Spooky Halloween Tropes Collaboration

Hello Readers!

October came and went with flying colors. I’m excited to share with you the first community collaboration event here on Pop Culture Literary. We wanted to know about your favorite spooky/October/Halloween tropes, and today we get to share what you had to say  (if you missed the announcement page and want to see what the guidelines of this challenge were, check it out here)! It is a day later than anticipated because I was racing the clock to complete a conference paper before a deadline and had to choose between the two projects. Let’s take a moment to throw back to yesterday and enjoy some spooky tropes in the spirit of Halloween!

 

Remmy Fool from The Lily Garden writes:

Whenever All Hallows’ Eve is brought up in anime, there tends to be an explanation behind the origins of Halloween or a character opts to mention that the holiday is not traditionally practiced in Japan. It makes sense considering that anime is primarily a Japanese medium and the (native) audience needs to be made aware of what the holiday entails in case they don’t know.

Lost Marmot shares:

Scary or wicked companion cats are a common trope in spooky pop culture. A classic example of this trope is Church from Steven King’s Pet Cemetery. However, this trope can be found everywhere, including children’s cartoons that are not scary. Meowth from Pokémon is a good example of a wicked cartoon sidekick, and he is a cat-like creature. It’s important to remember that tropes do not reflect reality, and all cats deserve good and loving homes. Even though this trope is very common, there are times when fictional companion cats are depicted as benevolent and wise, such as Jiji from Kiki’s Delivery Service (a personal favorite).

Instagrammer HerbivoreAmy says:

Evil children are a common trope in spooky pop culture. Steven King’s short story “Children of the Corn” is a good example, as is the movie “The Exorcist.” This trope is used so often that it can be found throughout horror literature and film without any difficulty. Sometimes the children in question are inherently evil (as in the movie “The Ring”), and sometimes they are merely possessed by an evil force (as in the movie “Sinister”). Unfortunately, evil children are sometimes depicted as orphans (as in “The Ring” and “Annabelle: Creation”), which sadly depicts adoption as a dangerous undertaking. Many children are in need of loving homes, so hopefully this trope will not discourage any potential adoptive parents.

I’ll close us out with one of my own favorite Halloween tropes. I’ve always enjoyed when characters misunderstand or misinterpret the existence of Halloween costumes due to inexperience with Halloween culture. One great example of this is in the film Hocus Pocus. The Sanderson sisters, three witches from puritan times returned from the grave by a curse to wreak havoc on 1990s America, go out hunting for children on Halloween night. They’re awfully confused when they smell children in the streets, but can only spot monsters all around them.

Thank you to all who participated in this collaboration challenge! Keep an eye out for more collaboration challenges in the future. And if you have a challenge that you’d like to suggest, feel free to leave a shoutout in the comments, or send a message from the contact page!