by: -RoG-

...CONTINUED

Now that Jeremy's costume has been altered to ensure he receives an all hallow's beatdown, it's time to ruin Jessica's costume. The small eye holes on her costume apparently make it too hard for her to see as well, so what do they do? They remove the mask altogether and smear a bunch of red make-up all over her face instead. What's wrong with cutting the eye holes open a little bigger instead of trashing the mask entirely? This is now transitioning from a "Halloween Safety" film to a "How to defile perfectly good Halloween costumes" film. Seriously though, it's like they don't want anybody to buy masks in these things. Halloween masks are apparently the cause of more deaths than anything in the history of our world, so it sure is a good thing we have Mr. Pumpkin here to guide us.

On a side note, you gotta love Jessica's enthusiasm as she pulls back the curtains and unleashes a ferocious "GRRRR!!!" to unveil her scary Halloween face to the world.

Next, Mr. Pumpkin instructs us to always be careful when crossing the street, especially if we're wearing masks. We should lift up our masks and look both ways before crossing. Of course, if he had his way, we'd remove our masks completely, wear leg warmers and swim across the street in a puddle of our own tears. He then instills us with some more of his timeless wisdom: "When it's dark, you can't see what's there."

The group of kids soon makes their way up to Mr. Pumpkin's house where they're greeted by an older man who wants to take a photograph of them immediately. Don't worry kids, I'm sure he's not a registered sex offender or anything like that. According to Mr. Pumpkin, the photograph was taken to demonstrate how reflective tape on costumes can be seen easily by cars passing by. That's all fine 'n dandy, but the people in that house don't need to take photos of all the kids who come to their place, do they?

Well, at least one of the kids clearly realizes that having a stranger take her photo like that is pretty damned creepy.

Now we move onto the wonderful world of Halloween pranks. This is basically when Mr. Pumpkin complains about all the pranks that take place on Halloween. What this stuff has to do with Halloween safety is beyond me. First up, he complains about how some people use spray paint and ruin other people's things. We then see a shot of a bicycle seat that was spray painted and its owner, a boy who is heartbroken... HEARTBROKEN about it. This kid is a horror movie tale just waiting to happen. "There once was a boy who had his bike seat tagged by shitty graffiti artists on Halloween, and that's when the killing started..."

Next, we see a disappointed father and son staring at their brick wall which was recently egged. Look at the disappointment on the father as he shakes his head and his son just stands there helplessly. It's as if he's looking at his son and saying, "It's because you're weak and unpopular that this happened. If I gave birth to a cool kid, they wouldn't be throwing eggs at our home." Don't worry kid, daddy's just upset because the same thing happened to him when he was a young nerd too.

Mr. Pumpkin also adds his two cents: "It isn't fun to spoil other people's things and make them unhappy." Oh really? Then maybe you shouldn't have kids throw their masks away in exchange for wearing mommy's make-up all over their faces. Maybe you shouldn't make robots wear leg warmers. Why? Because that's a good way to spoil their fun and make them unhappy.

And now, we arrive at the inevitable discussion about people who like to smash pumpkins. A perpetrator runs up the steps and it looks as if he's about to stomp down on Mr. Pumpkin. Just when our dreams of seeing him crushed beneath the feet of a disgruntled youngster, the kid has a change of heart and decides to leave Mr. Pumpkin alone. OH COME ON! Didn't you hear what Mr. Pumpkin was saying earlier about how getting his insides scooped out tickles him!? If that tickles him, just IMAGINE how much getting smashed to bits would tickle him! COME ON KID! DO IT! DO IT! DOOOOOOO IT!!!!!!!!!

Unfortunately, the kid never smashes the pumpkin, so I suppose the safety lessons must continue. Now he dishes out some of the more typical bits of advice... don't go out alone, always bring an adult with you, don't go inside any stranger's homes, don't walk around in the dark without a flashlight, don't go swimming for at least a half-hour after gorging on Halloween candy, etc etc.

We're now treated to footage of the kids crossing the street as Mr. Pumpkin talks about how easy it is to see them for cars and that they wouldn't want an accident to spoil their Halloween fun. I think that may have been a subtle jab at drunk drivers.

Once the trick-or-treating fun is over, we're taken back to Corey's home where she and her father are inspecting all of the candies she collected before she eats them. She clearly lives in a strange neighborhood... just check out some of the treats she got. "Dogs and Pups puffy stickers"? Who the hell gives out that on Halloween? And, of course, she received some pills too. And then there's her lovely chocolate bar:

What the hell happened to that thing? It's like Jeff Goldblum turned into Brundlefly and vomited digestive enzymes all over some chocolate bars and then gave 'em out to all the trick-or-treaters. Seriously, I want to know what neighborhood she lives in so I can stay the hell away from there. Her dad had to throw away half of her so-called treats. Sorry Corey... Halloween is better in other towns, I promise.

In the tradition of all safety films, we now get a recap of everything we learned in the film:

-Carve your pumpkin carefully.
-Make sure you can see.
-Make sure people can see you.
-Remember all your safety rules.
-Take off your mask when crossing the street.
-Trick-or-treat in your own neighborhood.
-Don't keep any treats that don't look right.

I think we learned that the second-to-last rule doesn't always apply. Look what happened to Corey. She got screwed out of a lot of Halloween treats all because she went trick-or-treating in her neighborhood which is apparently inhabited by sadists.

As Mr. Pumpkin says goodbye for Halloween, it looks like a real ghost decided to stop by and blow out his candle. It's probably the spirit of some kid who followed all of Mr. Pumpkin's safety rules and still ended up getting murdered on Halloween. I think we've all learned a valuable lesson here today: Don't take advice from animated pumpkins.

Click below to watch parts 1 and 2 of the "Halloween Safety (Second Edition)" 1985 educational film!

part 1

part 2

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