Not Just for Halloween
I want to buy a gory, freaky, latex horror mask from Rubber Gorilla. Yes, it’s Halloween soon, but that’s not why I want one. I don’t even have a Halloween party to go to. The truth is – I just want one, but that’s not an ‘excuse’. It’s one of those unbelievable truths, as if there should be some kind of ulterior motive. I’m not even sure what I would do with it. I expect I would try it on and look at myself in the mirror. Perhaps I’d wear it while I made a cup of coffee, just for the fun of it. But none of those are excuses. They are reasons, but not reasonable ones. Why would anyone buy a horror mask if it’s not for Halloween? They have surely got to be serial killers, fetishists or bank robbers. None of which applies to me, though I guess there’s a first time for everything. It looks like I need to become a serial murderer, an armed robber or a sexual deviant simply as a believable excuse to own one of those masks.
So I am left with the dilemma of wanting to buy a freaky horror mask for no other reason than I would quite like to own one. If I did one day get invited to a Halloween party, then I could wear it. But then people would think that I’ve bought the mask especially for the party, and that I’m a bit ‘too’ into it. That in itself is weird. You have to wonder about those people who go to fancy dress parties and make far more effort than anyone else; the type of people who turn up in a genuine Spider-man suit from the movie that has cost them £3,000 on eBay, and you can’t help wondering what they are going to do with it when they get home.
I would quite like to buy a Michael Myers mask, as seen in the Halloween films. The original Halloween is one of my favourite horror films, a genre classic. But what excuse could I have for owning, or even wanting to own such a mask? What exactly am I going to do with it? Dress up in black and walk around wielding a kitchen knife? I thought about making some YouTube videos – a kind of Day in the Life of Michael Myers. But I wouldn’t have the balls to go to Waitrose wearing that. Come to think of it, I reckon Myers is more of a Tesco person.
