Halloween Special Issue

October 30, 2009Volume 15, Issue 2

Happy Halloween! October 30, 2009

Editor-in-Chief, Irina Levtsenyuk2 WereWolf Pack Press

Christine MurrayStaff Reporter

Halloween is about good, clean fun, especially to the younger portion of the population. But unfortunately more and more schools are banning the holiday from being celebrated (Wood-creek, thankfully, is an exception) and the motives behind their disagreement with it are unfair and shameful to the cause of freedom.

America has indeed recognized the fact that this country contains many different types of religions and that there are a wide range of conflicting beliefs. This is because, of course, we are a country of variety, and have always been that way. In recognition of these

different religious practices, certain things have been changed in order to keep from offending any one group or race and re-designed to be able to ad-dress them as a whole.

An example of this is when “Merry Christmas” was changed to “Happy Holidays” and “Season’s Greetings.” And even though our country went against its Christian roots and what it was founded on in order to make this happen, it wasn’t enough, because sadly many people are still fighting for more politically-correct changes in holiday celebrations.

Why should we stop the celebra-tion of Halloween in our schools? The minority of the population, who does not approve and has gotten involved in the call to ban Halloween from public

school systems, should simply choose to not let their children participate.

America has been celebrating Hal-loween as an official holiday since the 19th century - should all of our tradi-tions and history of celebrations be banned from the public?

Even though we are a country that holds and accepts many different lifestyles, we are still a country with traditions and roots just like any other. Halloween is one of those.

It seems as though those against this celebration aren’t equipped with any concrete, convincing argument other than preconceived views of Hal-loween as a satanic holiday.

They overlook the innocent prac-tices that define today’s celebration - trick-or-treating for candy at houses

in your neighborhood, dressing up in costumes of characters such as Disney princesses or Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, and visiting haunted houses and attractions filled with gory, creepy ac-tors. These practices are far removed from any religious connections.

Halloween has simply evolved over time into a holiday that consists of a lot less religious affiliation for most people.

Those in opposition should create for themselves a clearer concept of modern Halloween in America and the effects it has on both the people who participate and the ones who only watch.

It’s strange that dressing up, watch-ing a parade, or throwing a party with black lights and popcorn balls could be considered anything but innocent.

Halloween season should be celebrated

Michael Myers

Not to be confused with the spy who, well you know, Mr. Myers has been the epit-ome of Halloween ever since his film was so appropriately named.

His reign as the supreme homocidal maniac began the night he murdered his ham-ster (rest in peace, Squiggles). And he didn’t stop there. He went on to brutally slaughter his sister, her boyfriend, and basically every other human being who happened to come across the screen.

The infamous Shatner mask keeps us quaking in fear. Don’t let your guard down this Halloween; it’s his day, after all.

Jason Voorhees

Nobody yields a blood-drenched machete quite like the nation’s second biggest mama’s boy (Norman Bates, being the first). Jason Voor-hees, once drowned in the lake of his summer camp, is out to bring his own brand of pain to the taunting children of his past . . . or anyone else who plans on camping in the vicinity of Crystal Lake.

The stained hockey mask may be a bit gruesome, but it’s definitely a step up from the ugly mug only a moth-er could love. Oh, and he’s also huge. Like HUGE. Like freakishly, obscenely big.

Samara Morgan

Who knew that little girls could be so darn horrifying? Well...everyone, but Little Miss Morgan definitely steals the show.

With her long hair and grimy nightgown, Samara is every disgruntled mother’s nightmare. Not only is she clingy beyond the point of a normal mother-daughter relationship, but she’s lost all ability to walk upright with a lady-like posture. She’s resorted to crawling up stone walls and possessing defenseless children with lov-ing families. Is it really their fault that your parents didn’t get you that Malibu Barbie for Christmas?

EVIL

Furby

Freddy Kruger

With all the evil in this world, you can be sure that you’ll be safe and sound in your dreams.

Or not.If you’re feeling restless

in the night, Sir Frederick Kruger will be sure to calm your nerves and put you right to sleep, so that he can rip you apart with his spindly finger claws.

No amount of anti-drows-iness medication or fluffy teddy bears can keep you from the fate that awaits you at the other end of the R.E.M. cycle.

So hug those covers tight, kid. You’re in for a wild night. Enough said.

Happy Halloween!October 30, 2009

Editor-in-Chief, Irina Levtsenyuk WereWolf Pack Press 3

Have “teen” outfits entered a new level of inappropriate?Brooke Benson

Staff Reporter

Halloween is meant to be the one night a year parents allow their small children to parade around as monsters, begging strangers for candy. Subur-ban Roseville streets are littered with goblins, ghosts and fairy princesses. But not all is so carefree and innocent; teenagers party it out in lingerie and animal ears (the girls in particular).

The days have long since passed when Halloween meant transforming yourself into what you have always wanted to be: a fairy princess or a terri-fying swamp monster. Puberty hits and all of a sudden the entire female popu-lation thinks it is socially acceptable to dress in scandalous attire, which, for the record, does not constitute a costume.

‘Adult’ costumes seem to be nothing more than trashy spin-offs of children’s costumes these days. A large assortment of inappropriate costumes do little more than parallel those from our childhoods, scarring once innocent memories.

The days of Happily Ever After have faded to those of racy dresses that barely pass up the delicates, illustrating the idea that we seem to connect racy costumes and pounds of makeup with maturity. Trashy, for the record, does not equal mature.

These costumes are not reserved just for the slim Abercrombie Zombies, either.

The trend has spread to the heavier population of girls, rendering them oblivious to the torrent of ridicules they are sure to receive from their peers con-cerning the distasteful amount of skin they don’t need to be showing. The idea of wearing clothes to flatter the figure doesn’t seem as important as conform-ing to the rules prescribed to the entire teenage girl population.

Halloween has evolved into the one night a year when a girl can dress as much like a promiscuous 21 year-old as she wants to and no one will say anything about it. And unless the en-tire teenage girl population dreams of a career involving poles and fast-paced music, I highly doubt Halloween repre-sents what it used to for anyone.

When asked her opinion of modern day Halloween costumes, sophomore Sara Gibbons said, “They’re trashy and disgusting. It’s embarrassing.”

Yes, yes it is.

Costumes hit an all- time low

4 WereWolf Pack Press Featainment Editors, Carley Higgins and Kaitlyn May

Happy Halloween! October 30, 2009

Mac: A True Haunting Kaitlyn May

Special Section and Featainment Co-Editor

For all Northern California Hal-loween-lovers, Fright Planet is defi-nitely the place to spend a crisp Jackson (that’s a $20, folks). The seemingly-high admission price is actually money well-spent, paying for four quality haunted houses. For someone who has never set foot inside a haunted house until this year and is usually a scaredy-cat, I can personally attest that the attractions at Fright Planet are the perfect blend of scary and thrilling.

The first house you approach is the Pennville Insane Asylum. Filled with neurotic patients and equally psychotic doctors, this house is a pretty simple walk from start to finish. The claustrophobic

might feel uneasy walking down the corridor of doors, but ultimately the path is clear – save for the occasional obsessive patient. Despite the creepy nurses, you may be put at ease by the soothing elevator music, played just as much for your pleasure as it is for the insane. Just before the end, you may be offered a vaccination, but your best bet is to leave before the doctor ‘escorts’ you out.

Secondly is Podunk Hill, proudly dubbed a ‘Hillbilly Reunion’. While seemingly the least scary, this house is unique in the fact that there is no one correct way to go. Multiple times your path is diverted and you must make a choice of which way to turn. Amidst your confusion, you’ll have to make it through a corridor of hanging meat. As-saulted by strobe lights and stalked by a zombified hillbilly, this section of the

house is much more thrilling than it may sound. Make it through, and you’ll be heading on to…

Fright Planet may cause incontinance…the third house, Blackout. De-

pending on the person, this house may be either the scariest or the simplest. This house has absolutely no light, save for the sparse glowsticks that outline your path. Even at this, it is hard to find your way. My group, for example, kept trying to continue through the emer-gency exits and had to reroute in order to press onwards. Luckily, the workers will flip on the lights for split-seconds in order to help you out.

The last haunt is the Boondock Bay-ou, a Louisianna-themed swamp full of ghosts and traces of the occult. Here, the spooks aren’t so obvious – prepare to be scared by more mundane things, such as bushes and trees. In this house you may relax: nothing will really follow after you and you may saunter your way to the very end, where you will be bid adieu by authentic coffins.

Still not sure how you’d fare? Talk-ing to the zombies and singing upbeat music as you wander through the haunts generally adds a memorable twist to your experience. Just be sure to check behind you, because you never

know when you’ll become the at-traction.

6130 Birdcage Center Lane Citrus Heights, CA 95610

PHOTOS FROM FRIGHT PLANET.COM

Lucas Gajsek, Senior

Kaitlyn May and Amanda NelsonFeatainment Editor and Assistant Special Section Editor

It’s the dead of night before the big show. You sit alone in the workshop of the school theater. Everything is silent, save for the distant buzz of the halogen lights above. Suddenly, a loud BANG! sounds from the stage. Fearing the worst, you spring from your position, racing through the side door and onto the stage, hoping that the set that you slaved so long over hasn’t collapsed.

Silence. The single ghost-light on the stage spreads an eerie yellow light over the stage – the sets are still intact. Everything is exactly as you have left it.

Finding no source of the noise, you slowly retreat back into the workshop, though you have the feeling you are being watched…

It has been said that a ghost has taken residence within our very theatre. Called ‘Mac’ by the students – in cor-relation with a certain Scottish play of a like name – he is said to be a young man with a particular vengeance for freshmen and performers alike. Rumor has it that Mac is the spirit of a male student who died onstage during a choir performance when the school was still young.

According to students, Mac has a tendency for trying to push freshmen (particularly girls) and performers off of the main stage and off of sets. Such experiences have been described as ‘a sudden pressure against the shoulders or back’, sometimes as even more of a ‘pulling sensation’. Mac has been said to physically manifest in areas where no one else is at the time of sighting, most commonly behind the curtain(house left), within the shop, and in the light booth. He messes with the stage and house lights frequently, flicking them on after they’ve been purposely turned off. There have also been several incidents where performers and students hear loud banging sounds onstage and in the shop. Alarmed, they’ll go to the source to find that either nothing has happened or that otherwise-unmovable objects have changed location. Other reports include having heard footsteps in areas that are otherwise vacant, and voices coming from within the coves. Audi-ence members may attest to the feel-ing of having someone play with their hair, only to find that their companions haven’t touched them. Our poltergeist also enjoys trying to trip people on and off-stage, grabbing students’ arms tightly and causing intense burning sensations, and ‘tickling’ people’s backs. It is also said that the temperature rap-idly changes to either freezing or very hot when he’s around.

Although no hard copy evidence has been found to prove Mac’s existence, and our own Tom Fearon has denied the ghost’s being, Mac has undoubtedly become a part of our school.

WereWolf Pack Press 5

Happy HalloweenOctober 30, 2009

Carley Higgins and Kaitlyn May, Featainment Editors

Fall options entertain

Amanda NelsonAssistant Special Section Editor

Pale figures with permanent grins and milky, soul-less eyes wander the grounds and children clutching mangled demon dolls growl fiercely at passersby.

Welcome to Callson Manor, the haunted house company whose three haunted attractions have taken up residence at the Placer County Fair-grounds. From the second you step through the gate, you’re immersed in a frightful and terrifying world. For $10 ($20 if you’re brave enough to venture into all three attractions), you will be pulled into a place where your senses are drenched in horror that will keep you wanting more.

The first of the triad is The Vam-pire Crypt, a haunted sepulcher where you become the main course for the vampires’ evening meal—but these vampires are far from the sparkling sweethearts of popular culture; instead they are armed with bloodshot eyes, dark cloaks and fangs dripping in blood. With these hissing fiends around every dark corner, The Vampire Crypt truly provides the largest shock factor of the three houses.

The next attraction is the aptly named Callson Manor Funeral Home, easily the tamest of the three houses. What it lacks in shock factor value, it

makes up for in its unsettling nature. The residents of the manor linger uncomfortably close, ghostly children wander across your path and shrieking attendants make unsettling advances towards you.

The final haunted house outdoes all others with its length, gore, and sheer unsettling quality. The Deadlands takes you into the haunted old west, combin-ing every aspect of the other two attrac-tions and adding an extra heap of night-mare fuel on top. Bodies hang from the ceiling, lights flash, and zombies spring out from nooks and crannies previously thought uninhabited. The Deadlands will take you to the very edge of your sanity and back, challenging nearly every fear someone could have.

Even while not perusing one of the three attractions, guests will be treated to a delightfully frightful world where fear is upon you every second of your stay. Elaborately-costumed ghouls roam the grounds of the manor, and startling any unassum-ing passerby into terrified submission.

Just re -member: the second you enter the manor, you are never safe from fear.

Dani Butterfield, Megan BarnettStaff Reporters

If you ever find yourself staring out your window watching leaves flutter gently to the ground where they will lay until they decompose, just get off your couch, take your friends by the hand, and go skipping off to some of these fall festivities.

Our first stop on the autumn trail lands us in Wheatland at Bishop’s Pumpkin Farm. Here you can take a hayride to the fields where you can pick out your pump-kin. But before you do that, don’t hesitate to test out the many other attractions at Bishop’s. Visit the petting zoo where furry lit-tle creatures romp around while you feed them small pellets of generic “animal food”. And you can always pick yourself up an amazing dessert before you hit the other activities. The corn maze, although small, can be oodles of fun as long as it’s not brimming with people. But the whole point of

going lies in reconnecting with your child-

hood memo-ries and hav-

ing a fabulous time making new ones. Moving on now to a place a little

further away from home, up high where the sky is blue and where bluebirds fly, rests our next stop: Apple Hill. Here you can find the true merriment in eating apples. You can have apples on

a stick, in a pie, in some juice, in a fritter, and even one

straight from the tree. Many apple-themed contests and booths

line the streets. You can have an outdoor

picnic or eat at a farmhouse restau-rant. Overall your experience will be best enjoyed if you appreci-ate relaxing in a typical fall en-vironment and remember to

bring back lots of new scenic and charming pictures as well as the typical pounds and pounds of apples.

So instead of watching re-runs or spending countless hours on the com-puter virtually talking to others, just head on out and immerse yourself in the local flavor of this autumn season.

Brooke BensonStaff Reporter

One night a year millions of indi-viduals across America perch them-selves on the edges of their couches with their loved ones, laden with popcorn, mentally pre-paring them-s e l v e s f o r a good two hours of bone-chilling ghosts and ghouls.

The Exor-cist, deemed the scariest movie in exis-tence by sev-eral different sources, de-serves its title. The combina-tion of quirky camera work and religious connections make this movie one of the scariest choices for this Halloween.

The second best movie for this Halloween has to be Paranormal Ac-tivity. More recent than The Exorcist, and infinitely more popular among the younger generation, this movie is argu-ably one of the more terrifying movies ever made. It’s been known to send

viewers from the theater crying.Scream takes third simply for the

unrivaled gore featured. The haunting tale follows a masked psycho killer as he hunts down teenagers and cops alike through a trilogy full of horror and blood. Scream is one of the best

slasher films of all time, by far.

The Night-m a r e B e f o r e C h r i s t m a s , which blends both holidays, pitted against each other in a flurry of song and dance is sure to entertain every-one. This movie is definitely a clas-sic for every kid’s Halloween.

Another Dis-ney classic, Hal-l o w e e n t o w n , wins for its sheer classic, childish nature. The movie

follows a family of witches as they battle an evil wizard trying to take over a town entirely based on the holiday. The town includes a skeleton taxi-cab driver and a lot of fluffy monsters, which makes this movie one of the best children’s movies for this time of year.

Although these aren’t the only clas-sic Halloween movies by far, they are definitely the most watched.

Irina LevtsenyukEditor-in-Chief

In 2004, I was certain that nothing could be triumphant over my then-favorite zombie comedy, Shaun of the Dead. It has taken Hollywood five years to give Shaun and his undead a run for their money. But oh, was it worth it.

Welcome to Zombieland. Popula-tion: it depends on what you’re count-ing. The neighborhoods are classy, the schools are top notch, and your neigh-bors are dying to meat you. Yes, I just made that pun. If you didn’t get it, go back and read it a couple times.

For all those who are still with me, back to the tour. Columbus, our tour guide, is your typical awkward, anx-ious, “inexperienced” college kid hoping to survive a zombie apoca-lypse. He’s created a series of rules meant to keep him safe and not digested, all of which are now crocheted on various pillows in my living room. Especially “Beware of Bathrooms.” Zombies have wised up

and realized where we reach our highest level of vulnerability, and they’re hitting us where it hurts. There’s another one, folks. I apologize, can’t help myself.

Aided by his bitter ally, Tallahassee, Columbus goes off in search of a zombie-free fortress...and the world’s very last Twinky. Their hi-jinx are hilarious, their problems are perilous, and I just used alliteration way too many times in one sentence.

Go see this movie. And when you do, remember one thing as you’re leaving the theater. Check your back seat.

PLAY BALL! But first, the National Anthem performed by an undead Whitney Houston.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES

Callson Manor brings deadly sophistication to classic frights

Assistant Last Page Editor, Corey Sheefel24 Wolf Pack Press

Happy Halloween! October 30, 2009

Things you may have never known, the truth of Halloween is finally revealed!

The old man who gives out candy that looks like cough drops- this man is

a murderer. Do not eat the cough drops! You will die. You will cough, then drop to the floor. My friend once tried to eat one, but I back-handed him before

he did. He later realized what I had done for him and he now massages my feet every Tuesday. So boys and girls (and adults), if you’re going out trick-or-treating this year, be-ware of old creepy men. Especially

in open-toed sandals.

Black cats! Oh no! But seriously, why do people think black cats are scary or bad luck? The truth is, black cats just wanna be loved! When you see

one and run away, a tiny black tear runs down that kitty’s face. Next time you see these poor kittens, you should purr to them, pick them up and show

some love. Black kitties need love, too. They also love it when you “call em’ Big Poppa.”

The people who give out pennies- WHERE DO THEY GET ALL THESE PENNIES AND WHY DO THEY GIVE THEM OUT ON HALLOWEEN??? First of all, no one is excited when you give them a small handful of pennies. Wowwee - 25 cents! Excellent! Party on, Wayne! What are those people ex-

pect- ing when they give you a couple pennies; are we supposed to be happy? Does any-one say trick-or-treat… or pennies would be

cool, too. This is one mys-tery that will never be solved.

By the way, if you dress up as Michael Jackson for Halloween... Zombies will bite your head off

and chew on your innards...Just saying…