Boo!

I've never been a big fan of Halloween, I'll admit. I've never liked dressing up in costumes, especially using face paint or dried blood or other such devices. Thinking back, I was Spiderman as a child--I don't remember this myself but there is a picture somewhere. It was a cheap plastic costume. With red and white face paint (why there wasn't just a mask I don't know). Then of course I remember being dracula with the fake plastic teeth and the black cape. And of course the white face paint with dried blood on the corners of my lips. And I was a clown one year (I'll let you argue the validity of that statement to this day, dear reader). Again with the face paint. So you can see, I finally had enough and began seeking out costumes which didn't require make-up.
I was crazy about Indiana Jones. For Christmas one year I wanted the whole Indiana Jones outfit--the hat, the leather jacket, and the bull whip. My dad got many strange looks as he went around town inquiring about purchasing a whip. But he found one, and it was a beauty. I still have it and can still crack it. How safe it was to give a ten year old a full-sized bull whip seems questionable today, but those were different times. Anyway, I wore that ensemble any chance I could, so of course it became my Halloween costume for a few years. I always hated having blonde hair as a kid, so I jumped at the chance to spray it black--turning it into a crusty, toxic helmet once a year.
It was around my early teenage years that I became very interested in film, thanks to my infatuation with the aforementioned Raiders of the Lost Ark. I would conduct my own film education courses, thanks to the surge in videotape rental stores at the time. I would choose a director, read everything about them and rent all of their films. An early favorite was, of course, Alfred Hitchcock. I recently watched a wonderful interview Dick Cavett conducted with the master of suspense back in the early 70s.

DC: "How did you acquire this turn of mind. You look like such a pussycat."
AH: "I think my mother scared me when I was three months old. You see, she said Boo! It gave me the hick-ups and she was apparently very satisfied. All mothers do it you know, that's how fear starts in everyone."

Cavett was a ground-breaking interviewer with his TV show. Several episodes are available on DVD and feature in-depth interviews with stars long gone. I highly recommend them.
But back to Mr. Hitchcock. Here is the incomparable trailer for "Psycho".

That trailer is probably one of the best ever created for a film. Nobody else could have pulled that off.
So, I became a fan of Mr. Hitchcock and his films in my formative years. Unfortunately, this admiration and adoration led to a particularly unforgettable Halloween costume when I was about thirteen.
If you're thinking I stuffed a pillow in my shirt and wore a dark suit with a black tie then you're sorely mistaken. No, for some reason I thought--and more importantly was not stopped (where were my older brothers? already in college? too busy wreaking havoc with eggs and shaving cream on the High School crowd?)--that it would be a good idea to be Norman Bates from Psycho. But not just Norman Bates. Norman Bates as his knife-wielding, blood-thirsty mother. So, yes, I wore an old gray wig and a dress and I'm pretty sure carried a REAL butcher's knife (see earlier mention of real bull whip and you'll start to see a trend in my upbringing).
Well, for an already unpopular, late-developing teenager, the idea of dressing up as a woman (albeit a man dressed up as his dead mother) was not the smartest thing I've ever done. I'm sure you can imagine the dismay of my fellow peers, especially since they'd never seen this 1960 film that was some 13 years older than them--and in black and white for god's sake!
The good news is I didn't wear the wig for too long because it itched. So most of the evening I walked around in the dress and somehow managed not to harm myself or anyone else with the large knife. However, I think I can point to this one particular costume as the origin for my distaste of Halloween and costume parties in general. I'm starting to get over it, slowly. But I still don't care for the candy that much.