My Halloween(s) as Jason Voorhees
Chris Zasada November 9, 2005

It’s gone by us yet again. Another Pagan holiday turned commercial money-maker has come and gone, leaving us with the memories of children pretending to be polite in order to get free hand-outs from jaded adults who must comply or else they appear to be the neighborhood Scrooge. People dress up in ridiculous clothing and put forth a little extra cheer in the name of personal gain.

Don’t worry, it’s still November. Christmas hasn’t mercifully passed by yet. I’m talking about Halloween.

It should come as little surprise that Halloween holds a special place in my heart. As a child, I would go out trick-or-treating with a near-religious devotion, only hampered by the limited vitality of accompanying parents. My sacred trick-or-treating ground was the Lyn Park subdivision, an older development where semi-rich people decided to build up and flaunt their money. It was the perfect place to beg for hand-outs.

My costumes were the typical time-tested ideas with an early-nineties touch, such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle or ninja. While the Turtle costume was appropriate for the occasion (read: really bad. It was actually the pajamas, not the superior shell costume, but at least I could be seen by motorists), the ninja costume was always a safety issue, what with the black and all.

I occasionally strayed from the goodly costume path, though. One time I wore an Earthworm Jim costume, which was so bad that my friend (who was a Jim fan as well) didn’t know what the hell I was supposed to be, so I grudgingly slipped into my ninja costume and was off. Other years, I dressed up as a ghost, a hobo, and (this is true) a witch. In retrospect, I should have just stuck with the ninja. Regardless, I usually brought home enough candy to elevate my blood sugar to Chernobyl levels.

As I grew older and entered high school, society decided I was too old to go trick-or-treating, and like a buffoon, I listened. I stayed away from the trick-or-treating scene for years, occasionally handing out candy or participating in some other modern Halloween traditions, such as looking up pornography on the Internet. For all intents and purposes, my trick-or-treating days were through.

And then something miraculous happened: on Halloween 2003, I suddenly had the night to myself, so I whipped up a quick costume and went out on the prowl. My costume of choice was the legendary Jason Voorhees, the choice based on my discovery of the Friday the 13th films via my girlfriend and two minutes of planning. An entirely too detailed account of that night can be found in this article that I wrote that night, plus pictures of one of worst looking Jason renditions outside of the pre-made costume world.

The next year, I took my girlfriend’s little brother and sister trick-or-treating, which was simply an excuse for me to relive the experience from my childhood. I was pretty excited, and I decided, having acquired a few more costume bits, to give Jason another go, creating a more realistic immortal zombie killing machine complete with an actual chainsaw (I’m not making this up). Just look at our haphazard band of trick-or-treaters!

By the way, the Freddy Krueger in this photo is my sweet and loving Christy. While other couples were going to costume parties as Raggedy Ann and Andy, we had a Freddy versus Jason theme going on. I think it says a lot about our relationship.

We went out into the night, our trick-or-treating bags at hand, ready to assault the innocent residents with our mischievous presence. Okay, I personally acted the part of the Responsible Adult and hung back while the other three did the dirty work. Fortunately, Christy passed off as a little kid perfectly and was able to score some candy without any trouble, a fact that may have the FBI knocking on my door momentarily.

Needless to say, we went through my old trick-or-treating grounds, which provided the usual bounty of tasty treats supplied by rich people. At some point over the years, the subdivision was expanded, and the new road almost came in contact with yet another subdivision filled with more people who had a strong desire to spend a few hundred thousand living in a house surrounded by mud. All told, we hit two sizable neighborhoods that night, not counting the houses that dotted our path as we walked to the subdivisions themselves.

I know that it may not sound like a whole lot of work, but as far was my trick-or-treating troops were concerned, I was forcing them to salvage for candy in the Sahara desert. By the last neighborhood, everyone was pretty tired, especially Christy, who committed the ultimate cardinal sin of Halloween and took off her mask, giving up on the bounty of candy that awaited. I was still raring to go, though, and I was lugging around a chainsaw, so I volunteered to take over the trick-or-treating duties in her stead.

And people gave me candy. I finished up that neighborhood without a problem and we all went home to shuffle through our spoils and negotiated thought-intensive candy trades. Overall, it was a great year, and indirectly planted an idea in my head that didn’t sprout until the next year.

Fast forward to this year. I was a bit bummed out about Halloween, because, in an act of unforgivable sin, I had a night class on Halloween and the teacher refused to cancel class. Somehow, she managed to evade the wrath of the Halloween gods, and I found myself sitting in my ASL class playing a modified version of Moods, a very insipid board game where players must act out emotions written on cards. The problem is, the emotions are so similar that telling them apart is half the battle (for example, moods like “crazy” and “goofy,” which, to a layperson, isn’t all that easy to act out differently). I won’t explain the rest of the rules except to say the best way to win this game is by lying in a way that can’t be proven and it’s a really dumb game.

This is what I was doing on Halloween. Fortunately, a very unlikely thing happened, a blessing from the Halloween gods themselves. The instructor was eaten by a giant jack-o-lantern.

No, wait. Actually, at 7:20, the teacher, sensing no one was getting into Moods, decided to let us out of class early. It took all of three seconds to realize what this meant: I was now free on Halloween. I raced to my car, flooring it out of the school parking lot and calculating my next move. As I soared down the dark, wet roads, dodging the occasional trick-or-treater (or, at most, skimming them), I shouted and laughed. There was forty minutes left for trick-or-treating in Oregon, plenty of time to throw on a costume and get out there for some candy.

Yes, I am twenty-three years old. I work a job at a college, have a girlfriend, and pay taxes. I have seriously contemplated home ownership, marriage (and sex), and children (none). For all intents and purposes, I should be playing my role of Responsible Adult full-time. I went trick-or-treating.

Similar to the hurried costume debate of 2003, I was having trouble deciding what I should go out as. I wanted to continue the Jason tradition, at least until I get the costume perfected. But I also contemplated one of my old high school characters, Uncle Wizard, the mysterious wizard with a serious Lolita complex. From a real-life representational stand point, my choices were this:

← Creepy Pervert Killer

Creepy Pervert →

With a certain degree of physical pain, I knew that, deep down, I would regret not continuing the Jason saga, so I went with him. I threw together my new and improved costume, complete with an actual machete. Seriously, I went out with a steel blade on the dark streets of Oregon where children were stumbling about. If this doesn’t say “Responsible Adult,” I don’t know what does.

The final product was good for what it was. Here’s what I imagine went through people’s minds as they opened their front doors and beheld my horrifying visage:

Here’s what they actually saw:

The trick-or-treating experience itself was a little disappointing, though I was starting out pretty late, and no one was out anymore. I did acquire some meager amounts of candy. One person committed an unforgivable atrocity and handed me Christmas-themed candy, possibly from last year. Considering I was in character, I could have killed them and pointed out in court that I wouldn’t do it again so long as I wasn’t dressed as Jason, though I honestly believe the courts would see it my way after I showed them the candy I received.

Interestingly, a couple of people seemed genuinely frightened by the costume, and I few commented on this. And even bigger surprise was no one asked me if I was a little too old to go trick-or-treating (no). Honestly, I attribute these two points less to the quality of the costume and the spirit of the holiday and more to the fact I was carrying two feet of bladed steel.

I violated the trick-or-treating hours by half an hour and plodded home, exhausted and with my face covered with enough sweat to cook noodles with, all conveniently sealed in my mask. Apparently, as a safety precaution against potentially contaminated candy, the mask designers decided to create a mask that, after a little sweat is applied, is impossible to get off without an industrial winch, thus preventing consumption of possibly hazardous candy and (there’s a design flaw in every product, mind you) any other type of food. Actually, I could have crammed some smaller candy in the mouth slit (again, design flaw), but at that point, I was actively forgoing dinner and wasn’t willing to see it through, and I was looking for something of the Hot Pocket variety, which, oddly, hasn’t been made into a “fun size” version yet.

I eventually pried to mask off with the aid of a crowbar, which only resulted in the loss of some unnecessary and unnoticeable patches of skin. It also left me with a severe case of mask hair, which invoked some severely evil spirits that forced me to perform a most hideous ritual: getting my groove on.

Truly more frightening than any costume.

Overall, Halloween 2005 was a success simply because it happened at all. I got to go trick-or-treating after so many years, continued building my Jason costume, and inspired several Oregon residents to strongly consider investing in sturdier locks. I’m looking forward to next Halloween, where I will ideally have a complete costume and the entire night to sponge candy off of strangers. I’m also looking forward to delivering some quality scares, assuming my potential victims haven’t already invested in firearms.

If you're interested in seeing how this entire mess started, be sure to check out Zasada's first Halloween article, found here.

Update: Zasada finally filled a void in his life and found a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles costume with a shell. Expect pictures more grotesque than the dancing animation in a future update.