“Piss off” is my earliest memory of Halloween in Australia. An old man yelled it from his front porch on a hot afternoon in the mid-nineties when a friend and I tried to trick or treat.
There was a huge “rack-off” vibe up in our neighbourhood. The closest we got to a Halloween haul was when a lady dropped a few carrots in our bags. The experience could have been my Halloween villain origin story. I could have been ranting on Sky News Australia about how it has no place in this country, but I continued to live out the spooky season by renting Hocus Pocus on VHS a billion times and savouring annual Treehouse of Horror episodes of The Simpsons.
I knew in my heart that one day Halloween would become a thing in Australia and on that day, I would do the mash – The Monster Mash.
Jump to 15 years later and houses in my street in Melbourne are covered in cobwebs, zombies rise from front lawns and ghosts hang from windows.
At first, I thought it was just a result of coming out of 260 days of lockdown, but no, it’s Halloween and I’m here for it.
Our street goes all out for Halloween and it has steadily become a mainstay. It’s so common that people hung lolly bags on their front fences during lockdown last year, and relied on a trick or treat honour system.
As more and more houses become haunted, it’s tough not to become enchanted by the hype. But who drives it? It’s the kids. They are inspired by what they’ve seen from America and the brave souls who first dared to put a jack-o-lantern on their front steps in Moonee Ponds.
I’ve got two kids, five and seven, and they’re going to be the first generation of children to grow up in an Australia where Halloween is accepted.
When they ask if we can do Halloween, it’s hard to say no – as long as they will listen first to a lengthy PowerPoint presentation about the dangers of taking lollies from strangers outside 31 October.
And why the hell not?
People say “Halloween is an American thing” (stolen from a European Celtic festival) but they forget Australia has a proud history of celebrating things that don’t make sense.
Australia Day is on the wrong date; the Queen’s Birthday ain’t on her big day and New Year’s Eve is the most overrated night of the year. What even is Valentine’s Day?
Naturally, Halloween is a perfect fit for Australia’s chaotic event calendar.
Now, more than ever, we need a reason to eat lollies, connect with our neighbours and dress in topical costumes like the Ship that got Stuck in the Suez Canal.
If the past two years have taught us anything it’s that we need community events like Halloween to socialise. There are scarier things out there than a packet of Wizz Fizz for the road and a few plastic skeletons.
Cameron Williams is a writer, scriptwriter and broadcaster based in Melbourne
