Halloween Happenings at AHS

The month of October is most known for the annual holiday of Halloween. Originally created as a religious holiday, it now often symbolizes dressing up, trick or treating, and anything eerie. With growing excitement for the upcoming day, we interviewed a couple of students at Apopka.

Sophomore Samantha Dettrey expressed her fondness stating,“I think the thing I like most about Halloween is just like being scared I guess. So the scary aspect of Halloween is really appealing to me and I like [how] everyone dress[es] up, maybe in costumes that they even made on their own. I’m going to be trying to match with my boyfriend, and we’re going to be doing the Emily and I think Victor from Corpse Bride. I’m going to try to wear it for spirit day, but it might change and if I change then it’ll probably just be a simple Halloween costume if anything. I’m definitely doing pumpkin carving and I also really want to maybe go to like a haunted hayride of some sort.”

She also mentioned, “Thriller” by Michael Jackson and “This is Halloween” from “Nightmare Before Christmas” being her favorite Halloween songs.

Ren Tindall, a Senior, stated “Definitely dressing up cause like everybody does something different, and even if you do the same outfit there’s always something new that people add to it, and I just think that’s pretty cool.” She further elaborated by mentioning what her plans are for the holiday. “I have no idea [what I plan on being], which is weird because I have so many costumes at my disposal because I do cosplay outside of Halloween, so probably Starlight if I want to show off and if not then Kim Possible because I have that in my repertoire always. I’m doing Starlight for the first day [of] good vs evil because it works, and then I’m doing Kim Possible for the throwback day because I don’t have anything else to wear.”

When asked what she planned on doing on Halloween she responded, “I don’t even know. I wish I was doing Halloween Horror Nights but it’s like mad expensive so probably a party and if not I’m [going to] go to my friends house and we’re going to watch all the scary movies. Not like scream but like the scary movie franchise movies cause those are the best.”

For Halloween traditions, Ren brought up that she had a lot, but her favorite was making witch fingers with her dad. “Which is basically rolling out sugar cookie dough and then putting almonds in it for nails and making like little finger wrinkles with a fork. That’s my favorite.”

Ms. McDonald, a three dimensional studio art teacher at Apopka for 3 and a half years, replied, “Usually, my friends have a big party on Halloween Night and then when it changes from Halloween Night into the next day like the exact moment at 12 AM we go for a walk through the woods because there’s nothing scarier than doing that on Halloween night, and we find it very fun to be like ‘Haha’ catch us now, it’s not Halloween anymore.” So yeah that’s kind of the tradition.”

When asked about Halloween in general she stated, “I love how excited people get about it. It’s really fun to see everybody get in the spirit of it, plan out their costumes and how creative everyone can get, it’s really exciting. For Halloween I plan on being Jason Voorhees, who’s from one of my favorite horror movie characters. I’m gonna do the mask and everything. I probably will wear it for one of the spirit days. Probably to Beetle Juice cause my hair is green and I got a striped dress at home that I think would work for fictional character day. My best costume of all time…[would] probably [be] a costume I did a couple of years ago. I found a horror video game that I really liked that had a minor character named Marta that doesn’t exist in any of their promotional materials, so I had to build her whole dress and outfit and everything from scratch, and that was cool even made a whole like a whole glowing little lamp to carry around and a pickaxe, very fun outfit.”

 

Courtesy of Universal Studios

Throughout the interviewing process, we had multiple people mention their handmade costumes. Irulan Joseph, a Junior, is dressing up as Assassin this halloween, whose costume she created on her own which took her up to a month to create. For her Halloween tradition, she explained, “Me and my family we’re gonna try and go to Halloween Horror Nights the day before Halloween, and then after the day of Halloween we’re probably going to go trick or treating in my neighborhood, because in my neighborhood there’s like a little festival where everyone actually comes out and has somewhat of a block party. They hand out big treats and everything and yeah stuff like that and probably hang out with my friends,” stated Irulan.

Junior Alexis Kinslaw, who also created her own costume said, “I’d have to say my best costume was when I was a nine tailed fox. I made all the tales myself and assembled them to make a corset back piece that I then wore underneath a kimono with a mask, so I was completely white with all like the hair and the fur and stuff.” This year she is wearing a different costume. “For school I think I’m just going to wear more like a toned down version of my costume. I’m still not sure if I have to work or not, but if I’m not working then I’m going as a vampire witch type thing with what I just have in my closet, because I haven’t really had a lot of time to make my costume like I usually like to do. So I think that’s what I’m going to do for Halloween.”

Kinlaw’s Halloween tradition consists of  “Every Halloween me and my family will decorate our house together, so me and my two siblings will put up all the Halloween decorations, all the fun ones and stuff and then my mom and my step dad do the ones that go outside or the ones you actually have to get up to hang and then we always go to HHN (Halloween Horror Nights) [with] my two siblings cause they’re both older than I am.”

Overall, everyone at Apopka seems excited for Halloween, and we’re looking forward to extending dressing up through Spirit Week this year.