Confession: after the village children we knew grew up and stopped coming around at Hallowe’en, Cam and I got a bit overwhelmed by the onslaught of little strangers, all 300 of them, who were dropped in the village like litters of kittens and had depleted our supply of goodies by 7:00 Hallowe’en eve. It felt awful to hover inside in the darkness while they continued to pound on the door.

So one year we loaded a basket with wine and chocolate, pulled pillowcases over our heads, and drove up a long roadway to the isolated home of friends who always stocked some treats, but never had any children come to their house. They recovered quickly from the shock of two large (giggling) hooded figures at the door, and a new custom began, with the four of us sharing a Hallowe’en dinner at their place every year. By the time we returned to the village, all would be quiet.
But things change, and there are strangers in their house this year.

So, curious about the haunted barn that for the past six years has been drawing crowds to Bev McNeil’s place in Sydenham, I went over the day before Hallowe’en to find out more.
Bev’s daughters, Cathy and Lauren, whom I remember coming to our door as children, were in the final stages of preparation for an event they had been planning all year. This year’s theme was a haunted toy store. Cast members would be arriving the next day around 4:00 to get into make-up and costumes.
“We all take part, and our husbands, children and their friends,” says Lauren. Somewhere in the course of our conversation Cathy says that one of the hardest last-minute jobs is helping everyone get their makeup on in time. I offer to help. “I yell a lot and can get pretty snarky when the pressure’s on,” says Cathy, looking at me dubiously. I say I can do stage makeup and as a former waitress, am very used to working under pressure and being yelled at. That’s how I signed up at the haunted barn as an embedded journalist, so to speak.

This afternoon, Bev’s big house was alive with people of all ages from six weeks olds to seniors. Wigs and costumes were upstairs, people were everywhere. Everyone seemed to have a pretty good idea of their character, and Cathy opened out an impressive make-up kit in the middle of the kitchen, a large old-fashioned central room with plenty of space. Some did their own make-up, others sat down at the table and Cathy pulled up pictures of the makeup needed: Raggedy Ann & Andy, a mechanical monkey, a demented six-foot rabbit, a Jack-in-the box, a cracked porcelain doll. Mountains of pizza arrived and disappeared.

Nobody yelled, though the clown, the rabbit and the teddy bear all complained their masks were hot and stuffy. Cathy and Lauren gave last-minute coaching to the actors, a borrowed popcorn machine was set up at the exit from the barn, beside the visitors book. Everyone who came through the barn would be rewarded with a bag of popcorn. Friends arrived to hand out trick-or-treat candies at the front door of the house. By 6:00 when the first visitors arrived, everyone was in their place. There were about 24 costumed characters, including Cathy, Lauren and Bev herself.
I loved my trip through the barn, could hardly stop grinning, for there were surprises around every corner; lighting and sound effects were great; everyone was wonderful and would indeed have been scary, had I not known every line on their faces. Before long, the crowds had started to arrive, and more than one came out of the barn and slipped to the end of the line to do it again.

The haunted barn is free, a gift to the community from the McNeil clan: any money put in the donation jar goes into the Loughborough Christmas and Emergency fund. Bev McNeil is one of the five volunteers who for many years have been organizing the Christmas food baskets for local families.
As I walked home across the village, the sidewalks were crowded with costumed children and adults. At many houses, people had set up tables with candy on their front lawns. St Paul’s church had a long table on the sidewalk with treats and chocolate for the children and coffee for the grown-ups. One home had a large tent-like entrance to their front door, another a huge fire-breathing dragon on the roof.

Tom and Dorothy’s front lawn was, as always, colourful and spooky. A police car cruised slowly along the streets, blasting out music from ‘Ghostbusters’. The moon was nearly full and though it was chilly, there was no rain.

By 9:00 all was quiet again.

Those unfamiliar with the lore of Mexico’s Day of the Dead holiday may not have realized that one Sharbot Lake family with roots in Mexico were paying tribute to that country's Halloween traditions. Leslie Johnson, her son Chris, his wife Ana and their daughter Sophia, along with good friend Susan, chose to flavor their Halloween celebrations by honoring the Mexican traditions of the Day of the Dead holiday.

Chris was dressed as a mariachi, a traditional Mexican roots musician, Sophia was dressed as the enigmatic Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, and it was the ladies who put the Mexican tradition of “La Calavera Catrina” to the fore. The ladies wore white skeletal faces, fancy European dress and loads of jewelry reflecting La Calavera Catrina, which translates in English to “dapper skeleton" or "elegant skull".

The image or character comes from a zinc etching created in 1910-1913 by the famous Mexican printmaker Jose Guadalupe Posada, which shows a female skeleton dressed in a fancy hat befitting the upper class European outfits typical of the early 20th century. For the artist, the character represented a satirical portrait of certain Mexican natives who Posada felt were aspiring to adopt European aristocratic traditions in Mexico’s pre-revolutionary era. The name “La Calavera Catrina” is derived from a 1948 work by artist Diego Rivera.

Today La Calavera Catrina remains a popular costume for Mexicans celebrating the Day of the Dead. Thanks to Leslie, Chris, Ana, Sophia and Susan, this Halloween in Sharbot Lake had a unique Mexican flavour to it, likely unbeknownst to the many young trick or treaters who visited their home.

The original leaflet that accompanied the etching described a person who was “ashamed of their Indian origins and instead chose to dress in the French style and to wear white makeup to make his skin look whiter”.

While Posada introduced the character, the popularity of La Calavera Catrina as well as her name is derived from a work by artist Diego Rivera in his 1948 work “Sueño de una tarde dominical en la Alameda Central" (Dream of a Sunday Afternoon along Central Alameda).

The culture of La Calavera Catrina also has deep political associations and has ties to political satire. The original was inspired by the polarizing reign of dictator Porfirio Díaz. Though Diaz' reign modernized and brought financial stability to Mexico, those accomplishments pale in comparison to his government's repression, corruption, extravagance and obsession with all things European and brought extreme wealth to the hands of the privileged few. This in turn brought much discontent and suffering to Mexico and eventually led to the 1910 rebellion that toppled Diaz in 1911 and became the Mexican Revolution.

For those looking for a real fright on Halloween night, Sydenham was one place to be. For the last five years, members of the McNeill family, along with the help of numerous relatives and friends, have been scaring the wits out of Halloween revelers in an old barn located just behind their historic home on Rutledge Road.

The barn is where the close to 25 volunteers spend all year planning and preparing for the well known, free, annual Sydenham event, which the family have been offering simply because they “love Halloween”. On Saturday night hundreds of costumed trick or treaters lined up just outside the barn’s front door, where Cathy mcNeill Richmond, dressed as a witch doctor, greeted the patiently waiting visitors with shrunken skull in hand. Cathy grew up in the house and her mother still lives there. Mom is also a member of the haunted barn cast.

Cathy warned them of the strobe lights and fog machine inside but gave no other clues about what lay ahead, though multiple shrieks and bumps could be heard from within.

The theme this year was an “old-fashioned Gothic haunt” and the first scene to greet visitors was a family of four vampires, one lying in a coffin, seemingly dead and with a large bloody knife protruding from her chest. As the scary, dramatic organ music played and when the unsuspecting visitors were near, the dead person suddenly rose from her coffin and hissed.

Asked what in her opinion was the scariest scene inside, Cathy said, “For me it is the shadow in the maze”. Cathy said she her sister take the hobby of Halloween haunting seriously and both are members of the Canadian Haunters Association, a group that shares ideas about what works and what doesn't when if comes to getting the biggest scream. She said that she and her team spend a whole year designing and creating the horrors. “When we first started doing this five years ago, it was kind of hodge-podge and make-shift but since then we've started building solid walls and creating permanent structures, which is why it takes us a whole year to get ready”. She said the crew would begin redesigning the barn the very next day for Halloween 2016.

Themes in years past have included a zombie wedding, an asylum and a Heaven and Hell theme and judging by the hundreds who attended the Haunted Barn this year, it seems as though Cathy and her team know exactly what it takes to frighten folks. While the goal is to scare people, she said that she and her cast would tone it down when younger guests come through. She added that while no visitor has experienced a serious health issue resulting from a scare, she did admit that one visitor one year did pee their pants.

The event attracted Halloween revelers from as far away as Kingston and Amherstview. I spoke with Saskia Richardson from Kingston, who brought her mother Theresa along, who was visiting her from Slovakia. “We don't really celebrate Halloween in Slovakia and I wanted my mother to see this kind of thing first hand.”

Sydenham's Haunted Barn is on Facebook and if you missed it this year you can visit there to see what you missed.

The worst part of the claustrophobic, dark, scream filled, zombified trip through the transformed motel rooms at the Sharbot Lake Country Inn on the evenings of Octoerb 30 and 31st was the fact that every one looked so familiar.

It's one thing being scared by a bunch of strangers, but having about 20 people from your own community transformed by costume, moving stiffly with a far away look in their eyes creates more than a bit of unease. Then there were the teddy bears that came to life, the white rabbits, the haunted kids asking for help, the woman in a cage, the life sized puppet in a mask come to life, and the woman tied to a table while a man in a gas mask stood over her with the intention of cutting her into pieces.

All in all, it was not really an event to bring the kids to, or squeamish adults for that matter.

As a piece of active theatre, put together by a large group to bring Halloween to life by creating an event to remember, it was rather brilliant.

This was the third year that the White family (and they were all involved) along with hotel staff, friends an neighbours, have put on a haunted house. 80 people went through on the first night and many more on Halloween.

Who knows what will happen in year 4?