Gruesome Halloween

I've always thought the Roman empire has been given a bad rap. Gladiatorial contests, with humans killing each other in front of roaring crowds? People being set on fire and burnt like candles? Flayings alive? Surely Hollywood took a few hints from history and turned them into full-blown horrors to get their numbers up?

Alas, just in time for Halloween, the academic texts I've been reading on the Roman empire say I've been uncharacteristically optimistic about the human race. If anything, Hollywood has been restrained. That could be why the Halloween decorations on Vancouver's streets look different to me this year. Skeletons have always been around, but do we usually have displays of severed human limbs -- hands, legs, feet, unrecognizable lumps? Is it unusual to sit a ghoul on a chair and have it feasting on the red contents of an opened skull?

Fortunately, the lighter elements are around too -- the grinning pumpkins, the fuzzy spiders, the jolly-looking ghosts. But did one set of those ghosts have to be wearing chains that would have done a Christian martyr proud? And sadly, the grinning pumpkins I photographed are offering fireworks that can blow your fingers off. Happy Halloween!

A ghoul with a tasty dish of skull sits at a sidewalk table. If I was a child, I would be horrified at this scene.

Agh, the ghoul and skull weren't enough; a bloodied skeleton in white appears to be reaching for the skull.

A bloodied hand dangles from a hedge.

I couldn't get close enough to get a clear photo, but dangling from the overhang are the bloody stump of a sawed-off leg, complete with shoe. There is also a hand and what appear to be other body parts. The skeletons look benign in comparison.

A skeleton and spider dangle from an overhead line over the sidewalk.

A pumpkin with a shroud-like body and a twig-like hand dangle from a tree.

This hedge display looks just grim.

A jolly (or is it menacing?) ghost, chained to a tree. 

In this view, the ghost at least looks cheerful.

The figure of a dangling man juts out from the upper balcony of this house. It's not particularly gory, but menacing just the same. To the right is a giant spider's web.

Shrouded bushes and a severe figure in black and white on the steps make this a semi-scary scene.

The pumpkins are jolly, but the fireworks they're advertising are my own personal pet peeve. They scare my cat, and every so often, they blow some kid's fingers off. As a former newspaper reporter, I used to have to write those stories.