat!!! At my house, we zipline the candy from out of the 2nd story window, down ro the sidewalk. The kids love it! And I love watching how excited they get when the candy comes down the fishing line! The amount of kids is dwindling. Makes me so sad
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u/d0nutbutth0le 3d ago
My daughter got a skinned knee running from a jump scare when she was about 6. Next year she said she wouldn't get scared again. We went trick or treating and a creepy clown answered the door. The other kids there screamed and ran away but she turned her head away, held out her bucket and told the clown, "JUST FILL THE BAG"
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u/eugeneugene 3d ago
When my kid was too young for that kind of scary stuff (like that would ruin his day 🤣) we would just go trick or treating at like 4pm-5pm when the sun was still out and half the people weren't even home handing out candy yet. Very easy way to bypass the really scary stuff and jump scares
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u/lavenderlatte_oatmil 2d ago
I’m a grown ass adult and did a haunted hay ride. I was terrified and the little girl across from me (couldn’t be more than 5) was clapping her hands and exited by the scare actors lollll
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u/mjet34 3d ago
Personally I dress up as Michael but same general idea
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u/dbellz76 3d ago
People dressed as Jason and Michael Myers are far more scary than some wack decor from Home Depot. That's some serious childhood trauma shit from seeing those movies way too young... and I love that people do this.
Signed, a fully grown Gen X-er
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u/MephistosFallen 2d ago
When i was a kid, in the 90s, this pne house made their entire yard a haunted graveyard, complete with a vampire human jumping out of a coffin at you as you walked up. The wife answered as morticia. It was amazing.
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u/ichibansholdings 3d ago
I mean that is pretty awesome. Though I don’t care for gore myself I haven’t ever seen a Halloween decoration that truly upset me the way OP is describing.
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u/lifefuedjeopardy wateroholic 3d ago
OP is honestly sounded to me like one of those people that won't let their kids watch Courage the cowardly dog
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u/Dumb_Ugly_Frank 2d ago
When I was a kid it was a guy dressed as a super convincing scarecrow sitting on his porch holding the bowl of candy in his lap. Fucker would jump out at you right as you reached for a piece. It ruled.
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u/InfaReddSweeTs 3d ago
This. I need to enjoy Halloween too. If they want my sweets ima scare the fuck out of them kids!!
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u/rainbowtison 2d ago
AS another parent I also approve! How is Jason or a dire wolf any scarier than an active shooter drill?
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u/Well_Dressed_Kobold 2d ago
People need to dial back the kiddie factor on Halloween and remember it’s a holiday about confronting existential dread and laughing in the face of death.
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u/Chrizilla_ 3d ago
No they don’t lol halloween is all about spooky scary things. To those who do want to use their property to make something scary, hell yeah, lean into it! I’m a parent too, kids need to know that there are certain experiences that are geared towards adults and when they grow up, they might actually like these things themselves! It’s makes growing up exciting. Until then, stay away or get freaked out junior hahahaha.
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u/m0rtimerg0th 3d ago
I think this is overly coddling. I personally loved seeing all the spooky decor while trick-or-treating as a child. That's part of the appeal of the holiday. Also kids aren't the only ones who celebrate Halloween.
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u/FrenzyEffect 3d ago
As a kid, the scary parts of Halloween were what I loved the most. I loved the scariest houses, I loved when kids TV channels would start showing all the scary shows, I loved going to those pop-up haunted houses.
Children aren't pathetic, whimpering cowards who need coddling, not all the time. The biggest phenomena among children in the past few decades have been horror franchises. Besides, the scariest house gives the best candy. Facing my fears on Halloween got me super into horror and really helped me grow. I think having a spectrum from "spooky" to scary is good for kids and I think being scared in a harmless and fun way is not only engaging but can help build courage.
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u/SmokingSamoria 3d ago
100%. Kids need to be exposed to scary things sometimes to get them used to feeling fear or discomfort.
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u/voldin91 3d ago
Exactly. So many people coddle their kids too much. I took my 2 year old to a neighborhood house that is way overboard with like 30 motion sensor Halloween decorations. Fully expected her to be terrified and ready to leave early. She loved it.
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u/dixpourcentmerci 3d ago
Every kid is different but fyi a lot happens cognitively in the next year. My 3.5yo had no issues with Halloween stuff last year and is terrified of it this year!
Fortunately his version of being terrified is something I don’t mind helping him with by talking it through, hugs, cover your eyes etc. I do feel for parents whose kids are less consolable.
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u/Poop_Cheese 3d ago
Exactly this. Same thing for me. Being scared made it fun and gave it this mystery where till this day my most nostalgic memories are as a kid during halloween.
There was this legendary guys house who always had the creepiest yard who always had trick scares like getting you to focus on a decoration while he jumped out and scared ya. Every year I simultaneously feared and loved the house as it was like a roller coaster.
Wanting to get rid of that excitement is like, wanting to ban goosebumps books from kids libraries or something. Nothing is ever that scary.
And kids can handle it fine. They grow from being scared. Hell at catholic school we learned about stuff like the plagues of Egypt that were far more scary than any halloween yard.
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u/MarcusXL 3d ago
I think it's totally healthy, to the point of being necessary for growth, for kids to experience the kind of scares that Halloween offers, and "survive" the experience.
Kids who are coddled and insulated from anything unpleasant tend to be less capable of dealing with real problems.
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u/MartianDepression 2d ago
Exactly! I knew weiner kids like that created by parents like this. Just raising lambs for the slaughter.
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u/Celestialfox1425 3d ago edited 3d ago
My young kids love anything “spooky”. Every year we bring the Halloween props out, they get played with on the daily. I’m talking creepy dolls with red eyes that light up, a scary clown that says “thats not a mask? That’s your face” and proceeds to laugh, and so forth. Our front yard skeleton even has a name given to him by my eldest. But I will add that none of our decorations are particularly gore, just really creepy.
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u/QuintonFrey 2d ago
I grew up on 1980's blood-and-gore horror movies. I'm currently a pacifist and a humanitarian. The kids are going to be ok.
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u/Odd-Neighborhood-399 2d ago
Oh please. I have two kids. If it’s too scary I tell them to look away. We would trick or treat in a neighborhood that always had some really scary houses. Each year, they could face more. That’s the whole point. Raise your kids in a bubble if you want but don’t force the choice on others.
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u/randybeans716 2d ago
That’s the thing….if you talk to your kids about it and explain that they’re just decorations they’re generally fine after that. People just don’t wanna parent their kids anymore and expect people to live their lives by “it takes a village” and to conform their lives to accommodate their kid. And I say that as a mom.
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u/Itchy_Tumbleweed_417 2d ago
Yeah I remember trick-or-treating in a neighborhood where one of the people would sit on their porch dressed up like a decoration and then they would grab you when you went to take candy out of the bucket.
The parents knew which house that was, us kids talked about it amongst ourselves too, and if we thought it was too scary we just wouldn’t go to that house. I did not go to that house because I didn’t want a stranger touching my arm even though I knew it was just the Neighbor dressed up.
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u/UserMorningxStar 2d ago
We had something similar where everything was normal until you turned around from taking the candy and there was someone in a gorilla costume that would scare the crap out of you
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u/anotherdropin 2d ago
Yeah, for real… the true unpopular opinion in this post should be “I really like to baby my kids” cuz wtf. One of my kids is four and yeah, she does get scared sometimes but it’s a pretty low stakes way to build resiliency and to teach them about confronting their fears in a very safe environment
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u/MartianDepression 2d ago
So, I’m Gen X and it was all about being scary with a few non scary costumes sprinkled in. Kids found it fun then..what happened to that? Parents were cooler then.
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u/Kittenwho21 2d ago
I don’t think it’s that big a deal. Kids see things, you take the opportunity to teach them about it, give them the proper coping skills to handle fear if they have it. Not every kid is scared of decorations. I think if they are the parent needs to spend more time with the kid bc why are they getting so much alone time for their brains to go wild without a parent comforting them and explaining what isn’t real?
I grew up in a horror family, all of us are much more cautious of the horror our littles get exposed to than our parents were with us, but like.. decorations aren’t a big concern, not any more than a scary dog would be, and despite fears of dogs we don’t stop people from getting and owning them..
Kids learn quite quickly that the world outside their homes is different. Sometimes that means scary. And that’s okay, because they should have parents that give them the tools to get by (especially if said parents are so busy trying to convince everyone else to think of the children, I’d hope they’re also taking time to build up their kids confidence and help their kids feel brave….)
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u/Jotacon8 3d ago
Another thing I should add here is that not a single person that I have met in my entire life has been traumatized to any degree by Halloween decorations to the point of it being any sort of issue in their life. Even if they were scared at any point as a child. Just because you don’t like dealing with the consequences of a scared child in the moment doesn’t mean anyone else needs to care since none of this will be of any consequence to that child later in life. As a matter of fact, purposely trying to hide your child from every instance of anything remotely scary or gory is just going to make it harder for them to handle anything real life that’s scary.
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u/Trumpet6789 2d ago
There are thousands of videos on social media of toddlers picking gorey fake babies or skeletons or creepy ass dolls for their comfort items.
I've known numerous families who's young children won't go to bed unless they get to come see the massive (and spooky) Halloween displays at our home and others every year.
Halloween is MEANT to be spooky and scary and grotesque. It's not meant to be overly cutesy and "chill".
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u/corysf9ers1 2d ago
Last year, me and my girlfriend went to Dark Nights at Hershey Park. We saw this little girl, around 7 maybe, dressed like a fairy. She was going through the haunted houses just having the time of her life.
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u/ghastlygorge 2d ago
i saw a little girl walking with her dad and she had a little skeleton rat on a little rope leash 😭
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u/PeriodPhartz 2d ago
My cousin has a goth wife and they have two kids, one is cute and spooky and the other is a normal kid scared of normal stuff. Cute and spooky has had a skeleton spider as her comfort item for like 3 years. The normal kid is frightened of it haha. They keep hoping the goth kid will pick a different item and have pushed her towards baby dolls, stuffed animals, and even weird stuff like plastic fruit or kitchen implements and she keeps going back to the spider.
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u/BounceOnItCrazyStyle 3d ago
Y’all protect your kids too much to a detrimental level. Scary experiences like Halloween and stories are good for children. It’s a way to experience fears, stress, adrenaline and so on in a safe environment and learn how to properly process it.
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u/BearChops 2d ago
When my kid was 4 they made me go to the “scary store” every single day to play with the scary things. Not all kids are scared, some enjoy it. Sorry your kid doesn’t
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u/Kittenwho21 2d ago
I think OP doesn’t, their poor kid probably didn’t care and OP scared it into them
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u/OppositeChemistry205 2d ago
People really underestimate how much of their children's fears stem from their own. I never liked bugs or spiders, I would cry and freak out as a child. As a parent I pretend they are the coolest thing in the world so my sons aren't wimps.
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u/AntiqueLetter9875 2d ago
I remember once at daycare they put on Lord of the Rings. I guess something scared mt brother so he told my mom. She then called the daycare making a big fuss about showing this to children and all that. The staff were just like “if he was so scared why did he keep watching? He has the option to not watch. Not all the kids were watching it.” lol. She’s not normally over reacting like that but because she doesn’t like scary things, she assumes everyone is very bothered by it.
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u/cat_in_a_trashcan 2d ago
Im so tired of people thinking that anything and everything needs to be sanitized for children.
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u/Active_Drawer 3d ago
We have young kids. We take them early. We don't expect others to cater to us. Loved Halloween as a kid. When young our neighbor had a haunted house with chainsaws and all. Today's version is much more muted. It used to be every house, now so many don't participate.
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u/Sarah_Bowie27 2d ago
When I was a kid I was absolutely terrified of everything. I hated Halloween scary Halloween decorations but I was still kind of able to mostly avoid them (closing my eyes/running past them etc) (my parents thought it was hilarious I was so scared actually..parents were different back then 😅) I dunno..sometimes I think it’s good for kids to get scared! And then maybe you can reassure them things aren’t real.
Maybe I feel differently now because my kid doesn’t seem to be afraid of anything and is the complete opposite of how I was.
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u/Mugiwara048 3d ago
Now that you’re grown up, do you regret having seen scary things during Halloween when you were a child?
I don’t really think it makes much of a difference tbh
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u/midmonthEmerald 3d ago
Agree. I sort of wish I had so few problems in life that being spooked a couple times as a kid could register as trauma. 😂
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u/Han_brolo5090 3d ago
Unpopular opinion; upvoted. Being scared to approach a house because of the decorations is part of the fun. Halloween is Halloween. It’s supposed to be scary. Otherwise it would be like Easter.
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u/latoowla 2d ago
Halloween is meant to be scary. My favorite memories as a kid on Halloween were when people jumped out at me on the porch or when one house fully decorated their garage as a witches den with a giant smoking cauldron and everything. Those ugly ass inflatables are what’s ruining the holiday!
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u/Crud-ite 3d ago
Kids need to learn that monster monsters aren’t real, or, at least that actual monsters don’t look like that.
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u/True-Passage-8131 2d ago
I remember Spirit Halloween in the late 2000s having a lot of gorey and scary props. I actually thought they majorly dumbed it down in recent years, which is a disappointment to me. As a kid, they issued out a catalog of costumes every year, and my favorite was looking at the scary ones. I always begged my mother to let me buy one, but she wouldn't allow it because she thought it was too scary for me. Mind you, I was already watching horror movies and reading Stephen King at this point.
Now, if your kids are on the more sensitive side, then they might be more comfortable at a church/school sponsored Trunk or Treat or some other structured Halloween event. And if they're not getting exposed to anything scary at home, then I could see why the props you speak of would be too much for them. But also, given my anecdote, ask yourself if your kids are actually too scared or if you just think it's too scary for them. Because it wasn't for me, and my mom thought so.
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u/UncleBlob 3d ago edited 3d ago
People stopped decorating for the sake of the kids because kids don't trick or treat anymore. The only people who still decorate do it for their own enjoyment.
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u/SilverMcFly 3d ago
Kids like op mentions is exactly what trunk or treat is for. Take your kids out, see nothing, go home and have a completely unremarkable time.
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u/Wentzwagon09 2d ago
I recall watching Halloween (1978) when I was 9 or 10 yeaes old and I turned out alright. Youre worried about kids seeing some gory halloween decor in someones front yard? Have you seen whats on the internet? Gimme a break
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u/Hum07270727 2d ago
I love Halloween but for me, it’s the movie trailers. I personally hate horror movies because I suffer from night terrors. I’ll be watching some random show or movie at the theaters that is not scary at all and get hit with a crazy trailer. The Other Mommy one was insane.
It always ramps up this time of the year.
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u/ripleyclone8 2d ago
If it makes you feel better, Other Mommy was so disappointing. The trailer was scarier than the movie 😭
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u/yourpaljk 2d ago
That’s a let down! I’m still going to go check it out. I’m an easy scare haha but live for it
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u/BlackMagicWorman 2d ago
What’s interesting is that I suffer from PTSD and night terrors, and I LOVE horror movies. I still haven’t figured out why I love them so much.
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u/Electronic_Elk8293 2d ago
Dude, look up the history of Halloween. It's not a Disney princess holiday. Modern parents have absolutely (besides money issues) been the reason it's dying. Everyone is so fragile now. I loved this holiday growing up and everyone was into the horror factor of it. It's literally a celebration based on celebrating death, helping souls pass over and stopping evil spirits.
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u/PuppyJakeKhakiCollar 2d ago
Modern parents are killing a lot of things. Not everything needs to be for kids all the time. Adults are allowed to have fun too.
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u/hikeonpast 3d ago
It’s always been trick OR treat. If you want the treats, ya gotta be prepared for some tricks.
I say this as a parent - if it’s too much, then either do a trunk-or-treat at a community center or keep them at home. Part of the joy of Halloween is seeing things that you normally wouldn’t and might wish you hadn’t. That’s the spirit of the season.
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u/Yourface1837 3d ago
I feel like the scary houses were fun and I was honestly a bit of a wuss 🤣
One house had a zombie on the grass and I tapped him with my foot, and he grabbed my leg lmaooo scared the heck out of me and also taught me a valuable lesson hahaha
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u/_W9NDER_ ShmunShpopular Shmopinion 3d ago
I like the horror shit as a kid and now I like it as an adult.
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u/-antipode 2d ago
I think the challenge as always is who gets to decide. If a single child gets scared should the decoration be banned from public eye?
If not, then when?
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u/duckinradar 3d ago
When people start talking about how those of us without kids don’t want our lives dictated to us by people with kids? This is what we’re talking about.
Luckily, my life isn’t dictated to me by people with kids. It’s supposed to be scary and it’s fun for me and idc
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u/Critical_Success_936 3d ago
It's also never been "for kids." Kids can participate, but holidays are for adults just as much as kids
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u/Plantparty20 3d ago
Idk even as an adult I don’t like seeing a hanging body out of my window while having my morning coffee
I am worried about how desensitized the gen pop is to violence and gore
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u/Sweet_Future 3d ago
Same here. I hate that stuff too, and it's forced on you with no warning or way to avoid it if it's in someone's front yard. I agree that it's weird people glorify violence but I think it shows a privileged society that hasn't experienced real violence.
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u/ConstructionFun6757 2d ago
Hanging bodies from bridges and body parts spread about the street were a thing in the Mexican news when I was growing up. When I see those kinds of “decorations” in the States I’m always reminded of that. It’s wild people put that stuff on their house for fun… how bored of a society is it?
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u/ssjg2k02 quiet person 3d ago
When you break it down like that, especially the last sentence. It just got me thinking we in the west don’t see violence compared to those living in the global south/middle east.
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u/MarcusXL 3d ago
Kids also love it, even when they're scared (especially when they're scared).
Even to the point of being scared to tears, kids generally bounce back with a feeling of catharsis and accomplishment from experiencing something scary and coming through the other side. OP is just helicopter-parenting and thinking they're doing their kids a favour by pretending the world is all sunshine and flowers.
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u/AngryAlien21 3d ago
Shouldn’t you be out decorating your Equinox for Trunk or Treat?
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u/xCosmicTurtle 2d ago
Kids in real life have to go through so much worse than seeing plastic gore on a toy, this type of babying and censorship doesn’t help kids at all, just makes parents feel like they’re doing something
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u/Runescora 2d ago
Honestly, i think it’s good for us. All of us. To an extent.
We spend a lot of time and effort trying to San arise things these days but the world is not a clean, happy or safe place. Which is kind of the point of Halloween. The traditional reasons for dressing up are to blend in with or scary away the spooky things. Which tells us not only are there scary things out there but that we can fight back. Or, like Scooby and his gang, we can take the mask off to find the human underneath.
It also teaches us how we can be scared and still be okay.
As for the gore…meh. It’s not real. And that’s an important thing to learn as well.
A healthy society has outlets for these things because they will manifest in other, less healthy displays, when suppressed. And Halloween is not only, or even mostly, about children in the end. Though many consider it to be. Halloween is old. Like before the time of Christ old. There is something of the primal at its core. And there are a lot worse things than preserving that. It may be the last Holliday we fully surrender to modern apathy, sanitation and disnenyfication. And they can have it over my cold rotting corpse.
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u/Onion_Mysterious 2d ago
I agree with you so much. But every year I see less and less houses decreat or give out candy. I hate trunk or treat as it just makes things...worse...more low effort. And trick or treating keeps happening so early now. Where I live people go out while the sun is still high up and even the best road in town is now just a house or two per block. I take my kids trick or treating and of those few houses that decorate and give out candy 1 in 10 is actually good the rest are the bright neon inflatable pumpkins or what ever. Costumes are cool I like people watching more the the rest
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u/beepatgmail 2d ago
I’m a mom with three young children and I completely agree. I’m not a fan of how some neighbors decorate, but I shouldn’t dictate how they celebrate.
That being said, gore doesn’t bother me as much as violence. Hanging corpses and the stabbing/murdering dioramas are where I draw the line.
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u/InternetConfessional 2d ago
This post makes me think back to my toddler hugging all of the animatronics at spirit halloween 😂
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u/skrufforious 3d ago
I just wish they would only put them out a bit closer to Halloween. I remember when people had fall decorations that weren't associated with Halloween and then they would put up the cool scary ones for just the week of Halloween and then back to normal. It kind of makes it feel a bit less special to have them out for two whole months.
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u/betothejoy 3d ago
Enjoy your upvote. Let people have fun with their decorations. There’s actual violence and gore in media. Just explain the decorations aren’t real.
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u/SirGearso 3d ago
If anything Halloween isn’t scary enough anymore. It’s also hardly celebrated anymore, kids are losing everything nowadays from toys, vacations, quality entertainment, heck even places to hangout outside. The world’s gotten a lot smaller for kids.
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u/swanfirefly 2d ago
I'm wondering if OP and her handful of defenders are all younger parents, because when I was a kid in the 90s, the decorations were just as scary? Like did her school never serve the bowl of red kool aid with gummy eyeballs?
And yes, including "gore", one of my neighbors circa 1998 had a mummy with bloody bandages and a zombie with half it's skeleton out. The haunted mansion run out of the high school sprayed fake blood on people and played chainsaw noises - when I was five I actually got the shit scared out of me when my adult went into a "pod" and came out covered in blood with a zombie mask. After I got over the scare we went back so I could be turned into a zombie too.
And that's not even mentioning how the 90s was the heyday and introduction of all those animatronic decorations, from the spiders that crawl towards movement to the zombie/skeleton hand that grabs you when you grab candy. The corpse in the chair that turns it's head at movement and says something like "Last Kids that were on my lawn made great fertilizer".
But maybe the 12 foot tall skeleton and the direwolf killed OP's grandma.
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u/mofloweress 3d ago
we don’t care lmfao. halloween isn’t supposed to be cute. and if you see that it’s scary don’t bring children, that’s common sense. halloween is and can be scary, get over it
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u/Stormy-Skyes 2d ago
If children are especially scared of the decor then adults should explain that it’s all pretend. That was how my parents handled things like that. It’s okay that it’s scary, it’s pretend and just for fun. It lets kids safely deal with a little scare.
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u/Lurakya 2d ago
As someone from Europe with a history of Halloween much much deeper than the hyper commercialization the US came up with, this pisses me off on a personal level.
I am quite deep in my research about what my country was like before christinization, and it pains me how much it ruined previous cultures and beliefs. But at least halloween is still recognized and celebrated mostly for what it was. The culture somewhat lived on.
But Americans keep trying to make everything more child friendly, and everyone has to think of the children. And believe it or not, that's exactly how a culture/ celebration shrivels up and dies.
The adults don't want to participate anymore if everything is child friendly and everyone gets coddled, but it's the adult that carry on traditions.
Trick or treating is for kids and adults alike, but the rest of the Halloween night is for adults and it should stay that way.
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u/Jotacon8 3d ago
There’s a reason horror movies, scary stories/novels, and haunted houses exist. People enjoy the adrenaline rush of being scared by things that don’t have any negative consequences. There’s a fun aspect of these sort of spooks. Most Halloween decorations are not made to be believable. A giant bloody direwolf is not something to think is real.
Thinking the world needs to cater to young children who don’t understand this yet is selfish. It doesn’t matter if you’re a parent and your kid is the most important aspect of your life. There’s billions of other people. You and your child aren’t special.
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u/NefariousnessIcy6344 3d ago edited 2d ago
Sorry but no. Whether you think you are or not op, you are having a very "won't someone think of the children" moment and trying to police other's behavior.
That alone is wrong of you.
You are also wrong about halloween being geared towards children. It has always been for everyone. Kids trick or treating is only part of it. Not the whole thing.
Plus, as others have said, you are using your child to speak for all children. Again, that's wrong. Plenty of kids love scary stuff. My nieces are super into my decor. They gladly run around my yard hugging and playing with skeletons and decapitated heads. And there's lots of parents in the comments saying similar. Or talking about how they loved those things when they were younger.
Someone on here commented how the people who complain about no one trick or treating anymore are the ones who have too scary decorations. And I have to say that's a load of bs. Truthfully it's quite the opposite. I get trick or treaters because of my decor. Last year alone I had multiple people asking if they could take photos in the graveyard I set up.
It's the people thinking everything is too scary and dangerous that are causing trick or treating to die out. Everything is a trunk or treat now where it's done in the middle of the afternoon and there's no effort required. No chances of anyone being even a little uncomfortable.
Also your examples just suck. You talk about too much gore then mention products sold at big box stores. Your definition of too much gore must be very different from most. Like really, a giant wolf? I would never consider anything I can get from home depot to be too much.
Edit: thank you for the awards kind redditors! I wasn't expecting this little rant to reach anyone but I'm happy it did.
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u/MommaOfManyCats 2d ago
Hell I'm in my 40s and we loved the scary stuff back in the day! One of our favorite houses had a guy chasing kids around with a chainsaw. Granted it didn't have a blade, but we didn't know that. Their house was always popular in the late 80s.
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u/BeerOutHere 3d ago
Absolutely not. Halloween used to be an actual scary holiday when kids dressed as actual scary ghouls and ghosts and shit. Not the commercialized child garbage decorations and costumes we have today.
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u/Agile-Wait-7571 2d ago
Take your kids to a brewery. Those are super kid friendly. They’ll be safe there.
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u/Critical_Success_936 3d ago
You're right OP, this is unpopular. Take my upvote, but realize stuff like this is why people hate parents nowadays
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u/cheezy_dreams88 3d ago
My 6 year old thinks our haunted graveyard needs more bones next year. Candy gets served in a coffin. No realistic blood and guts, but definitely not cutesy Halloween decorations.
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u/0DayMaker 2d ago
I'm exceedingly tired of "think of the children" I don't give a shit. I'm gonna go put a fake wolf penis on my anamatronic wolf man just for this post.
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u/Its_Bread_611 2d ago
Halloween has gotten significantly more sanitized, spirit halloween now is Mickey mouse compared to what they had in the 2000s. IMO we need to go back.
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u/diabeticweird0 3d ago
Yeah it was the suic*de noose in windows with a body hanging from it that made me go "yeah we've lost the plot here"
Ghosts, witches, vampires? Bring it
Real life violence? Not so much
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u/BrotherPumpwell 2d ago
This is 100% because OP has a problem with gore, the kids don't care. My mother was like this. We don't talk because she's exhausting and a liar.
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u/LovemeSomeMedia 2d ago
It seems alot of these "think of the children" moments stem from the parents actually having more of an issue than their actual kids who are just chilling.
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u/plutusdispater 3d ago
Actual unpopular but with the amount of people who will say adults get to be the focus too, chances this actually gets very little upvotes.
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u/Critical_Success_936 3d ago
I upvoted but am never inviting OP or their kid anywhere
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u/AccomplishedTask9885 3d ago
Lmfao parents now a days hate talking to their kids so they wanna limit everyone else
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u/18karatcake 3d ago
Ehh I loved scary stuff as a kid. Started with goosebumps books and are you afraid of the dark, then Stephen king and horror movies. Life isn’t dictated by kids. But there are kids that like the scary stuff too.
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u/Vanishing_Light 3d ago
Me too! Friday the 13th became my favorite movie series before I could even talk, and I was reading Stephen King in 3rd grade!
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u/slothdonki 3d ago
I’m in my 30s and if anything Halloween decorations have become cuter while gorier decorations are just less shitty looking. Neither is wrong to me, there is nothing stopping you from being more kid-friendly.
Halloween itself is not nearly as bustling door to door as it used to be, and I appreciate those who want to go all out with decorations.
As a kid I was very excited when I was old enough where I was allowed to participate as an “actor” for Haunted Houses around the neighborhood. Often it was me getting my leg “chopped off”.
Skip houses or events you think are too scary for your kid, but at some point you’ll also be complaining no one does Halloween anymore.
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u/Dumb_Ugly_Frank 2d ago
And there are a lot of kids that love the shit out of Halloween and weirdo gory Halloween decorations because they’re fun. We’re supposed to take the fun out of a holiday for a bunch of kids because you can’t explain what a yard decoration is?
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u/ibelieveinsantacruz 3d ago
Kids need otherworldly terror to stimulate their imagination. Look at all the great kids movies from the past that had elements of terror.
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u/BlaineMundane 3d ago
As a kid, nothing was more exciting to me that seeing a house with decorations that were actually scary. It was exciting.
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u/JTunaaaa 2d ago
when i was about 6 or 7, a guy covered in blood and dressed as Jason chased me and my friends out of their makeshift haunted house WITH A REAL RUNNING CHAINSAW :”) i feel like you’re giving kids too little credit, the gore and horror WAS the fun for us as kids. just because you’re kids don’t like it/you find it to be too much, it doesn’t speak for all kids/parents
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u/howdidienduphere34 2d ago
No. People don’t need to “dial back” the gore and horror, it’s Halloween. It’s supposed to be spooky, and scary, and full of gore. People like to be scared. It’s why we have haunted houses, and horror movies, and thrill rides. You don’t have to participate if you don’t want to, and you can steer your kids away if it means that much to you.
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u/Carinne89 3d ago
I’m on the fence about this one. I agree some of the stuff I’ve seen is just nasty gore, not every scary, just gross.
But on the flip side, we are sanitizing our world too much. Life is uncomfortable. Things are scary. You, and society as a whole, can not grow if your whole life is a safe little bubble that only has happy in it.
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u/sparkledbear 2d ago
Oh good grief, don’t do this to parents, make us look like a bunch of entitled twats.
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u/MiniDehl 3d ago
Hot take I really wish that Halloween would be more adult focused but kids end up clogging up most of it
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u/Unusual-Attorney-630 3d ago
Personally I don't care for sexualizing Halloween and that affects kids too because it exposes them to adult content but when I was a kid anything scary was something I took as training to conquer my fears 😂🎃
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u/Saladcitypig 3d ago
I agree for the gore. I don't think it's healthy for tiny kids to see utlra realistic dead bodies with gory injuries. Some people really don't care or remember how upset it can make littles, and how random it can be for them, like a hanging person can scare them in a way you didn't expect and they can't sleep alone for a few months.
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u/YoureanNPC420 3d ago
Your feelings and kids feelings are irrelevant. As are mine, you can feel how you want but others don’t.
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u/Impossible-Use4950 2d ago edited 2d ago
It's not meant to be a celebration, and it's meant to be scary. No Happy Halloween, it's to scare off the ghouls and demons before the old Celtic new year, not have wee Johnny dressed as a crayon.
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u/Sea_Coconut_2857 2d ago
I'm not putting decorations out for your kids. I'm putting them out for me.
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u/wellbutrin_witch 2d ago
As a former child, I LOVEDDDD super scary Halloween decorations. The gorier, the better LOL. And I’m talking from a very young age, like preschool onward.
I think people sometimes underestimate how much scary stuff kids can handle, and how much some of us genuinely enjoyed it! Obviously every child is different, but I wouldn’t assume that something is too scary for kids just because adults find it disturbing
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u/Longjumping-Stay-597 3d ago
idk i think that stuff is cool. i thought it was cool when i was a kid too
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u/zooble_57 3d ago
LMFAO NO. People don't make Halloween scary enough. It should be a night of spooky terror.
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u/Automatic-Tea-4150 3d ago
I am an adult and would appreciate it for myself. The more R-rated the displays and costumes get, the less I look forward to the season.
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u/cjacksen 3d ago
I disagree. The whiny masses complained and cried for decades over this holiday, to the point that kids get candy from people's car boot and are happy with it. The rest of us may celebrate and decorate as we like. You fucks cant enshittify everything.
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u/PaleTown9860 3d ago
My only thing if you’re going to make it super scary from kids you should have some good shit for the brave little ones. Absolutely terrorize the high schoolers though
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u/desertstar714 3d ago
I have a toddler but Im also goth so she smiles and waves at the bleeding werewolve my neighbor put up. I would argue that I wish ppl focused on horror scary rather then gore scary since I find gore stuff a cop-out.
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u/3orangefish 3d ago
Kids will be scared of things and still really enjoy it. My favorite movies as a kid had parts I was scared of and needed a grown up to watch with me. My kid enjoys a bit of scare too. I don't like how cartoons are more and more afraid of being too scary.
It's certainly possible to go too far. Like, if the decorations starts disturbing even adults. But that's pretty rare.
And some kids are going to need a less scary environment. We do our best to give the environment that is the best for our kids, but it's not the same for all kids. Your feeling are valid, but your kids are going to age up soon too. And then those scary decorations could soon be fun for them. It's a much smaller amount of people who would be too scared. If there are Trunk or Treat events in your area those are great! That way your kids don't have to go close up to anything scary.
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