The Lesson Of Halloween

IF YOU’RE A FAN OF GENRE-DRIVEN pop culture, there’s no better month than October. The new TV season is still revealing its secrets; the next batch of the year’s biggest movies are right on the horizon; and best of all, it’s Halloween, the best excuse of all to indulge in the eerie delights entertainment has to offer. Perhaps there’s a reason for the recent year-round horror renaissance in movies, on TV, and even in comics. Horror movie villains are easy to grasp. Imagined horrors can be understood. Like the relatively recent dominance of superhero movies and television, horror helps us define an increasingly chaotic world in clearer tones.

It’s often the monsters we remember. Their extraordinary powers, iconic looks, and terrifying brutality grant them a hold on us that borders on the supernatural. The survivors, the heroes, and the antiheroes who defeat them, are always decidedly ordinary. They represent resilience, grit, and the individual’s ability to do what must be done to achieve victory in the face of overwhelming odds.

Our cover story focuses on the horror genre’s single greatest example of an ordinary person overcoming extraordinary odds: Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode from the Halloween franchise. Laurie does the best any of us could hope to do in the worst situation and she does it without powers, without mystical weapons, and even without perfectly timed one-liners. As October gives way to November, remember how relatively simple actions can add up to meaningful victories, no matter how dark the night may seem.

By Mike Cecchini