WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT HALLOWEEN?

HALLOWEEN HISTORY

Halloween (also spelled Hallowe'en) is an annual holiday celebrated on October 31. It has roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Christian holy day of All Saints.

Originally Halloween was a pagan festival, around the idea of linking the living with the dead, when contact became possible between the spirits and the physical world, and magical things were more likely to happen. Like most pagan festivals, long ago it was absorbed into the festivals of the expanding Christian church, and became associated with All Hallows Day, or All Saints Day, which eventually fell on November 1.
The celebration of Halloween survived most strongly in Ireland. It was an end of summer festival, and was often celebrated in each community with a bonfire to ward off the evil spirits. Children would go from door to door in disguise as creatures from the underworld to collect treats, mainly fruit, nuts and the like for the festivities. These were used for playing traditional games like eating an apple on a string or bobbing for apples and other gifts in a basin of water, without using your hands. Salt might be sprinkled on the visiting children to ward off evil spirits. Carving turnips as ghoulish faces to hold candles became a popular part of the festival, which has been adapted to carving pumpkins in America.

The day is often associated with the colours black and orange, and is strongly associated with symbols like the jack-o'-lantern. Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, wearing costumes and attending costume parties, ghost tours, bonfires, visiting haunted attractions, telling scary stories, and watching horror films!

When and where is it celebrated?

Halloween is celebrated on 31^st of October . Where celebreted in America, Canada, USA and UK.

Why is it celebrated on the 31st October?

Because is the day of All Saints.

Is it a religious celebration?

Yes, it is.

What does the word 'Halloween' mean?

The words mean: All Hallows even

Name 2 typical games.

Bobbing and apple and carving pumpkins.

How do people celebrate it today?

Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, wearing costumes and attending costume parties, ghost tours, bonfires, visiting haunted attractions, telling scary stories, and watching horror films.

SLEEPY HOLLOW

PLOT

Ichabod Crane is a 24-year-old New York City police officer in 1799. Facing imprisonment for going against traditional methods and favoring forensic investigation techniques such as finger-printing and autopsies not considered to be orthodox at that time and considered unimportant, Ichabod submits to deployment with his bag of tools to the Westchester County hamlet of Sleepy Hollow, New York, which has been plagued by a series of brutal slayings in which the victims have been found decapitated: Peter Van Garrett, wealthy farmer and landowner; his son Dirk; and the widow Emily Winship, who secretly wed Van Garrett and was pregnant before being murdered. Arriving in Sleepy Hollow, Crane is informed by the town's elders that the killer is not of flesh and blood, but rather an undead headless Hessian mercenary from the American Revolution War who rides at night on a massive black steed in search of his missing head.

Crane begins his investigation, remaining highly skeptical about the supernatural elements in the case until he actually encounters the Headless Horseman himself, who kills the Magistrate Samuel Phillipse on sight. Boarding in a room at the home of the town's richest family and the Van Garretts' next of kin, the Van Tassels, Crane develops an attraction to their daughter Katrina (an attraction deeply resented by Brom van Brunt, a suitor to Katrina), while he is plagued by nightmares of his mother's horrific torture when he was a child. Brom attempts to frighten Crane away by posing as the Headless Horseman, but is himself killed by the real Horseman. Riding into the Western Woods with the orphaned Young Masbath, son of the Horseman's fifth victim, they come across the cave dwelling of a reclusive sorceress. She reveals the location of the gnarled Tree of the Dead, which marks the Horseman's grave, as well as his portal into the natural world from the supernatural.

Crane discovers that the ground is freshly disturbed and, digging through, discovers the Horseman's skeleton and that the skull is missing; just then, the Horseman's ghost bursts out of the tree and gallops towards Sleepy Hollow. Crane attempts to follow but winds up lost. The Killian family are taken by the Horseman because of the threat the midwife poses to Lady Van Tassel's secret and a town council is held in the town church. The Horseman seemingly kills Lady Van Tassel and heads off to the church to get Katrina's father Baltus, with the townspeople filing in just as the horseman arrives. With the men firing muskets at the Horseman as he circles the church, Crane realizes the Horseman can't enter the church grounds due to some protective supernatural force. A massive fight breaks out in the church when Dr. Thomas Lancaster suggests confessing for forgiveness, and then Lancaster is killed by Reverend Steenwyck, who is in turn shot by a frightened Baltus. The chaos ends only when the Horseman harpoons Baltus through a church window using a pointed church fence post attached to a rope, dragging him out and acquiring his head.

Crane becomes suspicious when the corpse of the maidservant has too fresh a wound on her palm for one already dead. His suspicions are confirmed to be right when the Lady van Tassel emerges, alive, from the dark and shocks her step-daughter Katrina into a faint.

Katrina awakens and eventually uncovers a murky plot revolving around revenge on the Van Garretts and land rights with the Horseman controlled by Katrina's stepmother Lady Van Tassel, who sends the supernatural killer after Katrina now to solidify her hold on what she considers her property, a piece of land unjustly claimed by Baltus.

Following a fight in the local windmill and a stagecoach chase through the woods, Crane eventually thwarts Lady Van Tassel by throwing the skull to the Horseman, breaking the curse. The Horseman, no longer under Lady Van Tassel's control, hoists her up on his horse, then rides to Hell taking her with him, fulfilling her end of the deal with the Devil. With the Headless Horseman menace eradicated, Crane returns home to New York with Katrina and young Masbath, just in time forChristmas and the new century.

MY OPINION

I liked this movie because it was not only scary, but also points was funny. I think the argument is well thought out and the characters too. This fully recommend the film to those who enjoy the Halloween sitting on the sofa with some popcorn and watch a good horror film!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!