Read Part II: Blame it on the IP
Read Part III: Blame it on the Rising Popularity
For example, Spirit Halloween has become the first sign of the season. Not the first time we wake up to sweater weather. Not the calendar flip to September 1st. Not when we start seeing pumpkins in those cardboard Peanuts bins at the grocery store. Those orange “opening soon” and “help wanted” posters with the grinning grim reaper start popping up in the J months of summer. And we see the Halloween Season itself creeper deeper and deeper into summer, as well. You know me. I don’t like Hot-oween. Also, if we start gobbling summer months, Christmas will start gobbling fall months. I’m trying to broker a cease-fire between the seasons here.
Spirit also brought large animatronic Halloween characters to the masses. None of us Halloween Heads really need an eight-foot-tall killer clown that jerks its body around and cackles or a ten-foot-tall graveyard ghoul that chops its hands and makes death puns.
And trust me, I have one of these in my life, Big Face, although I didn’t get it from Spirit Halloween. I got it from Costco, since every store sells giant animatronic Halloween these days thanks to Spirit and the general rising lucrativeness of the holiday. As much as I love Big Face, he immediately takes over my interior Halloween decor every year (he’s not for outdoor use, apparently). He’s the Christmas tree. Almost literally so in my house because my youngest daughter has a birthday in October, and I always end up placing her wrapped presents at the clumps of plastic straw that are his feet. But the point is he dominates my place.
But, I get it, these big items draw people like me in, and those people like me inevitably post about it on the socials to make “content” out of it. But there is a downside to The Golden Age of Animatronic Halloween. One is that lawn decorating has taken a big hit. Once it was all about making your house look festive or creating an eerie atmosphere. Now, front lawns are just giant action figure displays at best or a recreation of a Spirit Halloween (or Home Depot or Lowes) at worst. And we thought inflatables would be the death of residential decorating.
I also see these giant animatronics sneaking into professional haunts…and nothing breaks the illusion that you’re about to be gutted by chainsaw-wielding madman through the decaying corridors of an abandoned hospital like seeing something prominent and plasticky looming over you that you immediately recognize as a Spirit Halloween or Home Depot item.
Then there’s the IP craze that’s tainting Halloween a bit. Spirit offers shelves and shelves full of unabashed IP. It’s a movie collectible store, except these collectibles are in that annoying space between too high-quality to hide in an orange bin in the basement for 10 months and too low-quality to be a year-round piece. Eh, what am I saying. Most mass-marketed collectibles are in the annoying space.
It’s funny, I’m actually pro-Spirit for the reasons that SNL broke bat on it—the seeming vampiric nature of it taking over empty shops and the cheap quality of the costumes. I mean, why wouldn’t they jump into abandoned buildings, temporarily resurrecting them like rotting zombies. They didn’t force the occupants out by haunting them with spooky wares (although that would be a cool Scooby Doo movie). As to the costumes, cheap and throwaway should be a big part of Halloween. I still believe that the holiday needs to be ephemeral, tied to a season. It should come and go, be anticipated, be missed. Cheap costumes that are done after one night of a Red Bull and vodka soaking? Perfect.
So all the things I’ve mentioned in this series for us to blame on Halloween becoming annoying—the socials, the IP, the rising popularity, the general bloatedness and capitalized-on nature of it all—you can draw direct lines to Spirit Halloween.
Although now that Spirit Christmas is a thing, it’s going to be interesting to see how the business changes and how that impacts Halloween. Like I said, a bellwether and an influence. I also said, “the Golden Age of Animatronic Halloween,” but let’s forget I said that, please.
