Trick or Treat?

OK, I've run out of Jimmy Savile gags, so we're going to have to talk about something else.  How about Halloween?  Have you even noticed that it is Halloween?  This year the mainstream media seem to be doing their best to ignore it.  No horror movies or other related programming on any of the main TV channels and only a handful of lesser istalments of the Halloween and Friday the Thirteenth movie franchises showing on some of the digital channels, (I've just seen that ITV4 is showing The Shining, again).  Oh yeah, BBC 1 did show that woeful Halloween H20 sequel over a week ago!  The main concession to the the fact that it is Halloween on the BBC's part has been the screening of Mark Gatiss' follow-up to his excellent History of Horror series on BBC4 tonight: Horror Europa.  Sadly, this was only a ninety minute special rather than a full series, but was excellent nonetheless.  You know, I have to confess that, despite being a straight guy, I have a bit of a man crush on Mark Gatiss.  He's just so genuinely knowledgable and enthusiastic about many of the same subjects as I am.  He's certainly in my top ten celebrities I'd like to have a pint with.

Maybe they're all being reticent about Halloween because it is also Jimmy Savile's birthday, (I knew there was a connection).  Perhaps the media fear that he is going to crawl out of his grave and go on the rampage tomorrow.  But rest assured, The Sleaze will be acknowleding Halloween.  October has aleady seen the publication of some of our trademark seasonal stories with a vague horror theme and I'll shortly be posting this year's official Halloween story.  I must admit that this year I was somewhat lacking in inspiration.  Plus, the neccessity of squeezing in another story to capitalise on the Jimmy Savile scandal left me with less time than usual to concoct a suitable story.  So, I went back through this blog's archives and rediscovered a piece I wrote about five years ago, expanded and rewrote it.  I must say that it turned out to be a pretty decent little story with a horror theme and plenty of surreal touches.  I'm pretty pleased with it.  So, Happy Halloween!