A Halloween Post-Mortem

A short film (by my dad and me) and a few reflections on mischief and the aftermath

(When your dad’s a documentary filmmaker, even Halloween gets a director’s cut.)

The pumpkins are slumping. The costumes are shedding glitter. I actually slipped on a witch hat. A lone Tootsie Roll lies under the sofa, and no one has the energy to claim it. Halloween, that most theatrical of holidays, has taken its final bow—and we’re left sweeping up the confetti of our own enthusiasm.

November 1st always feels like a national hangover—not from alcohol (though there’s that), but from effort: weeks of costume planning, “booing” (our quaint Amagansett custom of dropping candy on doorsteps and running), pumpkin carving, bake-sale cookies, and endless negotiations over “just one more piece.” Even here, where Halloween is wholesomely small-town—children’s parade, doting parents, porch lanterns—by morning, we’re all damp ghosts of ourselves, drifting through the kitchen in search of coffee and order.