Has Halloween become too much about fear and fright and not enough about fun?
Liz Stokes spends more than 12 hour hours every year turning her Barrie home into a ghoulish Halloween spectacle.
“I quite enjoy it. I like to see everybody smile when they stop to look at it. Come Halloween night I really like to scare other people’s children.”
Headstones, zombie babies and ghosts in trees have been set-up in Stokes’ yard. She says that’s what Halloween is all about and more people should step-up their scare factor.
“I think I put a lot of effort in and I think it would be nice of other people if they joined in. We don’t have a lot of activities in the neighbourbood for the kids to do as it is so this gives them something to giggle about on their way to school.”
Halloween decorations aren’t the only scary thing about the season – costumes are getting scarier as well.
Traditional clown costumes, animal ears and firefighters are available in costume stores but they are not the best sellers this year.
“We’ve got a lot of parents coming in and they want to dress their kids up as ‘Chucky’ or the ‘Walking Dead.’ A lot more of the scary costumes which is a surprise to me,” says Halloween Alley assistant manager Matraca Deihl.
Jenn Wallin loves Halloween and doesn’t mind the choice of attire picked out by her four sons.
“My five year old son is being the character from ‘Scream’ and he’s never seen the movie, he just thought it was cool. My bigger problem would be the ones for girls; thank goodness I have boys because the girls tend to be a little more scandalous ever year.”
As for the décor, Wallin just keeps a close eye on her kids when they go out the door.
“The ones that looked a little threatening - we walk past and kept going and we just let the kids be the judge. Again the whole night is fun, we know all our neighbours we stick in our neighbourhood so we have a good time.”
