Hollywood's Effect on Halloween

Asher Montano
Staff Writer
  Hollywood has been influencing Halloween ever since its first film in 1908: The Count of Monte Cristo. Hundreds of thousands of people are influenced by the movies they watch. Not only are costumes changed, but also the scare factor and likes of typical horror movies.
  In particular, many stereotypical Halloween figures such as witches, zombies, and vampires are not considered as scary in comparison to people such as Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees. Ever since the late 1970s, horror films have taken a bigger leap into using madmen and living dolls, while adding the extra bit of hocus pocus to spice up the horror faction. The movie franchise Halloween has been using the character Michael Myers to kill random people for years. In all reality, he is a madman with a knife and the right motive to do what he does.
  Beginning in 1908, with the first film to release, kids have been dressing up as their favorite movie characters. According to movie critic Jonathan August Reiter, “Hollywood has affected this holiday ever since the first camera rested on the California landscape in 1911.” Kids have been enjoying the spirit of cosplaying to their heart's content ever since they could see movie characters on the big screen. Because of all the movies out there, it is more likely to spot iconic characters such as Batman, Iron Man, and Spider Man, instead of the typical ghost. It seems to be that the idea of zombies rampaging through the streets has been becoming less and less visible.
  Movies around the time of fall tend to become more in tune with the spirit of Halloween. From the Halloween franchise, Friday the 13th and Saw released years ago and still haunt viewers today. Even so, Hollywood has not stopped there; as the year gets closer to October, Hollywood starts producing more horror films. In theaters now, there is a new movie titled Smile. According to Jeffery Anderson, a long term movie critic for Common Sense Media, “[Smile is a] horror movie about a psychiatrist (Sosie Bacon) who falls under a mysterious curse; unless she can find a way to break it, she's destined to die by suicide while passing on the curse to someone else.” There is some magic sense that can not be explained, but the effect of the movie does not have a typical monster, just an ordinary person who develops a curious disorder. 
  Hollywood has adopted the concept of the phrase “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” Franklin D. Roosevelt said. With even more movies being released every month it is hard to determine what will actually be considered horror or just another motion picture.