The Valley Wire - 10/30/2009 Column

Hollywood and the Spookiest Time of the Year
By Mary Beth Gentle

Blood curdling screams. Nightmares come to life. Hearts pounding in fear. And those are not just the sounds coming from the offices of studio executives as they react to the latest box office flop, but clear signs that Halloween time has come to Hollywood. No one, except maybe the real ghouls themselves, can do Halloween quite like Hollywood. From the frighteningly real make-up to the edge of your seat Visual EFX to the spine tingling soundtracks, Hollywood has spent years perfecting the fine art of fear.

Every year we fill up our movie viewing time with our favorite scary movies. If it’s classic horror that you are after, you can try a chilling line-up such as Psycho, The Birds and Rosemary’s Baby. If it’s tales from your nightmares that make your Halloween complete you can watch a title or two from one of the famed series such as, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street or Halloween. Or maybe it’s just plain spooky family fun you are looking for with It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, Hocus Pocus or The Nightmare Before Christmas.

I grew up trick or treating, eating caramel apples and watching It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown every Halloween. And even though age has insisted that I stop trick or treating and calorie counting has ruined the fun of a chewy sugary caramel apple, I still sit down every year and watch Charlie Brown and the gang set out to fill their trick or treat bags and convince Linus that there is no such thing as a ‘Great Pumpkin’.

The Peanuts special first aired in 1966 and has captured many hearts since that time. And every year I tune in to see the kids prepare their costumes, see the excitement in Charlie Brown’s face when he gets invited to the big Halloween party and watch Linus’ unending faith in the Great Pumpkin. And even though I know the story by heart, I still hope that poor old Charlie Brown is going to get more than just a rock in his goodie bag.

But, when it comes to Halloween in Hollywood, the big and the small screen is not the only place to see the spooky holiday come to life. I just have to walk across the Studio lot on the big day to see the real fun begin. There is always one guy whose cube looks like a scene from Tales from the Crypt, clearly he knows someone in the Prop Department. Then there is the woman a few cubes over who looks like she just might be the Wicked Witch of the West. And a trip to the Studio commissary at lunchtime is like walking onto a set of The Living Dead.

I have been in this business long enough to know that it is all make believe. I have been on set with the fake monsters and watched the make-up artists work wonders with tubes of fake blood. But, even knowing all of that, my imagination still gets the best of me. So even though there is quite a list of fright filled movies to pick from, I will probably opt for yet another viewing of Charlie Brown this year.