My Halloween: Scared Silly

Five questions asked over a glowing Jack o’Lantern, under an Autumn moon obscured by passing clouds…in between mouthfuls of candy corn…with Paul Castiglia of Scared Silly: Classic Hollywood Horror-Comedies …

Why is Halloween important to you?

“Important” is too strong a word for me to use in this case. My relationship with Halloween is one of “pure fun.” Specifically for me it’s become a time to revisit some old-school horror flicks (the more black & white the better). I’m not a big costume guy – used to do that more when I was younger. And I’m on a diet so I’m trying to limit my candy consumption!

But there is one thing that has become a Halloween tradition for me: I hold an annual Halloween movie night at my office. I try to keep things on the light side with classic horror films and horror-comedies, or films that fall into the PG realm without graphic content (whether it’s classic TV movies like “The Night Stalker” or recent animated hits like “Monsters vs. Aliens”).

Describe your ideal Halloween.

I think I just did – as long as I can watch some fun spooky movies I’m set!

What Halloween collectibles do you cherish, or hate, or both?

I love movie posters and lobby cards, old movie magazines, trading cards, comic books, books about old movies and the films themselves (when I was a kid in the 1970s that meant Super 8 digest versions of the classics; as an adult it’s the entire films on DVD). Not that I actively collect any of the above with the exception of the movies and books about them. But from time-to-time if I run across an interesting item I pick it up.

When was your very first Halloween, the one whereyou really knew it was Halloween, and how was it?

I can’t recall the year but it had to the early 1970s. I had a Batman costume, but it wasn’t one of the cheesy vinyl costumes with the plastic masks – this was a cloth costume with a cloth cape and I believe it may have had a cloth pull-over cowl as well. I’m guessing this was from Sears or some other department store. Within a year or two of that Halloween, my sister and I made a Spider-Man Costume – she sewed it and I used permanent marker to draw all the webbing onto it! It was cool because it had a pull-over mask that fully covered my head and I insisted that we use gauze for the eyes so they could be white (enabling me to still see-through the mask).

What’s the one Halloween question you want to be asked and what’s your answer?

Q: If you could go back in time and watch any movie you wanted in a theater for Halloween, what would it be?

A: My answer would have to be the classic William Castle-directed Vincent Price starrer “The Tingler” – complete with the rigged seats!