From Hocus Pocus and Practical Magic to Scream, the ‘90s set a bar that no one has cleared since. It doesn’t take much to get a millennial to wax poetic about the ‘90s, especially the ‘90s in the fall. It was a time for friends and flannel and the smell of a Blockbuster carpet crunching under your Chuck Taylors as you picked out the perfect Halloween movie to watch.
Which, naturally, you would watch in between rounds of “Light As A Feather, Stiff As A Board” or while trepidatiously placing your fingers, nails coated in chipping layers of Sky by Hard Candy, atop a Ouija board. Any given October Friday in the ‘90s looked like a stack of rentals on the living room floor, with whatever your mom chided was “too scary” hidden at the bottom of the pile... a secret you and your friends would snicker about when she was in the room and reach for as soon as she left. And now, as a grown adult with a house payment and skincare that isn’t apricot-scented sandpaper, I’ve come to accept something: the ‘90s were the peak era of Halloween.
The decade didn’t just give us a handful of spooky favorites. It was much more than that. It gave us a ladder to climb.
You started at the bottom rung with family-friendly fare, and by the time you reached the top, you were watching a Japanese supernatural scare-fest that revolutionized modern atmospheric horror (Ringu, anyone?). We began our ascent with the movies that taught us Halloween could contain multitudes. It could be cozy and funny and a little bit creepy and utterly rewatchable.
What ‘90s kid didn’t channel Sarah Sanderson from atop a tire swing hanging from a tree in their backyard, singing “Come Little Children” as they “flew” through the air? Who among us didn’t dream of kissing Devon Sawa, er, Casper, and being asked: “Can I keep you?” Or wish we had a cool, magical Grandma Aggie? To this day, I quote Christina Ricci, our ‘90s patron saint of Halloween, as Wednesday Addams (“Are they made from real Girl Scouts?”).
Thanks to Sally and Gillian and Aunt Franny and Aunt Jet, I know that the correct response to pretty much anything is midnight margaritas. Of course, at some point, we started to crave more than friendly ghosts. Like, actually scared, and whew, did the ‘90s deliver.
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