For part four of our series, our regular SpoutBlog writer Bill brings us this very creepily delicious Halloween day post.

This Halloween my 10-year-old son hit a milestone in his life. He was finally old enough to wander through his first haunted corn maze. Yeah, a haunted corn maze…not a haunted house. We live in a small town surrounded by big fields, so this is what we get (and we get excited for it and are very happy with it).

So, Saturday evening I loaded up the family roadster with my wife, son, and two of his friends, and we drove to the maze. Although typically mild-mannered boys, the trip to the maze dripped with male vibrato:

“I’m not going to be scared.” “We’re going to run ahead and try to scare other people.” “Dad, maybe you should get the pink glow stick.” (This is what they give people who are weak at heart or a complete sissy.) “I’m going to ditch everyone and go by myself?”

Although my wife and I did our best to build up the suspense and general sense of impending doom, the boys would have none of it. They were unbreakable.

And then we got to the maze…

By the time we arrived a short line had already formed, so we had a bit of a wait. Allowing no opportunity for scaring to go to waste, the purveyors of the maze projected horror movies onto a large screen for those of us waiting in line. The were the usuals, including the original Halloween, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Ring, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Jeepers Creepers.

Cutting to the chase (literally?), they showed only the most horrific and terrifying scenes from these films. Heads severed. Running damsels caught…and mutilated. Intestines exposed. Although showing just these short clips didn’t give these films a chance to build suspense, they certainly primed the adrenaline pumps of three 10-year-old boys.

By the time we entered the maze, all the boys needed to see were the characters–in a dark corn field, wielding whatever power they used to create mayhem in the films we had seen snippets of–and they were terrified. There was certainly no going by themselves. And they all wished aloud that they had received the pink glow sticks themselves. We spent the next 45 minutes with my wife leading the way (sure, why not sacrifice her first?), boys in the middle, and me at the end, left to whatever creature might sneak up from behind.

I gotta tell you, it was GREAT! Although Paul might argue otherwise (see his recent post), being terrified–and not just being a little scared by watiching a film–is a good thing. It provides a release that can come from no other source in our lives. But not only that, being terrified also provides some perspective. The conversation on the drive home that night was no longer about male vibrato. It was all about camaraderie. And isn’t that a lesson to be learned from ALL horror films? Don’t split up! Stick together! Help each other! And for goodness sake, don’t EVER turn around while running away from something creepy.