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My Five Favorite Movies for October

October is the first month of my favorite three of the year, the start of a season devoid of every color but brown in Florida but bright and brisk almost everywhere else (or so I hear). It’s when I wear sweaters no matter the weather because I like to act sometimes like I don’t live where wearing winter garb doesn’t make sense. It’s the month that ends a week before my birthday, on one of my favorite holidays:

Halloween.

That October 31 is one of my favorite days is a surprise to some of my acquaintances, probably in part because I quit trick-or-treating in fourth grade and went to a school from fifth grade through twelfth where you’d be written up for wearing black or orange on Halloween.

But there is warmth and comfort in the season, which smells like pumpkin spice, and in big bowls of candy I’ll hand out to strangers and in scary movie nights with all the lights out. It’s a sign for me, of an incoming birthday and an impending Advent, of a corner turned toward Christmas.

This season, I am — so far, by far — the busiest I’ve ever been. Odds are bad I’ll have a lot of time to dedicate to how I’d usually spend it, which includes watching my five favorite movies for October. Here they are in random order. Perhaps you’ll enjoy ’em on my behalf:

Poltergeist: Some things at first can’t be explained, like how Carol Anne — the youngest of the three Freeling children — gets stuck inside the family’s television, and why Poltergeist is one of my favorite movies. But the flick, written by Steven Spielberg, et al, has been among my favorites since childhood, when I’m fairly certain I first watched it with my maternal grandparents. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen it, but I still jump during several scenes (especially when Robbie’s toy clown turns up in an unexpected place).

The Orphanage: The first time I saw the Orphanage, I sat on one side of the couch and my best friend sat on the other. At the end of the film, we discovered we both subconsciously had scooted into the middle, because we really were that scared. The movie, produced in part by Guillermo del Toro, is in Spanish with English subtitles, has a happy ending for a horror movie, and is part of why I am kind of afraid of the dark. (Worth it!)

The Blair Witch Project: Required viewing for a class I took in college, this movie — which you’ll either love or hate — has a whole lot of nothing in it but is shot and directed so you are scared while watching it anyway. In it, three young adults embark on foot through the woods, in a search on film for the “Blair witch.” They get lost, mad at each other, and very, very scared when what they hear in the dark can’t be identified. Watch ’til the end, even if you’re bored, ’cause the end totally makes it.

Halloween: Because best theme song ever. Hear it here.

Casper: Who among us didn’t kind of have a crush on Casper, as he appeared in human form toward the end of the movie? In this film, the ghost befriends Kat — played by Christina Ricci — who moved into a haunted mansion with her dad. Lucky for the pair, her father is a ghost expert and Casper is just the kind of friend Kat needs. It’s warm and fuzzy enough to be among my five favorites.

What are YOUR favorite movies for October?
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Why I love Halloween (a repost).

One Halloween, my dad dumped a giant bag of fun size candy bars into a giant bowl. I peered out the window.

“I wonder when trick-or-treaters will get here,” I thought out loud, watching my neighbor – a space alien that night – decorate a tent in her driveway across the street. “I wonder how many we’ll get!”

When the kids finally came, clad in costumes like Spongebob and ninja and princess, I reached into the bowl of candy and tossed some of it into their plastic pumpkins and pillow cases. They thanked me, mostly, and their parents waved. And between each ring of the doorbell, I really couldn’t contain my excitement.

I love Halloween. I always have. As an an adult, I have figured out why.

As a kid, I didn’t care much for the candy (Twix was a rare exception.), but the experience made me glow. I’d dress up like a gypsy, a witch or a cowgirl and traipse around suburbia knocking on doors, trick-or-treating. Something in the sometimes crisp Florida fall air and the rubbing elbows in the streets with kids and parents I’d otherwise never meet made me giddy. For a night – just one – we’d all let down our guard.

As a trick-or-treater, I’d wave at people I’d never met. I’d skip across streets and when cars came by, their drivers would smile and stop until we’d crossed. As an adult, I watch my quiet neighborhood come to life. I embrace the one night suburbia welcomes the stranger.

That’s why I love Halloween.

In a neighborhood of folks who are separated from nameless neighbors by fences and closed garage doors, everything changes for a night. We don’t get suspicious when someone we don’t recognize walks past our houses. We don’t yell at them if they cross the grass. We invite them to our homes. And then we give them things.

Imagine a world where every day felt like that.

One where we wouldn’t require strangers to wear masks before we welcome them.

One where it doesn’t take candy to get them to come.

If only every day could be more like Halloween.

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Why I Love Halloween

This post originally appeared on Catholic Revolutionaries. I wrote it a week after Halloween last year. As the holiday approaches, it’s been on my mind. So, I thought I’d share!

– – –

Last weekend, my dad dumped a giant bag of fun size candy bars into a giant bowl. I peered out the window.

“I wonder when trick-or-treaters will get here,” I thought out loud, watching my neighbor — a space alien that night — decorate a tent in her driveway across the street. “I wonder how many we’ll get!”

When the kids finally came, clad in costumes like Spongebob and ninja and princess, I reached into the bowl of candy and tossed some of it into their plastic pumpkins and pillow cases. They thanked me, mostly, and their parents waved. And between each ring of the doorbell, I really couldn’t contain my excitement.

I love Halloween. I always have. This year, I think I’ve figured out why.

As a kid, I didn’t care much for the candy (maybe minus Twix), but the experience made me glow. I’d dress up like a gypsy, a witch or a cowgirl and traipse around suburbia knocking on doors, trick-or-treating. Something in the sometimes crisp Florida fall air and in the rubbing elbows in the streets with kids and parents I’d otherwise never meet just made me giddy. For one night — just one — we’d all let down our guard.

As a trick-or-treater, I’d wave at people I’d never met. I’d skip across streets and when cars came by, their drivers would smile and stop until we’d crossed. As an adult, I watch my quiet neighborhood come to life. I embrace the one night when suburbia welcomes the stranger.

That’s why I love Halloween.

In a neighborhood of folks who stay separated from their nameless neighbors by fences and closed garage doors and “our convenient Lexus cages,” to quote Switchfoot, everything changes for a night. We don’t get suspicious when strangers walk past our houses. We don’t yell at them if they cross the grass. We invite them to our homes. And then we give them things.

Imagine a world where every day felt like that. But instead of candy, we could give guests what they need.

“Instead of monsters and zombies, people could not dress up as anything,” my best friend Laurel said the other day. We could all just try to be like Jesus. If only it didn’t take a mask to get us to welcome a stranger, and it didn’t take candy to get them to come. And in other ways, if only every day could be more like Halloween.