This book had the misfortune of being published in roughly the same time frame as Nicholas Rogers' “Halloween: From pagan ritual to party night“. While some obsessive types (well, me) were thrilled to have such a wealth of info suddenly available on the greatest holiday ever created, for many it’s just one book too many. The existence of two simultaneous, and in some instances overlapping works on the same subject means that most readers will only have time to examine one. It really is a shame, because both of these works are well worth reading.

Nicholas focuses more on history; how Halloween came to be, how it evolved through the centuries, and why exactly it is so popular today. As you can ascertain from the subtitle, Skal’s work focuses more on the myriad of cultures and subcultures which celebrate the holiday, and how exactly they go about doing it.

The Introduction of the book opens with the account of the so called ‘Candy Man’ (not the Tony Todd one, another one) a loathsome bastard who poisoned his own child in an attempt to collect an insurance policy. The Candy Man was inspired by the paranoid urban legends of contaminated candy. Ironically, as he sought to use these myths as an alibi, he unfortunately gave them new life.
I’m sorry, but this is completely the wrong note to strike when starting off a book examining Halloween. Not only is this intro depressing, it gives the impression that the following work is going to be one of those religious fundamentalist ‘exposes‘.

Chap. 1 provides the requisite history of Halloween. Though rather shallow after Rogers ' detailed history, it nevertheless manages to be quite entertaining. The chapter gives us a good outline on things, as well as a closer look at some of the rarely explored evolutions of the holiday, such as genteel Victorian era incarnation.

Chap. 2 gives us an overview of the Salem witch trials, and that quaint little town’s rebirth as a modern Halloween Mecca. In detailing some of the towns tackier offerings, Skal’s view comes across as overly cynical in this section, and he has an unfortunate tendency to become repetitive.

In Chap. 3, we learn all about people who turn their abodes into publicly displayed haunted houses. More than I ever wanted to know, as a matter of fact. It’s at this point that the book’s tendency to drag became very noticeable to me.

Chap. 4, “The Devil on Castro St.”, examines the culture wars surrounding Halloween. The annual gay and transgender San Francisco parade also got loving treatment in guess who’s book, rendering this chapter redundant. Furthermore, I really don’t mean to sound narrow-minded, (Oh, heaven forfend!) but is this celebration really of any real relevance to anyone who isn’t, um, ‘differently oriented‘, let alone live in California? The fact that it takes up two big ol’ chapters in separate books, chapters that could have been used to cover something with a wee bit more universality, just smacks to me of cheap PC pandering. Although Skal’s chapter at least branches out to wider cultural skirmishes, such as the evangelical fallacy-fueled crusade to paint Halloween as a ‘satanic’ celebration.

Chap. 5 gives us a rundown of Halloween on the movie screen. It’s it bit more detailed than, yup, the other guy’s treatment of it, which tended to focus specifically on the Michael Myers series of flicks.

The last chapter gives us an examination of Halloween post 9-11.

That’s it really, the book despite being too long in some places is in total too short, almost a third, if memory serves, being taken up by endnotes. The author really should have taken some time out to prune down some sections, while expanding the range of themes explored. Overall, the work is entertaining and informative, but just a bit too dry and derivative to be the outstanding entry in it’s field.