Slashers and Urban Legends: Halloween Sadists
The Legend: Halloween brings out the darker aspects of human nature. Every Halloween scores of children across the country are injured or killed by Halloween sadists who give trick or treaters candy laced with poison or loaded with broken glass, rusty needles, or razor blades. To make sure your child is safe this Halloween be sure to take their Halloween candy by the hospital for a quick x-ray. Or you can keep them safe by taking them to church functions or community Halloween events supervised by local authorities.
I first heard the Halloween Sadists urban legend in the early 1980s from teachers and my mom. Some kid, never named, in another county bit into a candy apple and got a mouth full of razor blade for his troubles. Another year some other poor chap bit into Halloween candy only to have a needle ram through his palate and into his nasal cavity. Freaky stories to be sure, but they never happened. Despite the numerous accounts of children harmed by Halloween Sadists, researchers can find only one murder attributed to poisoned Halloween candy. Folklorist Sylvia Grider discovered a father, not a stranger, killed his son in 1974 by loading up his son’s pixie sticks with cyanide. Over time this real murder has morphed into the story of crazy people living in Everytown, USA harming children with tainted treats.
The Films: The Halloween franchise.
Folklorist blame the Halloween films for the spread of the Halloween Sadists legend but research shows this was a popular legend years before John Carpenter’s masterpiece hit theaters. Sociologists Joel Best and Gerald Horiuchi examined the legend by checking reports of Halloween Sadists in major newspapers from the year 1958 through 1984. The sociologists found roughly six dozen reports of Halloween Sadists at work but the the men determined these stories were either hoaxes or completely unverifiable. The largest number of reports occurred between 1969 and 1971, before the golden age of slashers. What’s interesting about Best’s and Horiuchi’s research, though, is the year 1982 had the second highest number of reports. The legend of the Halloween Sadists with their dangerous apples came back to life a year after Halloween II gave audiences a quick glimpse of a little boy with a razor blade stuck between his teeth.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch takes the story of the Halloween Sadists to a national scale. The evil druid isn’t interested in hurting a few children in one town, his goal is to harm all children on Halloween. Instead of poisoned candy, this Sadists gives children booby trapped masks and promises them something special will happen if they watch his sinister broadcast. With Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, Michael Myers becomes the celluloid embodiment of the Halloween Sadists when he sets his sights on a trick or treater instead of a babysitter. Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers symbolizes how the Halloween holiday has changed since the original film premiered in 1979. Haddonfield bans Halloween and the kids fight for the right to trick or treat like the good old days. Some communities really did ban the trick or treating aspects of Halloween in the late 1980s, early 1990s to protect children from those evil sadists lurking in quiet neighborhoods. If a parent wanted to take their child trick or treating, then the parent was forced to take the child to a mall, zoo, or some other “safe” location. In an ironic twist on the Halloween Sadists legend, Halloween: H2O reveals the story of Michael Myers and his sister Laurie Strode has become a popular Halloween legend. Laurie tries to tell her boyfriend who she really is but is stopped when the boyfriend interrupts her and finishes the legend. He tells Laurie he’s heard that old story before.
Jan Harold Brunvand makes a connection between slashers and the Halloween Sadists legend in Encyclopedia of Urban Legends. Under the “Films and Urban Legends” section Brunvand states “The sinister nature of horror legends probably influenced the whole genre of so-called slasher films, especially the Halloween series of films with their allusions to rumors of Halloween sadists and the like.” Is it possible Halloween and its sequels changed the holiday by spreading this legend across the country? I think it has, at least when it comes to the trick or treating portion of the holiday. When I was a kid children did their trick or treating in neighborhoods. Today local towns offer “safe” alternatives to trick or treating with special events on main streets and down town areas. Malls encourage parents to bring the little ones in to go store to store for their treats. Some restaurants offer free kids meals if you bring in the young’uns dressed in costumes on October 31st. The emphasis is always on keeping children safe from dangerous individuals with tainted candy and razor blade apples.
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Very interesting article.I actually have some experience with ‘halloween sadism’. In 1990, I was 4 years old and my dad took me trick or treating in a suburban neighborhood just south of memphis, tn. I knocked on one door and 2 teenage boys opened and gave me a couple handfuls of that orange and black-wrapped caramel chewy candy. And when I got home my mom looked over all the candy and noticed that the chewy candy’s wrapper looked like it had been opened before. Apparently they mashed a sleeping pill into each candy and wrapped it back up. Anyway, that shit happened, Didnt report it or anything.
That is a truly disturbing story, Doug.
My very favorite thing about Halloween is handing out gobs of candy to children in costumes. The thought of someone contaminating candy is beyond horrifying. Urban legends or not, it pays to be careful.