Tag: halloween

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Opinions

Reflections on Halloween

By Johanna Lamont

As Halloween approaches, I think back to my childhood and reflect on how my family interacted with the holiday. We were never the type of people who would dress up and go trick or treating, or as the churches around home called it, “Trunk or Treating.” We never really did anything for Halloween except the occasional Addams Family marathon. The candy, costumes, and history of the event were never of much importance to us, and holidays were never a priority in general. The one thing that stands out about it was my mother’s exasperation at the amount of candy people would give to her children. We often had candy cleanses after the month of October, where we would purge the house of excess candy unless it was M&M’s. 

Now, as I am older and am embracing holidays with my own twist on tradition, I have to rethink how I see Halloween. I finally get the chance to break out from my family’s tradition and make the holiday my own. The holiday itself has roots in the pagan celebration of Samhain, but the modern celebration of Halloween in America has little to do with pagan rites and celebrations. The holiday has been turned into a consumerist event, with companies marketing their costumes and candy like their lives depend on it. Halloween is generally a night spent with friends and is full of fun and mischief. We’ve adapted this pagan holiday into a holiday that suits our modern mentality, and in doing so, we’ve sacrificed the original meaning of it. This new reincarnation of the holiday holds no real moral meaning to it. There should be no guilt in someone’s conscience for dressing up and having fun with friends. I think that Halloween is a fine holiday with a lot of potential for fun. However, like any situation, it can be taken and used for wrong things. 

I plan on dressing up for Halloween this year, enjoying the day with friends, and embracing the time to play and have fun. I don’t get the opportunity to dress up and embrace my love of fictional worlds every day, so this is an exciting holiday for me. I think that when dealing with holidays like Halloween that have complicated pasts or assumptions tied to them, it’s best to consider your own opinion and moral convictions. I don’t find anything wrong with celebrating Halloween, but for someone else, there might be an experience or conviction tied to the holiday that could cause an issue or distress for them. For me, it’s all about how I approach the holiday, what I carry in my heart, and intentions toward it. If I approached Christmas with a heart of selfishness or greed, I could turn the holiday surrounding the celebration of Christ’s birth into a day of sin. The intentions and desires of our hearts determine how we interact with and respond to holidays and celebrations. Halloween can be used for ill, as you can use the mystery and chaos of the holiday to harm others or cause distraction and fear. 

Overall, I like the freedom of dressing up and appreciating the candy sales. I love the cheap chocolate, looking through Halloween aisles, coordinating costumes with friends, and watching cheesy movies. The holiday is corny and full of fun traditions that are waiting to be embraced. It’s a non-demanding holiday. There is no pressure to participate, and it has enough variations in how it’s celebrated that anyone can find a way to enjoy it. I think that this is a time of year that I will continue to look forward to in the future and create my own spooky traditions for. I think that my inner Addams will always enjoy the spooky, mischievous gloom of Halloween – with or without the candy. ★

Categories
Campus News

Frankenbein Returns

Frankenbein 2022 costume winner - Courtesy of Savannah Stitt
By Juliana Schmidt ('25)

On Oct. 28, the Halloween party, Frankenbein, will be held at 8:30 p.m. in the Larder Courtyard. This will be the second year Lambein has hosted Frankenbein, which was previously hosted by Shenawana.

Junior Hannah Sturdivant, a member of the Campus Activities Board (CAB), said “Frankenbein is an attempt to continue the old Shenawana tradition of Shenoween. To keep its good reputation alive there is a substantial amount of work that needs to be done. It is a group effort to even attempt to meet the expectations and standards that have been set by past years.” 

CAB is putting on this Halloween spooky night; a haunted trail and a party with a dance floor, costume contest and pumpkin painting.

Sturdivant stated, “It took a lot of theatrics and people willing to battle the cold to scare people for the ambiance of the haunted trail.” 

Strudivant hoped that people would enjoy the trail, because it was really fun to figure out. 

“I dressed up as a jellyfish last year and I won second place in the costume contest. It was very cool to see the costumes everyone came up with and share such a fun night, so I’m really looking forward to this year’s event!” Junior Marjorie Gassler wrote. 

The costume party was a hit last year and promises to be just as popular this year. Prizes are awarded for placing in the costume contest. 

Senior Joey Schunemann, the Head of CAB, who is spearheading the event said, “The prizes for the costume contest remain a secret until the night of, although they are certain to be fun.”  

While Frankenbein is a newer tradition for Lambein, they are working hard to make it their own. 

“I’m very excited for this year’s event and how it brings back slightly more of the old Shenoween party vibe, pouring more into that than last year’s haunted trail,” Schunemann said. 

“It is a group effort to even attempt to meet the expectations and standards that have been set by past years,” Sturdivant commented. “On behalf of CAB, I would like to thank anyone that has put any amount of time and effort into helping Frankenbein run smoothly. Past or present, you are helping form the college experience for those who have attended.” 

Look forward to this weekend’s activities, and prepare your treats (or tricks). ★

Categories
News

Shenoween Returns and with a New Name

By Gabriel K. Negus

There are not many times in the year when you could bump into a Jedi or a pirate in Houghton.  On Halloween, though, anything is possible.  How do Houghton students celebrate Halloween?  By going to Shenoween, of course!

Named in part for Houghton University’s well-known and currently unused Shenawana Hall, Shenoween is a decade-long Halloween tradition for students at the university. Typically hosted by the residents of Shenawana, the party takes place each year on the evening of October 31 in the dormitory’s basement. Shenoween traditionally features a costume contest, photo opportunities, and an ample supply of the Shen Men’s definitive beverage: IBC Root Beer. Unfortunately, however, due to ongoing renovations in Shenawana Hall, this year’s Shenoween will need – at least temporarily – a new home.

Jared Younger, a resident assistant in Lambein Hall, expressed his hope that Lambein will host the party this year and call it, “Lambeween.” But since then, the name has been changed to “Frankenbein.”

Younger thinks that the novelty of the location change may even bolster attendance, which suffered in COVID years. Lambein has partnered with the Campus Activities board (CAB) to bring in some fresh ideas for the event this year. CAB member Hannah Tyer, named by the board as the ‘Halloween Point Person,’ is tasked with planning this year’s event alongside the Lambein staff.

Tyer’s plans respect the origin of the event by featuring some past staples of the Shenoween party, including the plentiful presence of IBC Root Beer and the popular best costume competition. She also plans to bring in some of the Halloween activities which CAB led during the COVID years of 2020 and 2021, most notably the haunted trail walk. According to Tyer,  how the haunted trail walk might be incorporated into this year’s party is  undecided. Younger discussed the possibility of turning the dormitory’s second floor into a haunted house walkthrough where attendees could go for a thorough scare.  

According to Tyer, holding the party outdoors in the Larder Courtyard is  possible.  Having the event outside would make it easier to facilitate the large crowd of students expected to attend, though due to the routinely chilly October weather here in Western New York, holding the party inside Lambein may be a warmer option.

Whatever it may look like this year, excitement for the party is building in the student body now that it is October. Upperclassmen especially, who attended the party before the COVID pandemic, have experienced memories of Shenoween in its ‘glory days’ flooding back to them in anticipation of this year’s event. Though disappointed that the party is not likely to be held in Shenawana Hall this year, senior Micah Williams is very eager to attend. Williams has fond memories of the 2019 Shenoween, in the fall of his freshman year of college. He attended the party with a group of friends and experienced the costume competition, photo opportunities, mountains of candy, and IBC root beer.

“I had a lot of fun,” Williams said. “There are probably some hilarious pictures of that night somewhere.”

When asked the big question – what his plans are for a costume this year and whether he stands a chance in the competition – Williams responded, “Oh, not a chance I win best costume.  I want to go as Obi Wan Kenobi, but if that falls through, who knows?” ★

Categories
Stories In Focus

Movie Review: “Carrie”

Though Gravity is topping the charts for new releases at the moment it is decidedly the season for a good horror flick. For that reason I took off my space helmet and headed past its theater to the room at the end of the hall to see the newly imagined Carrie.

Courtesy of http://www.horrorstab.com/
Courtesy of http://www.horrorstab.com/

Carrie, based off the novel by Stephen King, follows the story of young teenage Carrie White who lives with her mother in smalltown USA. Her mother, a rather unstable and abusive religious zealot, has homeschooled Carrie much of her growing up until the state forced her to put Carrie into public school. Here we find Carrie – an outcast and a loner, wandering the halls of her unfriendly educational institution. After a brutal taunting by her fellow gym-mates, she finds herself the center of controversy. One of her bullies, Chris, is to be banned from prom while the others remain on probation. However, because of a growing guilt complex, one attacker, Sue Snell, arranges what she hopes will be an appropriate apology towards Carrie: she has her boyfriend Tommy ask Carrie to the prom. Excited and nervous Carrie eventually agrees (against her mother’s wishes) and her kind date shows her a magical night. This culminates when the two are crowned king and queen of the dance. But just as the crown hits her head, a bucket of pig blood, set in place by the expelled tormentor, pours from the ceiling, drenching her hair and handmade dress. As she stands silently, her anger begins to swell and her previously underdeveloped telekinetic powers wreak havoc on all those present.

Carrie was first adapted to the silver screen in 1976 by director Brian De Palma. Though now somewhat outdated and dramatically overacted, the film has become a cult classic. The famous lines of Carrie’s deranged mother, “They’re all gonna laugh at you,” has echoed in the heads of every viewer since and Sissy Spacek’s crazed wide-eyed stare is iconic. For these reasons it is hard to imagine what a remake would do.

The answer is not a lot, though it was fully enjoyed. Chloe Grace Moretz plays an admittedly dull version of Carrie in comparison to Sissy Spacek’s strange, otherworldly features. Though her acting is solid, she falls victim to the Hollywood bland beauty, and it is just that much harder to imagine her as truly the outcast the role of Carrie requires. The real improvement on the film is instead found in the role of her mother, Margaret White, played by Julianne Moore. Moore’s character is more fully developed which makes her that much more terrifying. Moore also fully embraces the idea that Carrie’s mother is a masochist and plays it with perfect subtly, scratching of her wrists and gouging her thighs with a seam-ripper while talking to those around her.

Overall the film is simply modernized. Gone are the dramatic swells, slow scene builds, and wide-eyed overacting of the 70s, only to be replaced by dry cruelty and lots of texting. This makes for a less exciting and less inventive, but also probably more accessible version.

The final iconic scene in which Carrie destroys the prom and all those with it does not, however, disappoint. With some believable CGI and a broad range of death traps, the whole scene is a masterpiece of horror. Though Moretz lacks the luster of Spacek, she helps make up for some of it simply though her range of destruction. And here is possibly the most interesting difference between the two films–while the original implies that Carrie’s gift is unmanageable, something that will take her over, and destroy everything it’s wake–the new film seems to imply that she can control it enough to only punish the deserved. Surprisingly we see Carrie actually save those she has made connections with and insistently tortures those she sees as her worst enemies. This calls into question one of the major themes of the story- is Carrie in control of her power or is her power fully her? It also speaks to what modernization has done to the story. It seems we don’t mind witnessing the murder of a pig, but unsolicited death is not acceptable. Certainly an interesting twist to the plot and an asset to the new adaptation, at least from a conversation standpoint.

All in all, I do believe this new Carrie will largely be forgotten in a broad sense, though I would deem it a necessary watch for any horror fan. It is well made, but lacks the star power and intrigue of a true cult classic. Watch it, enjoy it, and then go to the library (yes, the Houghton library) and rent the original. Between the two you will get an eyeful of blood, a few jumps, and perhaps even a few laughs. Halloween is right around the corner after all. Boo!