Halloween Safety (1977)

[StevePulaski]

Halloween Safety (1977)
Directed by: Herk Harvey

Rating: ★★★

Halloween Safety, a 1977 short from a company called Centron, embodies all the basic characteristics of a silly, superfluous educational film, right down to the hokey scenarios, corny narration, and questionable solutions to potential problems. Focused on making kids' Halloween evening as safe and antiseptic as possible, how much safer is it to take a little girl's black-as-night witch costume and alter it into an all-white "princess" costume, with red masking tape around it, to make it look as if she just got promoted as Grand Wizard at the local Ku Klux Klan meeting?

For that matter, why does the little girl's candy-bag reveal mostly loose peanuts when she repeatedly trips over a raised curb because her costume's mask blocks her peripheral vision? Such questions beg answers, but you don't find any in Halloween Safety. The short was directed by Herk Harvey, the same man to give us the short Shake Hands with Danger, one of my all-time favorites about safety on a construction site, as well as Carnival of Souls. Consider this the man's other frightful feature in his filmography featuring mostly short films.

The entertainment level of this particular short is very high, as everything about it screams genre-appropriate corniness. Consider the velvety-smooth, strangely comforting narration of its female speaker, contrasted with romanticized and nostalgic images that will rekindle memories of Halloweens gone past for anyone. It's all pleasant and genial, especially when you consider just how generally good-natured the short is all-around. If a short can help you revisit happy times in your life, boast the directorial power of a very interesting director, and serve for some good laughs, perhaps it's done its service in an even bigger way than it initially intended.

Directed by: Herk Harvey.