Original subtitles

Halloween.

The holiday of mischief and mayhem.

A night to stock up on candy and become anyone

or anything you want to be.

This was the best night of my life.

But this holiday was born out of darkness.

At Halloween, the spirit world is reaching closer to us.

A time to celebrate the dead.

Halloween is the night where the dead can freely

interact with the living.

Halloween unleashes our deepest fears.

When are you more alive than when you're afraid?

But beware the dark side...

Fires broke out across the city

on the night before Halloween.

I had nothing to do with my son's death.

...Because this is the true story of Halloween.

Halloween is a multi-billion-dollar industry

of candy,

costumes,

and trick-or-treating,

the second most popular holiday in america after christmas.

But to the countless who celebrate around the world,

it's much more than sweets and dressing up.

Trick or treat!

It is a holiday steeped in nostalgia.

When we were younger, you know, you didn't go on the streets

until it turned dark.

And it became a search for candy,

and it was just phenomenal.

I think there's something about fall.

The leaves start changing. It gets dark earlier.

The air starts to get kind of crisp.

It takes us back to our childhood,

and we feel a little more vulnerable.

And we have this interest in ghosts and spooky things.

Halloween is a time where the mystical and the strange

can sort of enter your life a little bit

and you can start thinking about the weirder things of the world.

Who doesn't like Halloween? Everybody loves Halloween.

You get to dress up, be whoever you want to,

and then get free candy?

Sign me up every day of the year.

But its playful appearance belies another truth.

The holiday started as something much darker.

What we now call Halloween was created in the shadows

of a mystical time 2,000 years ago in ancient ireland.

Every year, ethereal creatures of the night

became frighteningly real

during the celtic festival of the samhain.

Samhain meant "summer's end,"

and that's exactly what it was.

It was the time of year when celtic tribes

would bring their herds back from pasture for wintering.

It was on the edge of going into the dark, dangerous season.

Cold, scarcity of food.

Anything could happen in the winter.

And so you gathered together one last time.

This time was the beginning of the dark half of the year,

a time of danger when evil was present.

The dark half is when the dead are particularly powerful,

and so oíche samhain, or Halloween,

is the night where the dead can freely interact

with the realm of the living.

During the samhain, the celtic druids

dressed in gruesome costumes

and gathered around massive bonfires,

where they offered sacrifices to appease the haunting spirits.

Samhain was also a time for them when

the barriers between worlds were at their thinnest,

and they thought that things could cross over

from the other world.

It was also believed that you could access information

from the spirit world.

They would try to see visions of what might happen,

and that was critical to the safety of the tribe.

They needed to know what's ahead.

These customs endured for generations,

until the medieval catholic church

wanted to christianize samhain rituals.

The idea that you can speak to the dead

and they can help you and you can get insight into the future

doesn't really line up with christianity's teachings

about how the souls of the dead are supposed to work.

Church leaders tried to blend samhain

with all hallow's day,

a christian festival honoring saints,

by moving it to November 1st, the day after samhain.

A new holiday was born...

All hallow's eve.

In time, all hallow's eve becomes hallowe'en.

Today, samhain traditions have been revived.

Festivals and bonfires pay tribute to the celtic rituals

that gave birth to Halloween.

Revelers in edinburgh, scotland,

hold a spectacular fire festival parade every year.

Ghoulish costumed dancers evoke a battle

between summer and winter, the light and the dark.

These modern celebrations channel the same

fear of the unknown as our ancestors.

Halloween still has a connection to the spirit world

because for the past 2,000 years,

we've been thinking about the dead at this time of year.

There's a sense that the other world is present

and things are not all normal, and basically it's a warning...

"stay close." "don't go into the dark.

Gather around, build a fire, tell a few stories,

and let's hunker down for the winter.

Be careful."

Like the ancient celts,

many still believe the veil between the living and the dead

is thin on Halloween.

I think the veil is a bit thinner that night.

And I've investigated on Halloween.

I've held seances in haunted places to see

if we could communicate with the dead a little bit easier.

And I've had crazy things happen.

A lot of people who may not give it a lot of thought

tend to think about ghosts and spirits more at Halloween

because that's kind of what Halloween is all about.

When people discuss how the veil thins

right around Halloween,

there are so many more people keyed in to life, death,

and the afterlife in October

that we seem to be opening that portal.

We seem to be thinning that veil.

These thoughts of the supernatural

fuel the imagination.

I grew up in muscle shoals, alabama,

and like six houses down, there was this lady,

and she used to decorate the inside of her house

really creepy and very witchy.

But I thought she was witch,

and she would let you come in the house

and stand in this big entryway and this old staircase.

And then she would leave up the stairs to get the candy

and leave you alone to, like, think about what's happening.

So as a kid, it is so exciting

because you're like, "do I leave? Do I run?"

I have never forgotten her.

People like that make Halloween spectacular.

Halloween is the one time of year

we confront the darkness,

and not just earthly danger.

Many parents are growing more concerned

about the treats their children might be getting this Halloween.

The night before Halloween used to be a time

for harmless pranks.

The people that are scared of it, it's like,

"well, yeah, you should be scared."

that's part of the point of Halloween.

This shared fear of a deeper supernatural evil

is the heart of almost every Halloween tradition.

This is the day when you get to be scared.

You get to worry about ghosts or witches or see the future,

all of the marvelous, spooky sort of stuff

that we don't get to do in our everyday, ordinary lives.

This is the time that everybody

can all be a part of one thing,

and that's being a part of this fun of Halloween

and enjoying the scares because, really,

when are you more alive than when you're afraid?

We've created an amazing array of traditions

to ward off the darkness.

For almost all of them, we wear costumes, but why?

Coming up, the terrifying truth

of why we turn ourselves into monsters at Halloween.

Evil is all around us at Halloween.

What better way to face our fears than to blend in

and become something monstrous ourselves?

Halloween is the one day of the year

we can reach deep inside and transform

into something totally different.

Demons,

superheroes,

cartoons,

or monsters.

I'm a big fan of "the phantom of the opera."

my dad got me the old 1920s silent film,

and I'm obsessed with that film.

It's my favorite film.

I just love that look of the phantom of the opera...

The mask, mysterious,

you know, the hat, the cape, everything.

I was that for maybe four or five years straight.

And I was just walking around, creeping people out.

It was fun. It's Halloween.

What's behind our desire to become someone else,

even something horrifying, on Halloween?

The truth may frighten you.

It was commonly believed that ghoulish spirits

roamed the earth on all hallow's eve.

Costuming may have started when people went door to door

disguised as these evil beings

to receive offerings on their behalf.

People also wore disguises as protection.

It was believed that you dress up on these nights

to create this affront to the dark side

so that they would stay away from you.

As the centuries passed,

the old folk beliefs in the spirit world faded.

But the costumes remained and combined with other traditions.

Masking was part of disguised begging

back in europe.

The idea was to disguise yourself so nobody knew

who you were when you came out and banged on someone's door.

And so these people would come, very often dressed

in traditional costumes that they would make...

Spooky costumes representing the other world

or, somewhat, the monstrous or what have you.

When modern Halloween traditions began to emerge,

this desire to disguise ourselves

as something strange, powerful, and evil was familiar.

Halloween was really just the beginning

of the social season, where people put on fancy dress

and went out to balls and masquerades and clubs.

Masks were a big part of that, and the mystery of "who am I"

was a big part of that.

The earliest masks would have been handmade.

They would have been made out of cotton or muslin

and shaped like a face or a devil or a witch or something.

Of course, the classic costume of just cutting

some holes in a sheet,

putting it over your head, and you're a ghost.

To our eyes,

these early Halloween costumes are the stuff of nightmares.

As Halloween grew in popularity, though, the handmade,

nightmarish costumes of the past

gave way to off-the-shelf merchandise.

There was money to be made, and yet people still wanted

to channel the dark side with their costume.

But once people figured out that there was a market in this,

some of these paper companies started establishing

what american Halloween costumes should look like.

The first store-bought costumes

drew inspiration from the world of spirits and monsters,

evil witches and ghosts,

anything that was taboo in normal society.

Halloween is always a little bit edgy.

And some of its core costumes are people on the edge.

At one point in our culture,

it might have been what we call hobos or tramps

or gypsies, pirates, outlaws.

The whole idea of being outside of our everyday life

is great as far as Halloween costumes go,

and it's something that you can see through time.

In the 1940s and '50s,

fairy-tale characters and cowboys became popular,

but once television truly conquers america in the 1960s,

pop culture takes over.

By the 1970s and '80s and beyond,

it's rare to see a costume

that doesn't reference a movie or a television show.

What's hot in this year's Halloween costumes?

Those california raisins have commercial fame.

Also, spuds mackenzie. Reagans are still popular.

So are jim and tammy faye bakker,

hulk hogan, george bush,

and the usual assortment of scary monsters.

I just remember growing up always being fascinated

with comic books and superheroes,

so dressing up like spider-man and these different things.

Do kids still get dressed up for Halloween?

Yeah. It's fun.

Most no longer fear evil spirits in the dark around Halloween,

but the desire to disguise ourselves remains.

I was a very morbid child,

so I always did something really spooky,

like I was a kindergartner dressed up as a zombie

with, like, blood coming out of my mouth.

I think I really liked painting my face and having blood.

Like, there had to be blood.

Being a vampire was the coolest thing

because I could, like, paint my face all white

and, like, try to scare people.

I was a vampire for many, many years.

I'm a devil.

Want to go to hell?

'80s zombie.

Robin hood, man. I take from the rich and I give to the poor.

From witches, devils, and demons

to psychotic killers from horror movies,

Halloween lets us explore the dark side.

Halloween gives us all that moment to step away

from who we are and be a little bit of what we wish we were

or want to be

for that one brief moment in time, and then next year,

you could be somebody totally new and reinvent yourself.

Every year, Halloween costumes give us the opportunity

to be anyone or anything.

And sweet treats wait

for some who venture out on all hallow's eve.

But this delicious tradition, like most things Halloween,

did not start with wholesome intentions.

It was born of desperation

to escape Halloween's own special brand of hell.

October brings cool air,

changing leaves,

and childhood memories of all things Halloween.

For kids all over the country, Halloween is all about candy.

As a kid, it's like your one time

to just do whatever you want.

You get to be silly. You get to be loud.

You get to run around the neighborhood

asking people for candy.

Trick-or-treating is a wholesome tradition.

But it came about to solve a very troublesome problem.

In the 1930s, when modern trick-or-treating appeared,

adults faced some serious threats to public order.

Roaming bands of rambunctious youths raised hell on Halloween.

There was a lot of mischief associated with Halloween.

This was not new.

There was mischief associated with this time of year

in the old countries

and certainly in this country well before the 20th century.

Under the cover of darkness of the fall, things happened,

and when you have this holiday where the spirits are out,

many more things happened.

Young kids would pull tricks at this time.

The mischief got to be known more as vandalism

as the decades wore on.

The pranks were crazy.

I have a postcard from a small...

I think it's iowa... Town in 1910.

It's the morning after Halloween,

and the entire front main street is covered with things

that these kids have moved... Carriages, bathtubs, outhouses,

and the kids are all sitting on top of this stuff.

During the great depression,

the cauldron of mischief takes a dark and sometimes deadly turn.

While many cities considered outlawing Halloween,

some residents tried to save the holiday with a clever ploy...

Bribing the tricksters with treats.

They drew inspiration from earlier religious traditions,

especially the practice of souling.

Souling was an interesting tradition

that actually is connected to all souls' day.

Part of the belief with all souls' day

was that your loved ones may be trapped in purgatory

and were unable to move on,

and so you would offer prayers to your loved ones

to help them move on up to heaven.

And souling became a thing where beggars and kids

would go from house to house.

And they would say, "if you give me a cake or a treat,

I will offer up a prayer for your loved one."

The small, round cakes given out came to be known

as soul cakes.

With souling as a model,

treats are given out at Halloween costume parties

in hopes of curbing kids' urge to cause mayhem.

The idea of buying the kids off was brilliant.

It worked.

Kids came to depend much more, of course,

on the parties and the costuming and the candies

than they did on the pranking

Every kind of organization

threw a Halloween party for kids

and tried to curtail what was going on outside in the dark.

While parties curb some of the mischief,

kids continue sneaking door to door in the dark,

threatening to play tricks.

This was actually what eventually evolved into

trick or treat, because the parties and all of those tactics

didn't entirely work.

There was still a little bit of mischief,

and it was when the homeowner took up the effort

that it actually did start to work.

Since kids are out,

since they're ringing your doorbell,

since they're banging on your door anyway,

have something for them.

As america eases out of the great depression,

the custom of handing out goodies gains

widespread acceptance.

In the 1940s and '50s, trick-or-treating takes off

and becomes a coast-to-coast tradition.

Neither rain or snow will keep kids from their candy.

I grew up in colorado, in denver,

and it could get quite cold, so Halloween could get spoiled

relatively easily with a snowfall or two.

But it doesn't matter.

We'd still trudge out there in the middle of winter

and go door to door, trying to get as much candy as we could.

I think I remember one year I dressed up as huck finn.

I was like, "I'm gonna go barefoot like huck finn."

and my mom was like, "what the hell are you doing?"

I went around like a few blocks.

I think I almost got frostbite.

They almost had to saw off a few toes.

But hey, I was committed to my outfit.

As the popularity of trick-or-treating soared

in the middle of the 20th century,

candy companies got onboard.

The candy companies also realized

that there was a tremendous market here,

that they could have candy marketed

specifically for trick-or-treat sweets.

And so candy companies started making spooky candies

and candy specifically for this holiday.

This sort of Halloween candy helped establish

trick-or-treating as a child-friendly activity

for children.

It's kids! Hundreds of them! What do we do?

Give them tootsie rolls.

But there's so many kids out there.

And there are so many tootsie rolls

in this Halloween package.

All of a sudden, we've got kids,

we've got suburbs, we've got candy manufacturers,

and we've got a good reason for them

to be going house to house, and that's where Halloween is

trick or treat, really, coast to coast.

With a little help from candy companies,

Halloween made trick-or-treating a fall fixture.

Our parents were like, "okay, peace out.

You're gonna go trick-or-treating

all by yourself."

and it was just this fun, wild night

where we got to be out after dark

and go trick-or-treating, and you feel very free,

but it's also a little spooky.

Halloween was great because it was a time

that I had mapped out... Grabbed my pillowcase,

grabbed my costume, grabbed my buddies,

and we went to the furthest edges of town

so we could work our way from the far end of town

all the way back home.

And of course, the secret was always carrying

a second pillowcase in the back holster,

just in case you filled up the first one.

Today, over 40 million kids take part,

and parents often join the fun.

The idea was to get as much candy as humanly possible.

So we all had pillowcases.

I take my kids out now, I don't see any pillowcases.

I just see the little plastic pumpkins.

I'm like, "you can't get too much candy in there."

When it comes to trick-or-treating,

every kid develops a sixth sense

for where to find the best candy.

Kind of got to plan your route. It's strategic.

And so I did that. I knew the good houses.

I'd skip the bad houses.

One of my fondest memories from Halloween

was our next-door neighbor.

He was a professional football player.

He gave us, like, king-sized candies.

And I would not... I would never miss his house.

You know, I was raised by a single mother.

So my mom was smart.

She would take us to rich neighborhoods, you know?

Our neighborhood got me

a little couple snickers bars here and there...

The fun size.

They didn't give you the large ones,

until you go to the nice neighborhoods.

Then they give you the full candy.

And that's what we used to do.

At the end of the evening,

Halloween turns into a high-stakes game

as the candy trading begins.

You dump your bag on the ground

and you start sorting it all because you got to go,

"all right. How many kit kats do I have?

How many snickers do I have?

All right. I got 10 snickers, only five kit kats.

Let's trade a couple of snickers and get some more kit kats."

"oh, you want a snickers?"

"no, I'll take your m&m's, and you can have this."

clearly, reese's peanut butter cups

were the hottest commodity.

You start eating and you don't even care

about a stomachache at all 'cause you're just chowing down.

And then all of a sudden, you hit this super high,

and then you just crash.

You want to stay up all night,

but it's really hard to when you just downed a ton of candy bars.

But millions of kids taking to the streets,

knocking on strangers' doors revealed unexpected dangers.

In the 1970s,

Halloween faced its greatest crisis.

Next up, a shocking murder triggers waves of panic

through the american public...

I had absolutely nothing to do with my son's death.

...Threatening to end Halloween celebrations for good.

There's one magical, haunted evening each year,

when all the scary creatures come out to prowl

through every neighborhood.

Halloween has a reputation

as a carefree night for children of all ages.

Trick or treat!

But in the 1970s and '80s,

the holiday faced crisis

when a series of sensational media stories caused mass panic.

All during the Halloween weekend,

police across the state received reports of candy

containing dangerous objects.

Candy given out by strangers was no longer safe.

It could contain poison, razor blades, needles,

even broken glass.

Many parents are growing more concerned

about the treats their children might be getting this Halloween.

Police in new york are warning people

buying Halloween treats to check their purchases carefully.

Straight pins were found in candy from four

long island stores.

I remember getting home from trick-or-treating

on Halloween, and my mother, based on the news reports

that someone's putting razor blades in the candy,

started to take a snickers bar and start cutting it in slices.

There might be things in the candy.

So break open candy bars before you eat them.

I think it was my dad, was like, "what are you doing?

They're fine."

but I think these reports

were coming out that this really happened.

The panic started with a real case,

a shocking story the media dubbed "the candy man murder."

in 1974,

8-year-old timothy o'bryan of pasadena, texas,

died of poisoning on Halloween night.

Even more horrific, the boy's father,

ronald o'bryan, was arrested and put on trial for the crime.

Most of today's testimony came from jimmy bates,

a close friend of the o'bryan family.

Bates said o'bryan went to one house

where no one appeared to be home,

and after the children had scampered ahead

to the next house,

o'bryan came off the front porch carrying the pixy stix.

Later that night, timothy o'bryan died from eating

a poisoned pixy stix.

Ronald o'bryan was convicted of killing his son

and sentenced to death.

The state of texas executed him by lethal injection,

setting off another wave of publicity surrounding the case.

It became a very famous case.

And after that, people were in an absolute panic,

thinking that there were anonymous psychos out there

tampering with their children's treats.

The paranoia only accelerates in 1982

when a series of murders in chicago, illinois,

make national news.

Tylenol capsules were removed from the market

after seven deaths were reported in the chicago area.

In 1982,

a number of tylenol bottles were tampered with in chicago,

and people died.

They did not find who did it by the time Halloween happened.

And as a result, there was a culture of fear

around Halloween.

Towns and cities stopped allowing

people to trick or treat that year.

Halloween is on Sunday, and there's a spreading fear

that this year the real Halloween scare

will be many more cases of contaminated treats.

Halloween candy sales at this minneapolis supermarket

are down 10 to 15 percent.

A lot of people say they won't give out

candy treats on Halloween.

It's too dangerous and they're too scared.

I think it's a very sad situation.

With concerns about copycat crimes,

the tainted candy- and product-tampering scare

threatens to end trick-or-treating forever.

Officials all over the country are emphasizing,

when in doubt, throw it out.

I remember seeing it on the news

where we all had to be careful

because there are people putting razor blades in the candy.

So I remember having to dump out all of my candy.

My mom had to check all of my candy.

It was a really scary time for us.

In reality, what we had were isolated cases

that were far from anonymous.

We knew exactly who had done these things and why,

but it caught on in people's minds.

The razor-blade thing didn't alter my view of Halloween,

but I just remember it being something

that we all had to be careful of because it was happening.

In time, the panic dissipates,

and Halloween survives the ordeal,

but the mass hysteria leaves an indelible mark on our culture.

Urban legends of tainted treats still sweep through communities

along with growing alarm over stranger danger.

Some parents never shake the feeling that a real monster

could be lurking in the shadows on Halloween.

There would also be stories

where crimes were happening in the area,

and it was tied to closer to Halloween.

They told you to be more careful and to keep your kids closer

because, you know, something bad could happen.

We have that phrase...

"never take candy from strangers."

okay, so around comes Halloween, and what do we tell kids?

"oh, go take candy from strangers."

trick or treat.

Trick or treat.

The real-world fears of psychotic killers

stalking kids on Halloween had another effect.

"night of the living dead."

In the late '70s and into the '80s,

a bloody wave of terrifying films built

on old Halloween obsessions took the country by storm.

I've been obsessed with horror movies

my entire life, and Halloween just fits into that.

You know, I remember going trick-or-treating

and then going back to the house and watching, you know,

"c.H.U.D." and all of these different movies

while I'm sifting through my candies.

And I still continue that tradition.

It's just the best thing ever. It really is.

In 1978, Halloween and hollywood cement a lifelong bond

after the release of a low-budget thriller

cleverly named after the holiday.

"Halloween" by john carpenter

was originally called "the babysitter murders."

fortunately, one of the producers of the film

was smart enough to go, "you know,

we could tie this to that holiday

and I'll bet it would be more successful"

and was completely right.

That, of course, is the movie that not only kind of

associated Halloween and horror movies forever,

but also turned Halloween really scary.

I think any movie that's scary around Halloween,

it works for me.

The movie "Halloween" is amazing,

but I like the '80s movies around Halloween...

"nightmare on elm street," "pet sematary."

they're more like campy and fun.

I'm a "Friday the 13th" girl, though.

Part 1 is the best one.

Once I got old enough to maybe watch real scary movies,

I started watching the classics

like all the slasher movies, everything.

That's where I was exposed to horror movie,

and that's where I found my love for horror.

And I still am obsessed with horror.

"nightmare on elm street."

that was the first movie that actually terrified me.

And so every Halloween, I like to try to watch that movie

just to get back into the spirit of being scared

and remember my childhood a little bit.

Fans of horror became fans of Halloween.

Adults found their way into celebrating Halloween,

and older teenagers found their way back into Halloween.

So it actually increased

the celebration of Halloween in america.

But it also changed the look of Halloween

to become much more visually dangerous.

A new generation of Halloween costumes are inspired

by violent slasher films.

For me, it was always special make-up effects.

Ever since I can remember, you know,

having the eyes dripping out of my head.

I couldn't wait to get everything

and, you know, really make myself up every year.

Horror films revel in the mayhem of Halloween,

but it's all for show.

What happens when the chaos turns frighteningly real?

It was devil's night last night in detroit,

the night before Halloween

Could lawless Halloween revelers

plunge a major american city into anarchy?

Halloween cooks up delicious frights every year,

and while trick-or-treating was meant to contain

kids' destructive impulses,

the mischievous spirit never went away entirely.

What we do is we'd go to tping,

which is when you grab just, like, a toilet-paper roll

and you unravel it a little bit, that's the pro technique,

and then you just huck it as high as you can up in the trees.

And the higher it is, the better it is

'cause it's harder to get out.

And you don't tp, like, random people's houses.

You go to your friend's house and, like, tp them

and then you tell them about it 'cause it's funny.

But like, you never went to, like,

try to make it, like, malicious or try to be mean to someone.

We decided to egg our school.

And we ended up egging the windows of our own classroom,

and we just thought it was kind of funny.

And I remember going into school that next morning

and the windows were just covered so much

that you couldn't see out.

I mean, the teacher knew it was us

'cause we were just laughing.

It didn't last long, to figure out who were the culprits.

Rowdy kids have a reputation

for wild behavior on Halloween,

but they're not the only ones that pull pranks

and scare the living daylights out of strangers.

It's funny, like, most of my halloweens

are spent scaring people,

I guess, now that I'm thinking about it.

My dad is a prank guy, and he taught me young to do pranks.

The front of our house...

We had a scarecrow there all year round,

just sitting on the chair there.

And so we got a similar-looking outfit so it blended in,

and I was in the scarecrow's stuffed suit and scared people

when they went up to the front door.

I did that for the whole night of Halloween,

for one Halloween.

What I like to do is just turn my yard into a show.

I've got the lights and the fog machines.

I tend to hide with the little fog-machine clicker in my pocket

and wait and time it,

just as the kids come up to the door, and I'll blast them.

They go crazy.

I did a really cool party one time.

And I built all these monsters

with actuation out of pvc and masks,

and I used timers and I used motion sensors...

and the mechanism from an oscillating fan

to move the heads and created this big game out of it.

And I had a guy who was in the bushes with a chainsaw

and he would go... brrm... Scare everybody.

I used to deck up my house.

I would set up sheets with rear-facing projector systems

and have scary things moving on it.

At one point, I created a false garage door,

and I had a rear-projector system

shooting on a sheet, which looked like the door,

and it would go off with a sensor as kids

were walking down the driveway.

My wife made me stop that after the second year

because people would drive by and purposely avoid our house.

So the wife made me stop doing that so kids would feel safe

and secure enough to come up our driveway and trick or treat.

In many parts of the country,

Halloween mischief is confined

to a specific night where youths run amuck.

The night before Halloween

has often been called mischief night,

cabbage night, damage night, tick-tack night,

devil's night.

When I was growing up, it was doorbell night,

and that's what we did.

We rang doorbells and ran away.

So it depends on what area of the country you're from,

what you call that night.

But it is the night where you make mischief.

Over its long history,

devil's night represents rebellion

when city youths pull petty pranks like egging

or soaping houses and cars.

But in the 1980s,

devil's night in detroit, michigan,

took on a much darker reputation.

Playful mischief transformed into mayhem.

Halloween celebrations were under siege by arsonists.

And for a time,

many wondered if Halloween should be canceled entirely.

It was devil's night last night in detroit.

The night before Halloween used to be a time

for harmless pranks, but no longer.

200 fires were set in the city.

When you think of devil's night,

you often think of detroit, michigan,

which had a problem with arson around Halloween,

and their devil's night was especially powerful.

For several years, residents felt like the city

was teetering on the edge of total anarchy on devil's night.

Hundreds of fires were being set all over the city,

and the authorities felt, at times, powerless to stop it.

They basically called for community support

to knock these practices out, especially arson.

The authorities simply couldn't keep up.

But the true spirit of Halloween was resilient.

Brigades of volunteers patrolled the streets of detroit.

They were determined to keep Halloween safe

and transform devil's night into angel's night.

No arsonists will touch this house.

My lamp will burn,

not my neighborhood.

We'll keep an eye out for anyone who doesn't belong.

Halloween will be safer this year.

So, within a couple of years, they had amassed volunteers

that would patrol the neighborhoods

and keep a lookout.

Last year, the people of detroit made it clear

through their anti-arson efforts

that they would no longer tolerate

the senseless destruction of our neighborhoods.

10 years later, they had

something like 50,000 volunteers,

which eventually did change devil's night to angel's night.

Angel's night brought the fires under control

in detroit.

As we join together

to keep the devil out of devil's night,

we are taking another step

and making detroit a world-class city.

Halloween survived the chaos of devil's night.

But what kind of evil truly lurks in the shadows?

Could Halloween open a portal that allows ghosts, ghouls,

demons, and devils to walk the earth?

Halloween is terrifying and mysterious.

A night when we hide our true selves behind masks

and embrace the dark side.

It's a time of year when the veil thins

and a portal to another world opens up.

The dead walk among us.

Could demons and devils break into our world, as well?

Does Halloween bring the spirit world closer to us?

Does paranormal activity increase?

Common belief in the paranormal,

that more activity happens that night,

I have no proof of that, but I wouldn't be surprised.

And I would actually love to go to a haunted place on Halloween.

That might be, maybe, what I do this next Halloween

and put it to the test,

but if any night of the 365 days out of the year

is gonna be haunted, it's gonna be that night.

It's a scary time of year.

You've been told that's when the veil is thinned

and we're so much closer to the other side.

So maybe it's just the intention of millions of people

and maybe even billions of people around the world

focused on the meaning of that day and looking for it

so that these opportunist spirits

find a way to make their presence known.

Chilling paranormal encounters on Halloween

are more common than you think.

And the sheer terror of them can haunt a person for years.

It was probably 1977, 1978. I grabbed my stuff.

I was on my way to my buddy's house

to go for trick-or-treating,

and there was a house that I passed by.

I noticed that there was a man standing in the window,

and he was just looking out.

And I took a few more steps, and I turned back to look,

only now he was outside.

When I turned back, he was in the middle of the yard,

just standing there staring at me,

and at that point, I scooby doo'd it.

Boom!

I was out of there, running all the way to my buddy's house.

I did find out that the father had passed away in that house

a few years earlier on christmas.

So I don't know if I was encountering

that as my first full-on apparition,

but I have no idea how this guy moved from inside to outside

to the middle of the yard without making a sound.

Can we make contact with the spirits of the dead

on Halloween?

That notion would be put to the test

by someone who made a career out of cheating death...

The great magician and escape artist harry houdini.

Harry houdini was a dynamic personality.

He was a man of great ego, a man of great force.

Houdini was world-famous

for his thrilling escapes

from straitjackets, suspended from skyscrapers

Or sealed in water tanks,

even being buried alive.

But on Halloween 1926, death finally claimed houdini.

Many wondered,

"could the great houdini pull off the ultimate escape?"

the renowned magician would use Halloween

to test the limits of the afterlife.

Harry houdini had left instructions to his widow

that she would hold a yearly seance

to try and contact him on Halloween.

He left a very specific pass-phrase,

which supposedly only she knew.

Faithfully keeping her promise,

his wife, bess, held a seance on Halloween night, 1927.

It is the spirit of houdini we wish to contact.

Houdini, are you here?

But the great houdini was silent.

For 10 years, bess tried to reach her beloved husband.

In 1936, she tried one last time

atop the knickerbocker hotel in hollywood, california.

Mrs. Houdini, the 10 years are up.

Have you reached a decision?

Yes.

Houdini did not come through.

I do not believe that houdini can come back to me

or to anyone.

Good night, harry.

Since then, others have tried diligently

to contact the famous magician, especially around Halloween.

Every year,

houdini's descendants and his family members

still hold the seances.

And of course, there are other groups that continue

to try to contact houdini every Halloween, as well.

Perhaps the great houdini is still out there,

waiting for the right time to reach across the veil

and touch the world of the living.

No one can be sure how active the spirit world is

on all hallow's eve.

But one thing is certain.

Some of our most cherished Halloween traditions

are rooted in the paranormal.

For our ancestors, the spirit world was very real.

They were celebrating it

with a lot of fortunetelling games,

and some of those were incredibly macabre.

They were calling on the devil

to reveal the name of their future husband or wife,

or calling on various sort of spirits and so forth

to help them discern the future.

The face of Halloween itself,

the jack-o'-lantern, once had a paranormal purpose.

The first jack-o'-lanterns were far scarier

and carved into turnips.

You would hollow these little scary-looking faces out

and put candles in them and put them in front of your door

to scare away the spirits of the dead

so that they wouldn't be coming in your house.

We don't carve turnips anymore, but pumpkins,

something irish immigrants brought to america.

Pumpkin-carving has lost its spiritual meaning,

but it's become so much more.

During Halloween, my family

would always... we'd always go to a pumpkin patch,

and we pick out our pumpkins and go home and we carve them.

Of course, I would try to make mine

either really funny or really scary.

Never really worked out.

I'm not very good at it.

I had this friend in elementary school.

Her father is a farmer, and every Halloween,

he would have a massive display of pumpkin carvings.

But they were elaborate, amazing.

So we would drive out to the farm, and there would be

hundreds of pumpkins lined up along the road.

They were just amazing carvings.

So that's one thing I really found special about Halloween.

Pumpkin carvings attract onlookers and artists.

But the pumpkin itself can be an invitation for mischief.

Smashing pumpkins was a big thing when I was a kid

on Halloween, but looking back,

now that I, you know, have a house and kids,

if anybody smashed a pumpkin in my driveway, I'd be pissed,

you know, I mean, 'cause then I got to clean it up.

So you know, I regret, sort of, the mayhem that I caused

when I was a teenager, I think.

Halloween traditions are thought of now

as harmless fun despite their origins.

But for millions of religious americans,

this is cause for alarm.

Evil is very real to them.

And celebrating it only empowers the forces of darkness.

For them, Halloween is a night that belongs to the devil.

Does Halloween mark the return of restless spirits?

Or something far more sinister?

Are satanic forces at work on Halloween?

For me, Halloween has always been tricky.

My mother has been a pastor of a church

since I was in the third grade,

so I'm talking about nondenominational christian

speaking in tongues, shouting,

holy ghost catching southern church.

So we didn't celebrate Halloween.

My mother would never let me trick or treat.

She would never let me dress up, never decorated anything.

Halloween would be in church praising the lord

and not glorify what they thought

was the devil in Halloween.

I think for me, in my upbringing,

you didn't mess with the demonic energies,

you didn't mess with goes, you didn't mess with spirits.

We would shy away from the name Halloween

because of me growing up in a religious household.

And we were always told it's demonic.

Religious fears of devil worship at Halloween

are centuries old.

In scotland around the 1500s and 1600s,

they were extremely obsessed with witchcraft and witches.

For the scots, witches were frightening.

They had made a pact with the devil,

and this was all something that needed to be eradicated.

So when the scots began to write about Halloween,

it always had witchcraft in it.

Fear of witches and the diabolical

were burned into american culture from its earliest days.

No town knows this better than salem, massachusetts.

In the winter of 1692, this superstitious settlement

of 2,000 souls nearly destroyed itself

when three women were first accused of witchcraft.

Tell how you suckle the snake.

Tell.

You are liars.

Accusations turned into mass hysteria,

and 200 people were accused of witchcraft.

Do the condemned wish to speak?

I'm innocent!

14 women and six men were executed.

Even a dog was killed for being in league with the devil.

The panic ended when the governor of massachusetts' wife

was accused of being a witch.

But the fear of witchcraft and the devil

is still a potent force, especially around Halloween.

Many churches are so fearful of demonic influence,

they've created alternatives to Halloween.

All over america, children attend hallelujah nights.

Hallelujah night, for me,

we would get together with friends,

go to different booths in, like, a church parking lot,

and pick up some candy with a bible verse attached

to the trick-or-treat bags.

We'd still get candy. We'd still hang out with the kids.

They felt like it was a lot safer to be in church

than it would be on the streets.

Most church groups provide simple,

family-friendly alternatives to the holiday.

But a few churches have taken it a step further

and ignited controversy

when they embraced the dark and deeply offensive.

It's a haunted house,

the likes of which you've never seen before,

and it's playing to standing room only.

In recent decades,

some churches have opened hell houses on Halloween.

A pentecostal congregation in suburban denver

is delivering its version of a Halloween hell house...

Somebody call a hospital, please.

...With skits of an accident scene

caused by a drunk driver, a bloody abortion scene,

a teen suicide, and a funeral for an aids victim.

The hell house plays on fear of satanic powers

and eternal damnation.

To this day, hell houses are a fixture

in some parts of the country around Halloween.

But religious alternatives to Halloween traditions

have never been broadly accepted.

And many kids, forbidden from celebrating,

find creative ways to bend the rules.

The worst part was going to school

and they would allow kids in elementary

to dress up in Halloween costumes,

but then I got smart, and I say maybe about the fourth, fifth,

sixth grade, the rap group kris kross came out,

and their whole thing was they wore their clothes backwards.

So I would leave to go to school with my jeans on regular

and a baseball jersey.

As soon as I got to school, I would go in the bathroom

and I would turn my clothes around backwards.

And when a teacher asked me who was I, I was kris kross.

It was the only costume I could get away with.

My mom never knew.

Many, denied Halloween as children,

find new meaning in the holiday when they become parents.

Growing up the way I did, our family,

it wasn't in their belief system to celebrate Halloween.

So growing up without it,

I think I missed it more while it was happening as a child.

As a grown up, I am reliving it,

and I get to see it all happen right in front of me

and I get to live it real-time with my daughter.

Halloween takes on a whole new meaning for me now

because I have kids.

I allow them to have as much fun as possible on Halloween.

My parents, on Halloween now,

they ask if my kids have a good time,

but they always tell me,

"well, remember the underlying connotations of Halloween

and what you were taught growing up."

Even to this day, they still hold to the belief

that Halloween could be dangerous, just celebrating it.

Despite the controversies,

the popularity of Halloween continues to rise.

For many, the lure of the dark side is irresistible.

Halloween means being able to be somebody

that you're not normally, breaking outside of the box.

Is the rebellious reputation of Halloween

powerful enough to change an entire culture?

Have you ever seen anything like this before?

Never, never in my life.

What's so funny?

Nothing.

The Halloween parade

is all about the perfect photo op for parents...

Raise time.

Okay, next time we check in,

we'll see frankenstein.

...A way to show off kids

and make that perfect social-media post.

Do I look like frankenstein?

You look just like him.

Like the monster?

Every year, millions of people take part

in some kind of Halloween parade.

Bye, dad!

There's frankenstein.

Frank. Yeah.

But there's a deeper meaning to the tradition.

Religious processions are a part of many holidays.

But Halloween parades took a devilish spin

on the ancient practice,

growing in popularity through the 20th century

as the holiday caught on.

Halloween parades started in the early 20th century

as a way that the whole town could enjoy Halloween,

and they've continued in several cities across the country.

It's a great way of including everyone in a Halloween parade.

Hey, hey!

When Halloween was seen as dangerous during the '80s

and '90s, neighborhoods started throwing

their own Halloween parades to keep kids on their street

and for the enjoyment of everybody,

even people who didn't celebrate Halloween.

So it's a wonderful way to come together

and be safe together and exhibit together,

because Halloween is really an exhibitionist holiday.

As Halloween evolves, some see an opportunity.

Could the freewheeling, rebellious nature of Halloween

be used to ignite changes

in how society views itself and what is accepted?

Parades were a perfect tool.

After the tumultuous '60s

and the second-wave feminism that happened in the '70s

and a general feeling of freedom and expression in our culture,

it started to spill out onto Halloween.

Have you ever seen anything like this before?

Never. Never in my life.

Gay men in outrageous costume kind of pushing the envelope,

which became more and more popular.

Halloween parades were a way for the gay community

to be visible in society

at a time when mainstream culture pushed them

to the margins.

In Halloween parades

that sprouted up all over the country,

they took the spotlight and demanded recognition.

This is what happens

when key west lets loose.

What you get is a mardi gras of the bizarre.

The fantasy fest Halloween parade

is about as glittery and flamboyant as you can get.

Thousands of costumed spectators jammed the streets and tourists

came from as far away as virginia.

Are you a little shocked at all by some of this?

Yes, I am.

These parades

may have shocked the sensibilities of middle america,

but in time, they helped drive the country

toward greater acceptance of the lgbtqia community.

The widespread pride parades of today

have their roots in Halloween parades of the 1980s.

The west hollywood parade in los angeles

is a famous Halloween parade.

People just fill the streets, and those costumes are crazy!

They're wild. It's fun.

I mean, you're really just transported

to another place and time.

I'm completely naked I feel so under-dressed.

One of my favorite memories of Halloween was

when I marched in the greenwich village Halloween parade.

With 2 million people on either side of me and 40,000

to 60,000 behind me in this parade,

I would say it was one of the highlights of my life.

It was delightful.

Parades and street festivals are not

the only destinations for Halloween revelry.

Sometimes you just need a good scare.

Why do so many people look for new and creative ways

to scare themselves senseless around Halloween?

Everyone loves to get scared.

I don't know why people love it so much, but even I love it.

It's like this natural adrenaline rush

that you can't really get anywhere else.

Here we go.

Next up, haunted houses.

The Halloween attraction that will scare you to death.

Halloween traditions

are rooted in the dark and macabre,

no matter how family-friendly they become.

Why are we drawn to things that scare us?

This is something that's been in our culture,

this delight in being frightened,

and it has just become more and more sophisticated

as we do it in our own yards

and we pay to have ourselves scared.

Psychologists will say that this is good for you.

When you know it's fake,

it helps you practice for being frightened

in real situations.

It makes you a warrior.

In my neighborhood, when I was growing up,

there were a few houses that really went all out.

I remember this to this day.

I could not have been older than like 4 or 5,

walking down this really dark pathway to the door

to ring the doorbell.

And this guy was hiding, and he was reaching out

and grabbing at us as we walked by.

I had nightmares about that for so long.

We're so eager to scare ourselves on Halloween...

we've created entire attractions designed to throw us

into the most terrifying encounters imaginable.

Haunted houses feed our hunger

for blood-curdling scares.

They can be found all over the country

and draw in millions of visitors every year.

If you go through a haunted house

and you haven't had a few jumps,

you kind of feel cheated by the whole situation.

Commercial haunted houses

have been around for at least a century.

And they've been refined to the point

where many would describe them as the closest thing

they will get to hell.

Get away from me!

I investigate haunted houses.

And people are like, "you like other haunted houses?"

I'm like, "yes, I love haunted houses."

and if you ever see me in one of those,

I am like screaming, holding on to people

'cause I know that I'm about to get scared.

They are amazing. They play on your fears.

They make you scream.

You feel alive for a moment.

I did not see it coming. I was like, "aah!"

I almost, like, started crying.

When poison was on tour one time,

I went to this haunted house at a fair that we played at,

and the people recognized me

and said, "hey, you know, we'll do a private tour."

I said, "I don't want to do that."

I want to be in the haunted house.

And they said, "okay, you've got a job."

so they dressed me up, gave me a chainsaw, all the stuff.

I spent a couple hours scaring people.

Scary! Horrifying.

Oh, my god.

As our worst nightmares

come to life.

Haunted houses are now

multi-million-dollar ventures.

There's somewhere around 5,000 of them

in the united states at any given time.

They've become hollywood sophisticated

in terms of their props and their animatronics,

and their actors are gorgeously costumed

and hideously masked.

I'm gonna die tonight!

The bar has risen for the haunted-house industry.

This was the best night of my life.

These heart-pounding attractions

are no longer limited to just haunted houses

and now crop up almost everywhere.

I grew up in upstate new york, and so, of course,

we would hit a lot of the haunted corn mazes.

A haunted corn maze is a cornfield

that has been cut out into a maze,

and some of them can become extremely incredible in size.

You could spend hours in some of these,

but you just walk around and you try to figure out

how to get out.

But during the time you're in there,

there's people dressed in costumes,

hiding within the maze, jumping out, startling you.

Creepy corn mazes...

...Hellish hay rides...

spooky cruise ships...

He's my friend.

...Are just a few of the ways we choose our frights.

And with all of these attractions,

there is plenty of opportunity for those who do the scary.

My mom would set up a haunted trail every year

for our neighborhood.

My buddy tanner, chelsea, and alex,

who are with me doing the show "destination fear,"

would set up this haunted trail.

There's actually woods that the whole town

called the boogey woods

because apparently before we moved in there,

there was satanic rituals in the woods.

And so my mom was like,

"oh, let's do one hundred trail in these woods for Halloween."

dakota and chelsea's family, alex's family, and my family

actually chopped this path in the woods in their backyard.

We had like eight different stations,

and everyone had, like, their, like, thing

they were supposed to do to just freak everyone out.

I had a white mask on,

standing next to a bunch of dolls in white masks

doing like this, like sleeping.

And then when people walked by, I would scare them.

Multiple times, I remember, like,

actually terrifying many people that would walk by

'cause they're not expecting it.

They see, you know, a dead body laying on the ground,

or, you know, a fake dead body laying on the ground.

But then a hand comes out from behind it.

I was a hangman one year,

where I got in full, like, climber's gear,

put a rope over a tree branch,

and was just like this hangman that scared everybody.

There's all sorts of things, you know, like the standard

gore mask, those scary pumpkin people.

We had it all.

I don't know. There's something about it.

When you see someone freak out

and make a face that you've never seen them make before...

You feel accomplished.

For decades, Halloween has been

a child-friendly holiday and fun for the whole family.

Grownups today have hijacked what was supposed to be a nice

and sometimes scary celebration of childhood fantasies

and turned this ever-changing holiday

into something very, very naughty.

Happy Halloween!

Trick or treat!

Hey, there.

Say thank you.

Thanks.

Halloween used to be the one day

of the year where kids dress up as their favorite character,

stay up late, and eat as much candy as they desire.

But something truly scary happens when those kids grow up.

One of the saddest moments of my life was realizing

that maybe I'm a little old to go trick-or-treating.

Maybe there is, like, an age where you

shouldn't trick or treat.

It's so sad 'cause you're like, "what?"

I would say keep going until you get, like, the weird looks.

Happy hallowee...

But at the same time, I don't really feel like

you should put an age restriction on it.

Denied the joy of trick-or-treating,

these kids-turned-adults can't let go of Halloween.

Halloween, to my generation, was still huge,

and now it's all those kids have grown up into adults

and we're still partying for Halloween.

Now we just have to do it in a different way

because the neighbors frown on you

knocking on the door at age 50, asking for candy

and dressed up as a sexy mermaid.

It just doesn't work as well.

In recent decades,

adults have turned a once-homespun holiday

into the biggest, , craziest party day of the year.

These are the kids that were brought up

in these very sort of intensively child-friendly

Halloween parties and now are young adults,

and they want to continue with these traditions.

They grew up with Halloween.

Many of them are having kids of their own.

And so this idea that the adults should be a part of it,

the adults should have costumes,

this really is reemerging from these same kids.

Grownups take Halloween far beyond their

childhood dreams,

hosting outlandish parties,

pushing the boundaries of Halloween to explore a scarier,

sexier side of the holiday.

Sex and death, right?

That's the essential motifs of the world.

And they're both being really pulled to fruition

and focused on at Halloween.

Adult parties are a feast for the eyes,

with costumes just as bloody and violent as a slasher film.

Halloween took from hollywood a lot of its pizzazz.

So the sophisticated, wonderful special effects

that we see translate on Halloween into contact lenses

that blot out your eyes, effects of scars and blood.

And we take from hollywood into Halloween

and create it for ourselves and our costumes.

And hollywood also inspires the style of costume.

For young adults,

Halloween parties are the perfect time

to shed their inhibitions and find that special someone.

There is a correlation between the adrenaline rush

you get from being scared and the adrenaline rush

you might get from being excited at a potential sexual partner.

So here we have this idea of making Halloween not only scary,

but a part of courtship.

It's like the night where a person that has to wear

work clothes to work can put on

the most provocative costume of all time,

and it's totally acceptable.

It's the night where you're like,

"look at what I've got to offer."

that's the adult version of Halloween, in my opinion.

Grown women, they take Halloween to a whole different...

It's not like disney movies.

It becomes like, "oh, wow.

This is what Halloween is about."

34 percent of all adults will dress up.

Young adults... 62 percent.

And they want sexy.

Women and men alike are eager

to put themselves out there on Halloween.

I was in college

and we had a Halloween party in the student center,

but I didn't know what to be for Halloween,

so I literally got a towel and I wrapped it around my waist.

And I was towel-man.

I liter... I came out the shower and I was towel-man.

It was kind of cool 'cause all the girls liked it,

but it was the cheapest costume

that I could come up with.

As more and more adults join the fun,

costumes become even more creative and redefine sexy.

Currently, costumes have become a lot more satirical

and ironic.

These sexy costumes that in the beginning of the 21st century

were kind of glamorous, after the crash of 2008,

they never quite bounced back.

So now when you see sexy costumes,

it's satirical, it's kind of meta.

It's like sexy mr. Rogers.

There are comments we make with our costumes

that work on a number of levels, and one of them is irony.

Each new generation reimagines Halloween

for themselves.

It is ever-changing,

but there is something that unites us all.

What drives this constant reinvention of the holiday?

What is the true meaning of Halloween?

Halloween was born in a different, more magical world

where ghosts, ghouls, and other creatures of the night

stalked our ancestors.

But it's become a night for family and friendship

where memories are made as we scare ourselves silly.

Why does a holiday inspired by death and the spirit world

stir so many warm, nostalgic emotions?

For thousands of years,

Halloween has marked the end of summer

and the beginning of the dark days of fall and winter.

This haunting, scary time of year

makes all of us stop and think.

The essence of Halloween

is remembering the dead, remembering where you came from,

remembering your great-grandparents,

your ancestors,

the ones who created the world that you live in.

So maintaining those connections with the past,

with the dead, are a way of also maintaining connections

with our own cultural traditions,

and the reason is to allow us to move into the future

with some sort of self-confidence.

Through the decades,

we've taken comfort in the company of those we love.

Halloween is the scariest, darkest holiday of the year.

Who better to spend it with than our family and friends?

The real meaning of Halloween, or what it was

and is to me, is family and friends and togetherness.

It's a bonding. It's fun. It's exciting.

It's something to look forward to.

Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh...

My father is the reason I even like Halloween.

He would sing his own songs.

He would make up songs as kids about Halloween.

He would get us so excited for Halloween.

If it wasn't for him, honestly, I would not be

this excited about Halloween to this day.

I've got three daughters and three sons,

and my daughters always... For 15, 16 years straight,

I had to be the beast every year

because one of them wanted to be beauty.

It was a great time. It really was.

And it's one of those days that we love immensely

in my house.

Here's our bunny!

Beyond family nostalgia, though,

the true meaning of Halloween is something unique and personal.

I love to see kids, like, trick-or-treating.

Like, I love to see parents taking their kids out

and just kind of, like, allowing them the opportunity

to just explore their creativity in putting a costume together.

Oh, my god, you're so scary.

It definitely changes with age, but all my friends,

we love to get dressed up and, like,

you know, it kind of brings you back to your youth.

You kind of get a little bit of a jump back in time.

I feel like Halloween's for everyone.

Do you have your teeth in, dan?

No.

Put your teeth in. Let's see.

It's a time to release

our untamed, rebellious spirit and embrace the darkness.

Halloween is a time where people feel they can

be creative without judgment.

And I think that that's really liberating

because everybody is kind of being crazy,

and they're expressing themselves,

and they're exploring things,

and they're doing it without being judged so much.

So that's a beautiful thing,

because for some people, that's the only day of the year

that they truly feel free enough to be able to do that.

Reborn in america,

Halloween carries the torch of a tradition

that began around a bonfire in ireland over 2,000 years ago.

I don't see Halloween ending any time soon.

So, I think as our society changes radically,

it's nice to have these traditions

that give us a little bit of something to hold on to,

something we've been doing for many thousands of years,

and it's still with us today.

Each year, the festive celebration of goblins

and ghosts grows in popularity.

Halloween is a shadowy reflection

of who we are as people and our enduring struggle

between the seasons...

Life and death,

the light and the dark.

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