Our Fears on the Spookiest Night of the Year
Soulja boy is scared of the dark, Lucius Malfoy can’t stomach the Anthropocene, and multiple pirates seem to be battling existential crisis.
As the clocks struck midnight on October 31st, BANQUET conducted 39 interviews at the last Halloween function of the year to uncover:
What scares us?
Entering the party, an 80’s Aerobics Person is worried about “honestly, getting trapped in an elevator. Like tunnels and holes. I don’t like underground. I also don’t really like the sky that much.”
Beside her, self-proclaimed 80’s Aerobics Person No.2 says “well my all time fear always is not being able to get pregnant…or it’s like spiders.”
Maniacal laughter echoes through the pounds of vague house music. A Greek Pirate greets us at the door. What scares her? “Failure.”
Lurking by the drinks table, a trio under a cobwebbed staircase, answers in unison.
Austin Powers: “Being horny, baby.”
Jane Fonda: “My work tomorrow.”
Femme Bot: “Not being sexy.”
Chav Who Got In a Fight — “a very bad fight” — enters the interview. He is scared of “sounds in the night… when [he’s] gone to bed.”
BANQUET now accosts two boys in cardboard boxes.
Fish, Leader of the Box Trolls, tells us, “I guess, living up to my parents’ expectations.”
Eggs the Box Troll gets overwhelmed. “What scares me? Losing the Ivy League championship.”
In the bustle near the box trolls and depleting jello-shots, God, who “lost all [his] stuff, so put on a joker-hat and called it a day” is haunted by “the thought of nobody liking me.”
Meanwhile, Pirate No.2 is fretting about “drowning.”
Austin Powers now circles back to the BANQUET mic to add that he is more earnestly scared of “choking.”
A Spanish Mermaid bobbing nearby fears “like losing a family member. Is that like deep? (aquatic pause) Am I supposed to say spiders?”
Lucious Malfoy, swishes his long locks out of his face to confess “I am terrified I’ve developed a sort of narcolepsy. I’ll be in class and then BOOM, instantly asleep." 80’s Aerobics Person No. 3 attempts to squeeze past the death eater onto the dancefloor and advises him to find a hair-tie.
On the dance floor, Raven from Teen Titan is scared of “probably raw eggs and bugs.”
Soulja boy is scared of “the dark.”
This is said with certainty and no hesitation.
Antonio Montana, on the other hand, “of the movie Scarface,” takes a long pause to ponder his fears of “death and vulnerability.” Beside him, a Doodle-bomb from SpongeBob is scared of “a lot of stuff, actually. Mostly living an unfulfilling life.”
“Not lava?” Antonio interrogates. Doodle Bomb concedes that “lava is scary too.”
A second Antonio Montana says, “you know when you wake up at night? And it’s dark? And then you look up, and there’s a cockroach? Always when there’s a cockroach in the night, you’re scared. Everyone’s scared.”
Lucius Malfoy returns. He has been thinking and is now scared of “the anthropocene.”
Close by, a Generic Feline and Tooth Fairy are re-filling their red-solo cups. The fur adorned lady describes how “death, the finite, the beginnings of the end scare [her], but they also allure [her].” The girl with a handmade necklace of teeth around her neck says “constraint and suffocation.” This prompts the self-deprecating feline to add “being trapped in a locked sauna.”
Taking a moment alone by the stairs, Elton John or Tyler Durdon is having an identity crisis in large sunglasses. What scares him? “Someone knowing who I actually am.” On Hallow’s Eve, we assume he feels safe.
“So many times, I’m watching you” reverberates through the air.
BANQUET moves to the kitchen in search of other terrors. Donna and the Dynamos, through their blonde hair and British accents, answer:
“Having regrets and spiders.”
“Crocodiles.”
“Rose scares me!”
We are unsure to whom Dynamo No.3 is referring…
Standing on an elevated surface, a Pirate — and also a host — is scared of “police! Something breaking, too many people coming, and not being able to move around in my own house.”
The devil on one’s own shoulder, “perhaps,” admits her fear of “people who don’t wear costumes to Halloween Parties.”
“Alright,” a second Chav remarks in an Adidas tracksuit. “I’m scared of never living up to my potential, what I believe I can achieve in this world in this life,” he confesses, “nothing else in this world really truly should scare us… maybe America falling apart.”
The next room over, 80’s Aerobics Person No.3 has “an existential fear that [he’ll] die alone.” He calls over Jason Schwartzman “from Darjeeling Limited, the Wes Anderson movie,” who tells us he is scared of “parenthood.” Chav No.2 assures him he thinks he will “make a great father.”
Puebes takes a break from his cigarette to reveal his fears of “oath-breaking” and “the unknown.”
One More Time blasts through the room and the crowd crouches low. Awaiting a beat-trop with increasingly aching thighs, BANQUET finds two MORE 80’s Aerobics People — with specialized colors.
Purple “specifically” is scared of “losing the love of silly play and youth. I’m scared of being an adult.” Black & Red is scared of “failure.” And centipedes, she adds after a cackle from Purple.
The beat drops and the Aerobics members dance themselves clean.
BANQUET meets yet another box troll, named Knickers, who is also scared of “failure.”
We begin to wonder about the state of the Ivy league.
Knickers flips the question back to the interviewer! Let it be known that BANQUET “struggles with holes. A cluster of small holes… and the deep space of the ocean. There could be a shark there, I don’t know?”
Circling behind her, a Shanghai Shark Basketball Player is reluctant to answer. After some coercion, he unveils his fear of “heights.”
Our last interviewee of the night “has a good feeling.” Sporting a “JOE-COOL” sweater, Snoopy is more interested in singing than speaking, so God must return to assist. The presence of the divine prompts him to list: “snakes, I’m scared of the dark a little bit, I’m scared of heights for sure, I’m scared of all of my exes, I’m scared of my mother a little bit, I’m scared of not being able to reject death. I foresee a moment when I get to decide to die or live and I’m scared that I won’t have the power within me to fight for life. I hope I have that fight, but I’m scared I won’t.”
God assures him and that he thinks he will.
On this morning after, we are scared of many things…
But it is a new month. Pinch punch.
Happy November.
CHEERS,
BANQUET.