History of All Hallows' Eve
Halloween or Hallowe'en, also known as All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the eve before the Western Christian feast of All Hallows. According to some scholars, All Hallows' Eve initially incorporated traditions from pagan harvest festivals and festivals honoring the dead, particularly the Celtic Samhain; other scholars maintain that the feast originated entirely independently of Samhain.
Typical festive Halloween activities include trick-or-treating (also known as "guising"), attending costume parties, carving pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing, visiting haunted attractions, playing pranks, telling scary stories, and watching horror films
Horror Movies
In the 1970s, horror author Stephen King debuted on the film scene as many of his books were adapted for the screen, beginning with Brian De Palma's adaptation of King's first published novel, Carrie (1976), which was nominated for Academy Awards. Next, was his third published novel, The Shining (1980), which was a sleeper at the box office, with mixed reviews, but eventually began to be considered a classic. Carrie became the 9th highest-grossing film of 1976. King himself did not like The Shining, because it was barely faithful to the 1977 best-seller novel.
John Carpenter created Halloween (1978). Sean Cunningham made Friday the 13th (1980). Wes Craven directed A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984). This sub-genre would be mined by dozens of increasingly violent movies throughout the subsequent decades, and Halloween became a successful independent film. Other notable '70s slasher films include Bob Clark's Black Christmas (1974), which was released before Halloween, and was another start of the sub-genre.
In 1975, Steven Spielberg began his ascension to fame with Jaws (1975). The film kicked off a wave of killer animal stories such as Orca (1977), and Up from the Depths. Jaws is often credited as being one of the first films to use traditionally B movie elements such as horror and mild gore in a big-budget Hollywood film.
Alien (1979) combined the naturalistic acting and graphic violence of the 1970s with the monster movie plots of earlier decades, and used science fiction. The film was extremely successful in terms of both box-office and critical reception, being called "Jaws in space", and a landmark film for the science fiction genre.
