"All this happened a good many years ago." - Maugham
I was young, maybe thirteen or so, the first time I saw the movie Halloween. It had been a couple of years since it had been shown in the theaters, and I watched it one night when it was broadcast on television. After I finished watching the movie, it was late and time for me to go to bed. I sleepily loafed around upstairs for a few minutes, and then trudged downstairs to my bedroom.
My brother Joey also had a bedroom downstairs; the rest of the family was upstairs. Joey had watched most of the movie with me, but I didn’t see him after it was over. Perhaps I should have known what was coming.
I got to the bottom of the stairs, made the right turn to cross the large room with ugly orange carpet, and neared the hall, where the wall from the family room jutted out to make the entry to the hall about the size of a doorway. The hall was dark, and the instant I crossed the threshold into it, my brother jumped out from behind that jutting wall, wearing a ridiculous white plastic Halloween mask. He yelled “Ha!” or something like that.
Please keep the following in mind: In the first place, I had just recently finished watching the movie, so the images and scenes were fresh in my mind. Secondly, the mask, while not at all a close match to that worn by the killer in Halloween, was at the very least white, like in the movie. Thirdly, my brother appeared suddenly and mysteriously when I least expected it.
So my reaction, very vivid to me more than twenty years later, was extreme. But also strange. I was immediately aware that this was my brother playing a trick on me. As tired as I was, my brain quickly synthesized important information: the apparition I now saw was nearly six inches shorter than me, and he was wearing a silly plastic mask of an old man with a melted face. His hair was thin, stringy, and white, just like the mask I had seen (and worn myself) hundreds of times before in our home. Notwithstanding all of this, I was scared nearly senseless. I shrieked--yes, shrieked, so picture what that sounds like--in horror, but instantly moved toward him, calling him by name, while pathetically and miserably crying. “Joey! Joey! Tell me it’s you! Say it is you! Say my name!”
As I continued to walk toward him, I reached for him, and grabbed on to him, desperately hugging and bawling and begging for him to allay my fears. The more he spoke, now scared himself at such a reaction by me, the more I calmed down. But this continued for nearly half a minute, as I labored to convince myself of what I indeed already knew, and had known from the start: this was only little brother Joey.
Nowadays I don't get frightened by "scary" movies. I mean, come on, people, they just aren't. But Halloween scares me. Still. And if you ask me what some of my favorite movies are, I will include Halloween in them. But sometimes I wonder if that is true.
