A Lighter Version of Halloween

A fire is raging out of control at a crematory. Firefighters greet people at the door, supposedly to lead them to safety. But along the way, a descent into horror: The firefighters turn into demons and the visitors learn they’re being led into hell.

That was the plan, anyway, for this year’s haunted house at the Castle Park amusement center in Riverside. On the afternoon of Sept. 11, park officials and creative consultants huddled to come up with Plan B.

“It didn’t take long to realize that what we were planning would be completely inappropriate,” said Ed Pearson, general manager at Castle Park.

Halloween has long been the national holiday of terror--a time to confront fear in a harmless way and stir up the ghosts of our imagination. Once considered a children’s holiday, it has grown in recent years to encompass adults as well. It has become our bacchanal, a largely secular celebration in which the national id is allowed to run rampant.

Now, with real horror having trumped fantasy, some people are rethinking the whole idea, at least for the time being.

This could be the year of Halloween Lite.

Costume shops are accentuating the positive, with sales of police officer and firefighter costumes going through the roof. Some schools are telling students to dress only as positive role models; Osama bin Laden need not apply.

Bakeries report a surge in orders for Halloween-themed cakes as parents scrap trick-or-treating plans for parties at home.

And some haunted houses are less haunted than before. The Spooky House Haunted Theme Park in Woodland Hills redesigned four of about 50 rooms after Sept. 11, to go with “more ghosts and goblins than slasher scenes,” owner Bob Koritzke said.

Knott’s Berry Farm made “allowances for heightened sensitivities,” spokeswoman Susan Tierney said. “Anything that could even remotely be interpreted as a terrorist character was eliminated.” Characters dressed as paratroopers were changed into civilian clothes. Knott’s also changed its Halloween advertising slogan from “Tickets to die for” to “Our scariest ever.”

Castle Park’s redesigned Halloween attraction follows a story line about a rich mogul who contaminates a town with nuclear waste. The house now features more “startle scares” and less blood, Pearson said.

Marketing director Cathy Scherbarth said attendance is off about 20% compared with last year.

“I think people are a little bit sensitive about going into houses of horror,” Pearson said. “They’ve seen enough on TV. This attack has us all rethinking our daily lives, and that includes Halloween.”

Halloween, which falls next Wednesday, has always reflected the angst of the moment. An ancient holiday that married pagan tradition to the Christian observance of All Hallow’s Eve, it once was believed to be an evening when the souls of the dead revisited their homes, and witches and goblins took to the land.

Tainted Candy Scare in the ‘60s

In the 1960s, as Americans worried about crime and urban violence, a new source of terror was added to the mix: the tainted treat. Antisocial saboteurs were said to be planting razor blades in apples and pins in candy. Homemade treats vanished from treat bags almost overnight, and some communities substituted parades or parties for trick-or-treating.

Joel Best, a sociologist who heads the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware, has exhaustively researched such cases of Halloween mayhem and concluded that no American child has ever been killed or seriously injured by a stranger’s tainted treat.

Such fears appeared to have ebbed in the last few years, as crime declined nationally and the public became reassured by the relatively tamper-proof packaging introduced by the candy industry. The number of trick-or-treaters has grown in the last decade, according to Susan Fussell, a spokeswoman for the National Confectioners Assn., a candy industry group.

The events of Sept. 11 appear likely to put a dent in that trend.

Although there’s no reason the terrorist attacks should keep children from knocking on their neighbors’ doors, a national climate of fear has persuaded some people to steer clear of strangers this Halloween.

“They’ll dress up and they’ll have candy I buy them, but no trick-or-treating,” Jessica Velis said as she helped her two children pick out costumes at a Big Kmart in Glassell Park, north of Dodger Stadium. “Normally, we’re scared about who gives our kids candy and we check the candy, but now, with everything that’s happened, I don’t even want to touch the candy myself.”

Such fear can trickle down. Seven-year-old Ximena Vazquez of Santa Monica wore a witch costume last Halloween, but doesn’t want to dress up as anything this year because she’s frightened of anthrax attacks.

“The candy might be poisoned,” Ximena said, her head lowered as she pushed her 1-year-old brother’s stroller on the grass outside her school. “I’m not going trick-or-treating.”

If those fears weren’t enough, there’s the added tension caused by a series of e-mails crisscrossing the country that warn of a terrorist threat against shopping malls on Halloween. The e-mails--which generally claim to be from the friend of a friend of a woman whose boyfriend may have been among the Sept. 11 hijackers--have been dismissed by the FBI as “not credible,” but appear to have jangled nerves all the same.

Red, White and Blue Decorations Dominate

Make no mistake: Americans are not forgoing Halloween. Suburban houses are being decorated as usual (although red, white and blue is frequently mixed with the orange and black this year). Spending on the holiday is expected to hit an all-time high of nearly $7 billion, according to the National Retail Federation.

But there is evidence that Halloween money is being spent somewhat differently than in the past.

Parents are buying more inflatable vampire bats and bakery pumpkin cakes than ever before, as increasing numbers of Americans get ready to host children’s parties to replace trick-or-treating.

Even when parents acknowledge that the danger this year is probably no greater than years past, many still want their children home.

“When life is uncertain, I think parents look to control whatever they can,” said Elisa Newman, a child psychiatrist and pediatrician and a member of the clinical faculty of UCLA. “There’s so much you can’t control out there, especially right now. There’s a feeling of safety of having a Halloween party you have orchestrated at your house.”

Ugo Mamolo, president of supermarket bakery Viktor Benes, already can measure the stay-at-home Halloween trend in terms of increased orders for bat cookies, skull cakes and witch cupcakes.

As a part of Gelson’s stores, Mamolo said the bakeries usually cater to last-minute market shoppers. This year, however, orders for cakes shaped like pumpkins are already flowing in.

“These things are for people planning parties at home,” Mamolo said. “Orders are up quite a bit.”

Halloween was brought to the United States in the 19th century, largely by Irish immigrants, and only slowly took on the shape we know today, with children dressing in costumes and going door to door for treats.

Over time, witches and ghosts began being replaced by more contemporary demons, usually reflecting the popular culture of the moment--from Frankenstein to Freddy Krueger to the “Scream” masks. At the same time, lighter denizens of the imagination--cartoon characters, clowns, princes and princesses--also became popular.

This year, the lighter side rules.

“It’s more about having fun,” said Jim Silver, publisher of the industry magazine Toy Book. “What’s cool is being clever, not being scary.”

The hottest costumes this year at Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, are the ones that take the lead every year: superheroes. But not just Spider-Man and Superman.

“There are new superheroes this year, the ones who wear fire hats and police badges, and that’s where we’re seeing the demand,” said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Karen Burk.

Target stores, which regularly carry police, fire and SWAT team/emergency worker costumes this time of year, can barely keep the public-safety garb on the shelves.

“Some stores may have a few left,” said Douglas Kline, a Target spokesman. “In many cases, those costumes are already sold out.”

Wal-Mart also has seen demand soar for face paint, particularly red, white and blue. Sales of materials for homemade costumes are on the rise as well, Burk said, particularly those in patriotic colors.

Schools have also influenced costume choices this year, in some cases dictating the boundaries of acceptable taste.

On Thursday, Tustin Unified School District Supt. Peter Gorman sent a memo to all principals, urging them to talk with students about an appropriate way to celebrate Halloween.

“In light of the events of Sept. 11, everything is different,” Gorman said. “We don’t need students dressed in distasteful things, such as terrorists or victims. . . . We don’t want to take away the fun of Halloween, but we really want people to think about what they’re doing.”

Schools Urge Positive Costumes

Many districts and schools have had similar discussions.

A Halloween flier from Golden Hill Elementary School in Fullerton was covered with the usual drawings of grinning jack-o’-lanterns, but also carried this note: “In light of the recent tragedy in our country, we would like the students to focus on literary characters and positive role models.”

In the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, officials plan to ask all students to dress as heroes.

But many parents said they and their children don’t need such warnings. They know the world has changed, and so have their attitudes toward the holiday.

“My son said it’s going to be a lot less wild,” said Lori Berg, president of the PTA Council in the Newport-Mesa district. “People aren’t quite as excited. The general tone at school is a lot more quiet. More somber. People aren’t talking about parties anymore.”

Of course, Halloween is no longer just a children’s holiday--far from it. The big spenders are not children or their parents, but 18- to 24-year-olds, who plan to shell out an average of $68 each for Halloween fun, according to the retail federation. In the world of Hollywood, especially, Halloween costume parties have become huge draws. This year? The messages are mixed.

At Mr. Balloon, just behind the Beverly Center in Los Angeles, Halloween spirits are less than lofty.

Many hosts of large parties in Beverly Hills have either canceled or decided that balloons are not appropriate, owner Jon Dorsey said. Cancellations, Dorsey said, have streamed in since Sept. 11.

“They were all confirmed, and then they called me back to say, no, everything has changed, we’re laying people off and it’s not a good time for parties,” Dorsey said.

Parties Change Their Focus

Others have changed focus slightly. Todd Masters, president of MASTERSFX, a special-effects company, has hosted a Halloween party for eight years. This year will be no exception, but guests will be asked to contribute donations to Families of Freedom, a scholarship organization established for families of the Sept. 11 victims.

Masters said he expects a huge crowd. “I think people want to do stuff,” he said. But he expects costumes to be somewhat toned down from the usual over-the-top standards of his guests, many of whom create special effects and costumes for a living.

Nowhere is Halloween bigger than in the nation’s major gay communities. Among the largest events, although far from exclusively gay, is New York’s Village Halloween Parade, which typically attracts more than 30,000 participants and 2 million spectators to Greenwich Village.

The 28th annual event will go on as planned Halloween night, though director Jeanne Fleming said she isn’t quite sure what to expect this year. Parade officials have changed the theme from “Wisdom of the Ancients” to “Phoenix.” Fleming hopes the aftermath of the terrorist attacks won’t change the parade’s revelatory mood or limit its attendance. But if they do, she’ll understand.

“We just felt we had to do something,” she said. “We want to play a big part in the rebirth of the city.”

West Hollywood hosts a Halloween carnival, which is going forward as planned. About 250,000 people are expected, city spokeswoman Louise Grasmehr said. At the Cobalt Cantina on Robertson Boulevard, manager Amy Layman said she hoped that this year would be as lively as ever.

“You know, honestly, I think people are going to be so tired of not doing anything that they’re going to get their ya-yas out, you know what I mean?” she said. “I think a lot of people are just going to be defiant that night. I know I am, and I know that most of the circle of friends that I have are the same way. You know, enough is enough.”

She said she wouldn’t be surprised if costumes got a bit tasteless. “I would hope not, but . . . just from past experience, I would say yes. You’re going to have terrorists, you’re going to have airplane victims, you know. People do things like that.”

Mostly, though, she predicted that people would try to forget their troubles. “And if they don’t, I feel sorry for them,” she said, “because I’m certainly not going to let all this get in the way.”

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Times staff writers Bonnie Harris, Claire Yuk Jung Luna, Sandra Murillo, and special correspondent Dennis Arp contributed to this report.