Scary Stories to Yawn in the Dark

We just cleared Halloween, which means we have Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Hannukah, Black Friday, Festivus, and Thanksgiving again until Christmas. But enough of that. Let's dwell on all the Deathly All Hallows Eve for a second.

You know the deal: Halloween is the "spooky" holiday, aside from St. Patrick's Day, that is. This is the time of year when all the horror movies come out, all the scary TV specials come out, all the scary costumes come out, and election season. Truly the most terrifying season of them all, by design.

Except, I never really bought that. There are a big number of reasons why Halloween/early fall is not the scariest time of the year, nor could it really ever possibly be. For one thing, Halloween itself is pretty much a joke. Even the adults can't be arsed to treat it all spookylike, and really, there's not a whole lot popular culture can do to be (intentionally) scary. Kids in Power Rangers costumes doesn't really strike fear in one's heart, unless one is a Putty.

So who said fall was the best time for scaryness? It's completely misplaced. Misplaced and miscast. It doesn't belong here. Where (or when) does it belong, then, Mr. Smartysexypants, you're saying to yourself. And then everyone looks at you and, and they're like, "What did you just say?"

And you're like, "N-nothing."

"No, you said 'Mr. Smartsexypants'?"

"Smartsexypants."

"Oh. Well who's that?"

"Ummm... A guy I know? He's the coolest."

"What's his name?"

"...Mr. Smartsexypants?"

At that point, everyone goes over to your laptop to see what you're doing. So by now you've left the flat and you're hiding under a bridge, ready to hear my answer. And my answer is this: The summertime.

Think about it. Or don't. The answer is obvious, so you shouldn't have to, but the fact of the matter is, everything that's scary happens in the summer. Everything. Except that one time you thought you shat your own bed. But that was springtime so it was close enough.

Do a cursory glance at every horror movie you know (except Black Christmas. Don't look at that. Figuratively or literally). When do they all take place? The summer. Or if not the summer outright, then a summer-ish setting, where it's warm and sunny. Not threatening. The perfect time... for terror.

(Okay fine, there's also Jingle All the Way, Christmas with the Cranks... FINE. But those aren't movies that are trying to be scary. Can we move on now? Asshole.)

Let's get past the whole movie things, because horror movies really aren't all that scary at all. Instead, I think, deep down inside, we're all more fearful during the summer. How come? Let's take a look:

At first glance, summer's the season of warmth, fun times outdoors, roasting marshmallows by the fire, baseball, basketball, trips to the beach, seagulls, lightning bugs, and forest fires. All wonderful things, to be sure, but there are also downsides that we don't notice at first glance.

First of all, except in Greenland and parts of Pennsylvania, summer is not merely warm. It's hot. Sometimes, it gets really hot. Oppressive hot. Hot enough to roast people alive. You don't hear about kids getting burned to a crisp while locked in cars during the winter, do you? Even though I prefer heat to cold, I'm well aware that a nice, baking summer day can be far more stressful than a cold one, all things equal.

Think about it. The cold you can escape from. You can put on more clothes, you can light your buddy on fire, you can vibrate at a faster rate, etc. Heat, though, is much trickier. Once you stop shedding clothes and/or hair, you're shit outta luck if you don't have air conditioning or a reasonably large body of water or the ability to flap your hands 130 times per second. It's like that episode of The Twilight Zone where the sun's getting closer, and there's really no place for anyone to run, so things just... kinda... slooooowwwww... dooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

I don't think it's a coincidence that when it comes to the truly, maddingly, deeply frightening movies they all take place in summer or thereabouts. Summer's the time of heightened activity, and that's both good and bad. More crime takes place in the summer. Stress rises in the summer. There's thunder storms and floods and hurricanes, which are all conspicuously absent in the fall. And lord help you if there's an extended blackout brought on by a heat wave.

Perhaps the most unsettling thing about summer is that it ironically seems to be quieter. Certainly when you get out of the suburbs and away from the constant bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu of lawnmowers, into the countryside perhaps, there's not much going on out there. There may be a couple of animals and shit, but generally the weather is not that active, so there's not as much wind. I'm not doing a stupendous job of explaining it because it's something you have to experience for yourself, but to me, not a lot of things are creepier than waking up to a quiet, sweltering morning where the birds can't be arsed to chirp and the moose are too tuckered to moo or whatever it is they do (hence the name "moose").

As such, my imagination is a lot more active in summer. Even when I was little, I was more afraid of robbers breaking into my house (that's one of the fun things about having a home alarm system in the middle of one of the whitest neighborhoods on the east coast) during the summer than the winter. What dumbass criminal is going to haul himself out to our street when it's 20 degrees? ...Oh.

And when else do you really hear about all the strange events in one's life? Let's face it: During the fall and winter, everyone's inside, not noticing all the strange shit around them because they're too busy watching frostbite slowly overtake their toes or something. You won't hear about how a kid growing up in India, sitting outside in the shade on an especially hot summer day, saw a man with backwards feet stumble down the road, alone. Shit like that just doesn't happen in the fall. Except in Tarrytown, NJ, where it happens every day.

Well anyway, if it were up to me, Halloween and the 4th of July would switch places. Now you can tell proper ghost stories, you can have an excuse for slutting it up, and you can have a genuinely creepy atmosphere so you can properly experience the everyday terrors of moving coffins, bottomless pits, ships without crews, voices randomly babbling over the airwaves, and all the normal, happy things that we only become aware of when we have the free time during a sweltering summer night. Plus I think what the fall really needs is more mattress sales and Roman candles lit up in the middle of busy roads.

I hope you never look at a quiet morning the same way again!