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I don't know much about Hell Houses but I do find it interesting how the uber religious seem obsessed with Halloween and more recently, zombies.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I never got into the holiday. But around here in Mormonland it's really interesting and sometimes disturbing to me how so many Mormons really dig dressing up in scary costumes and/or covering themselves with fake blood and gore and walking around like the living dead. And haunted houses around here are big business all year round.
There's gotta be a connection between religious oppression and the compulsion to put on a scary mask and pretend to be someone you're not. Ya know? And on a related note, my husband and I remark every year at this time how odd it is that many of the local people decorate the graves of their loved ones with every kind of Halloween decor, including ghoulish skulls etc.
I mean, why would anyone put a skull with long gray hair on the grave of their loved one? Is it just me or is that a little morbid and a lot weird?
Agi Tater -- I have no problems with people decorating their houses for Halloween, but decorating loved ones' gravestones just seems ... gauche. Morbid and weird indeed!
DeleteIt's interesting. Some of the more hardcore Protestant fundamentalists frown on Halloween as a demonic holiday, but you're saying that the usually conservative LDS folks love Halloween. I don't think it's religious oppression necessarily -- maybe it's part of the childlike vibe of the Mormon community? I don't know.