HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: A KIWI KALEIDOSCOPE by Lee Murray (and friends)
HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: A KIWI KALEIDOSCOPE
by Lee Murray (and friends)
Recently, I asked the contributors of Kiwi horror anthology Remains to be Told: Dark Tales of Aotearoa (Clan Destine Press, 1 October 2023) what they thought about Halloween in New Zealand. Is it a thing? Yes, or no? What’s your take? My colleagues’ responses were both varied and insightful.
Bryce Stevens, co-editor of the acclaimed Cthulhu Deep Down Under anthology series from IFWG, said no, “It’s not an important date” and Wellington poet Tim Jones agreed. “Not a huge fan,” he said. Although, in Tim’s case, location might be part of the issue. “We live near the top of a steep hill, so the trick-or-treaters usually give up before they reach our place.” Australian Shadows and Sir Julius Vogel Award-winner Debbie Cowens, co-author of Mansfield with Monsters, also from the Wellington region and made the same comment: “Our house was up a hill and long way away from our neighbours so it would have been a steep, tiring walk to gather much candy.” Wellington is known for its hilly landscape, but it’s hard to get behind a holiday that isn’t resilient enough to climb a hill.
Speculative writer Jacqui Greaves suggested the season is reason for New Zealanders lack of enthusiasm for the holiday. “Nope. Wrong season,” she wrote. It’s true that for antipodeans, the holiday falls in early spring when cherry blossom and daffodils abound, the season incongruent with pumpkin fields and drying corn stalks. Contributor Tracie McBride, a Kiwi now living in Australia, agreed that the season is a challenge. “Halloween is like other observations transported from the Northern Hemisphere, such as Easter and Christmas, that don’t make a lot of sense with the reversal of the seasons. But if you’re looking to fulfill a quota of nonsensical traditions, you could do worse than to swap out Guy Fawkes Night for Halloween.” Coming just a week after Halloween, Guy Fawkes night, which celebrates the torture and execution of Catholic rebel Guido Fawkes and co-conspirators of the failed Gunpowder Plot to blow up British Parliament in November 1604, is a colonial tradition which has prevailed in New Zealand, notwithstanding the strong restrictions on urban bonfires and sales of fireworks in this country.
Lower Hutt author, Del Gibson, who runs the Horror Central facebook group, claims interest in Halloween is due to American influence on New Zealand culture. “I believe that on the whole [Halloween] is an American and south American tradition that has gained traction here over the years,” she says. “I know my American horror friends go wild from July until Halloween.” Del’s story in Remains to be Told: Dark Tales of Aotearoa is a classic haunted house tale with a Kiwi twist.
I suspect Gina Cole, who is currently in sunny Hawaii on a Fulbright Scholarship writing her latest Pasifika-futurism novel, is rankled by the overt commercialism of the holiday. “Halloween is not a thing in New Zealand. It is a commercialised event imported from America to benefit retailers,” she writes, attaching this popular Batman meme to support her comment:
The choice to celebrate or not appears to be a personal matter as, despite those aforementioned pesky hills, Debbie Cowens says Halloween “is [a thing] for me, although I never really trick-or-treated as a kid as it wasn’t done much in New Zealand. I was always very keen on Halloween though and my family made a Jack-o-lantern and made pumpkin pie most years. My dad used to read ghost stories to me and my sister by candlelight, so we were pretty into Halloween when I was growing up. Once I hit the teen years it was more an excuse for binging on pizza and horror movies with my friends.”
“Hell yes!” says Marty Young, the Bram Stoker-nominated editor of Macabre: A Journey Through Australia’s Darkest Fears when I asked him the question. “Why shouldn’t it be a thing? It’s fun, and surely that should be all that matters. I know there is a long history to the holiday, but Halloween is very much a commercial holiday and has been for decades, so I have no problem with people celebrating it wherever they want to. Granted, I haven’t lived in New Zealand for a while, so I don’t know if it is popular there today, but I celebrate it every year here in Perth and I’ve seen the sheer excitement in kids’ eyes, I’ve heard the laughter from parents when we scare their kids! Families are out having such a good time.”
Screenwriter and playwright Kathryn Burnett, author of short story “Hook” said the same: “It’s def a thing – but fun for kids more than anything else.” Del Gibson feels there is still some reticence to socialise since the pandemic. “I think since COVID people are more reluctant to go door knocking for candy. Yes, children still knock on my door with costumes, some elaborate and others DIY.”
Author of The Burning Boy and Other Stories, Denver Grenell, says Halloween wasn’t a thing when he was growing up in the ‘eighties, but in recent years it has really taken off. “The small town where I live has had some great trick-or-treating in the last few years. My kids absolutely love getting dressed up and seeing their friends out trick or treating and obviously grabbing handfuls of lollies. A neighbour of mine turns his property into a mini haunt complete with graves, severed limbs, and ghouls, which gets a big crowd. I co-organised a Halloween Ball last year and will do the same this year. It warms my black heart to see the tradition embraced by more and more people. One day I plan to experience a proper North American Halloween.” [In the meantime, readers can enjoy Denver’s latest release, a book of tiny horror treats called 20,000 Bloody Words: A Collection of Horror Flash Fiction, available now from BewaretheMoon.]
But, like our local trickster Maui, Marty Young proves it isn’t just kids who love the holiday with this story from his terrible past… “when I was at uni, a group of us went trick or treating one Halloween and I wore gumboots and a long raincoat with a pair of Speedos [a very brief competition swimming costume] underneath. If I was asked for a trick, I’d flash!! Jeez, what was I thinking back then – or perhaps I wasn’t! But we had a blast; we got invited to three parties, got given several bottles of booze, and just had a fantastic night.”
Sir Julius Vogel Award-winner Celine Murray, whose poem “Whaitiri” appears in Remains to be Told: Dark Tales of Aotearoa, says that more recently “there is a positive feeling towards Halloween in queer spaces in New Zealand, and not just among young people. Halloween, with its tradition of dressing up allows the queer community an opportunity for self-expression in a way that is allowed to be socially unacceptable. Therefore, a horror holiday like Halloween can offer queer folk a safe place to explore their authentic selves. While adults who celebrate the holiday don’t typically trick or treat for candy, it’s an evening to be spend with friends.”
You can visit Aotearoa-New Zealand this spooky season simply by diving into Remains to be Told: Dark Tales of Aotearoa, or take advantage of TODAY’S GIVEAWAY! Clan Destine Press is giving away a free digital copy. Just comment below or email leekiwi [at] gmail.com with the subject title HH Contest Entry for a chance to win.
Featuring uncanny disturbances, death, and the dank breath of the native bush, Remains to be Told: Dark Tales of Aotearoa is an anthology mired in the shifting landscape of the long white cloud, and deeply imbued with the myth, culture, and character of Aotearoa-New Zealand. Laced with intrigue, suspense, horror, and even a touch of humour, the book brings together stories and poems by some of the best homegrown and Kiwi-at-heart voices working in dark fiction today. Curated by multi-award-winning author-editor Lee Murray, with a foreword by six-time Bram Stoker Awards®-winner Lisa Morton, the anthology includes a poem by Neil Gaiman, iconic Kiwi horror short story “Coming Home in the Dark” by Owen Marshall, the subject of a recent James Ashcroft feature film, as well as stories and poems by Dan Rabarts, Kirsten McKenzie, Paul Mannering, Del Gibson, Tim Jones, Denver Grenell, Kathryn Burnett, Jacqui Greaves, Celine Murray Bryce Stevens, Helena Claudia, Marty Young, Lee Murray, and Nikky Lee, Debbie Cowens, and Gina Cole.
https://www.leemurray.info/remains-to-be-told
