Let’s Make It A Hardcore Halloween
Just what is it about Halloween and punk rock? It seems like every October 31st the punk and hardcore kids come crawling out of the woodwork, decked out in full celebration of the season. But just what is it about Halloween that independent punk rock finds itself drawn to, exactly? It seems like almost anyone you meet these days who likes punk rock will proclaim a love of Halloween. I myself am no exception to this rule. Even though they scare the shit out of me, I love horror movies and have probably seen too many for my own good in the past few weeks leading up to the 31st. I’ve been to a haunted house AND a viewing of Tim Burton’s classic movie The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3-D. My high school soundtrack at one point included massive doses of the Misfits. Today I watch the resurgence of horror films in the mainstream with excitement, knowing that this can only be a good thing for the creation of even more gory slasher, sci-fi horror, and vampire films, among others, for my own personal amusement.
In 1977, the Misfits formed in Lodi, New Jersey. There’s no reason for me to go into and extensive history of this band, because let’s face it, they’re the freaking Misfits. The imagery of old horror movies used for their stage presence and costumes, all of that has become an almost integral part of punk rock’s history and an influence on hundreds of bands since then. The Misfits “Skull” logo is on countless shirts, hats, coffee mugs, and tattooed arms and legs at almost any show you go to, especially in October as the end of the month draws closer and closer.
What made it last though? What is it that made the impact of the Misfits last, that makes thousands of punk rock fans turn out on opening nights for horror movies, to perusing Blockbuster for old horror films and get dressed up in costume and celebrate Halloween when other traditional holidays of our childhoods such as Christmas or Thanksgiving are practically shunned by punks? Is it the delicious candy? The mild heart attacks we give ourselves watching movies? Or maybe the fun of putting Richard Nixon masks and Nightmare Before Christmas t-shirts on?
Let’s face it, it’s because it scares people, and such an integral part to punk rock is scaring people. For years Halloween was (and still is sometimes even today) connected to Satanism and other macabre and decidedly non-mainstream Christian-friendly practices, and there’s always a few places in America where Halloween isn’t Halloween without bored teenage idiots pouring chicken blood into a pentagram drawn into the earth of the local cemetery. Even today in 2006, Halloween scares people, inspiring fear and censorship in small-town school dances and haunted houses, and countless babysitters and small children in front of the TV screen. What could be, to delve into cliché, more anti-social and anti-mainstream than the embracement of movies and culture that for years have been derided as “lowbrow” by popular critics and culture? Because lets face it; for years, horror movies were seen as literal trash, something that kids would watch and were seen as having almost no artistic value beyond their commercial draw on late-night TV and in the rental market. To this day, you can still find horror movies in those traditional outlets.
Punk rock for many of us in the end came down to scaring people. Scaring our moms and grandmas with the music and the clothing. Scaring the kids at school who would pick on us. It has been embracing the weird and quirky because we can appreciate the humor and uniqueness of quirk. Sure, the rise of Japanese horror movies and remakes has brought horror to the mainstream. Now, even your mom knows who Leatherface is, and it isn’t unusual for low-budget independent horror films like the Saw trilogy to catapult to the top of a moviegoer’s to-see list. Remind you of any particular time period recently? When Mom and Dad drove you to that Blink-182 concert?
Still, in the end there’s always going to be that thread of connection between the disenfranchised and the slasher film, between those tired of the shit they see around them and midnight monster movie showings. Just like punk rock, horror movies have always been a prime starting place for aspiring film makers, because there will always be someone going down that video store isle looking for a good scare on a Friday night, as sure as there will always be a bored teenager looking for an outlet to their terrible, mundane life. Anyone can get into either horror or punk rock, no matter what. Be it being a sub-par guitar player, or a first-time filmmaker and a fan with a dream.
And that’s what is so fucking great about horror movies. They’re fucking punk rock.
Damn right … It’s the biggest sham about most music since the early ’80s that the punk attitude has just died … I rented the Minutemen doco “We Jam Econo” the other day, and as great as it was, it only made me depressed at the end that nobody with that much fuckin attitude is left today