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Halloween in Comics, Radio and in the Movies
It may seem unbelievable, but stories and scripts influenced by Halloween were first introduced on radio, not in movies. H.G. Wells, the well-known novelist of "War of the Worlds," the movie version of which starred Tom Cruise, is the first perpetrator of one of the earliest, most daunting, and hair-raising Halloween stories.
H.G. Wells was the creator of the War of the Worlds. So how could people be scared by something as plain as a literary piece? A radio production made by Orson Welles is the genius behind the effective appropriation of War of the Worlds for Halloween.
"And in the news today Aliens!"
Yep, that's true. Welles is commemorated in Hollywood thriller, horror and comedy movies rolled into one. Parts from the famous novel "War of the Worlds" were exploited as news headlines that can be read between songs on the radio.
Visualize the morbid situations depicted in the story of "War of the Worlds" -- like aliens arriving a day before Halloween, as real news on the radio. It's been said that there really were listeners in North America who panicked from the story. They were terrified.
The radio production of this classic literary piece from the 1930s was brilliant. How it was also accepted by the people was also superb. In fact, residents in New Jersey were subjected to public panic. After the big success of "War of the Worlds," the media became more sensible and careful in using Halloween for different productions.
Literature
The thematic of Halloween was also able to penetrate the realm of literature. Just fifteen years after the spooky radio production, a writer by the name of Anthony Boucher came up with a noir story that played with reality and the macabre. The setting of Boucher's story was in California.
In another five years, Halloween would make its way into the comic book industry. The comic series "Shock" made the idea of Halloween even scarier than it used to be. It told the story of an evil master of an orphan asylum who eventually got turned into a Halloween pumpkin -- and as we all know, Halloween pumpkins are hollowed out and have their faces carved out. The "Shock" comic series was a brave venture into establishing Halloween as an event that had a set number of accepted themes.
EC comics also came up with their own Halloween-inspired comic series, many of which featured limbs being cut off and such. But before the 60's rolled around, comic books were regulated by the American Comics Code (ACC). Such gruesome comic series were deemed unacceptable and soon died down.
Now, comic series like "Watchmen" from Alan Moore and "Sandman" by Neil Gaiman are showing to be lucrative enterprises in the comic industry. But these stories are not endorsed by American Comics Code. ACC only supports more wholesome comic books like "Archie."
Free TV and the movies
On the other hand, the television industry was a little late in embracing Halloween themes. It was difficult to produce visual materials of macabre themes because of censorship.
Here are the some of the first Halloween-themed movies that landed on the boob tube in North America.
- Whispering Ghosts (Milton Berle)
- Footlight Serenade (Betty Grable & Victor Mature)
- Frankenstein (Boris Karloff)
- The House on the Haunted Hill (Vincent Price)
- Rosemary's Baby (Audrey Hepburn)
- Night of the Living Dead (George Romero)
- King Kong
- Godzilla
- Psycho (Hitchcock)
- Night of the Demons
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