Shining Face

I think “The Shining” is the most terrifying movie ever. You can have your “Exorcists” and your “Saws.” I’m fairly convinced I’ve never seen the entire movie, unless you count watching it through the picket fence of my hand over my eyes. The thing that gets me is two, non bloody scenes. It’s when the mom, Shelley Duvall, and the boy, Danny Lloyd, in separate scenes, have the most terrified looks on their faces in the history of movie faces. It’s as if we’re watching their brains tear apart right before our eyes.

We did that to Elijah on Halloween.

Our street is lame on Halloween. We are the only house that actually encourages children to come Trick Or Treating. The rest of our neighbors board up their doors, turn off their lights and hide in their basements. As if giving out a couple pieces of candy would turn them into zombies.

So we decided to take everyone to the fun part of town. Where people actually give out pieces of candy instead of half assed excuses. I put out a bowl of candy on the front porch with a sign that read, “Please take two.” Steve and his Star Wars clad crew piled into their car and we followed them to our friends Kitty and Joe’s house.

Kitty and Joe do it up right. Their big, rambling brown house was covered in stringy cobwebs, ghosts, goblins and whatnot. They had a big fire roaring in their front lawn (probably the minorest of their infractions against Evanston laws). They had a apple bobbing bucket filled with Coors Light and, I believe, some candy somewhere in there.

Their finishing touch was a life-sized motorized zombie that crawled creepily across their sidewalk. It was bloody, grey, and as authentic as a motorized fictional character can be.

Diana and I leapt from our car, grabbed Luca and danced across the lawn, congratulating Kitty and Joe on their creepy masterpiece.

Someone was missing from our celebration. Namely, Elijah. We turned around and looked in the car. He was having a real-life conniption fit. The motorized zombie had snapped something in his psyche. He put those movie Shining faces to shame.

I thought for a moment that he was being a drama queen. But after attempting to drag him out of the car, I could tell he was freaking terrified of the zombie. He kicked his legs, bugged out his eyes and screamed the most desperate scream in the world.

Diana decided to hide the zombie by putting Elijah’s Star Wars mask over its face. “See? He’s a Star Wars zombie!” That seemed to make things worse. Elijah was close to hyperventilating.

Joe turned the zombie off and we managed to get Eli out of the car. But he was suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome. All he could do was mumble, “Caaandy. Caandy.”

We made it around Kitty and Joe’s block without any other incident, but I kept asking Elijah if he knew where he with us and not slipped into some parallel universe of terror.

Eventually, we drove back to our house for some Hamann fun, red wine and “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” on a constant loop on the TV.

When we got home, I noticed that some kids had ignored our “Please take two” candy sign and had cleaned us out. Then I made my own Shinning face.

p.s. PUMPKINS!