Halloween is great, right?
I mean, except for the freezing weather and the having to walk a long way in uncomfortable costumes and our parents stealing our best candy…what’s not to love?
If you think any of those things were hardships, these 15 people’s actual horror stories will probably go a long way toward changing your mind.
1. Beyond not cool.
Junior year of high school, my cousin and I volunteered to drive some of the younger kids from church, and chaperone their trick or treating.
We were walking down the street, back toward my truck when I hear a sound that was familiar but didn’t click at first. I hear it again, and feel something whiz past me and hit the concrete. I realized it was someone with a pellet gun about the time one of the little girls screamed this blood curdling wail and fell down. He had shot her in the eye with a CO2 powered pellet gun.
My cousin took off running toward a yard, leaned down and grabbed a hunk of gravel/concrete from the driveway and chunked it into the tree (he had a 92mph fastball) and hit the kid, knocking him from a limb and onto the ground.
I’m wrangling 7 kids, from 6 -12 years old, all screamingand crying while my cousin is beating the boogers out of this guy’s sinus cavity. Parents are running outside, and it’s chaos when the police and ambulance finally show up.
Long story short: kid with the pellet gun got an assault with a deadly weapon, and another charge, and the little girl (8 years old) lost her eye from the incident.
2. Why are kids such jerks?
I was like 7 or 8 and dressed like an angel. parents took me to the science museum where they set up little houses for the kids to trick or treat in. I got soo much candy and was so proud of myself. But when we left, all my candy was gone.
The little boy behind me had been taking scoops of my candy and putting it in his basket. I cried.
3. Those are some good friends.
My neighbors were JW’s and wouldn’t let their kids go out for Halloween. We used to all pool our candy and each set aside a bit and sneaked it to him at school.
His mom found out and got bulls*%t and complained to my mom who laughed and said something like, “isn’t Jesus about sharing?” she was a nutcase.
4. At least there was a bucket handy.
Getting so excited with all the candy I had and puking into the bucket of candy.
5. There’s a memory for you.
My appendix burst the Halloween I was 12 and I had to have surgery.
I was delirious with fever and one of the nurses was dressed as a clown and one as a vampire and it scared the f**k out of me. I don’t remember much but my mother says I screamed and cried not to be killed before they knocked my ass out.
6. Not the best.
Had the stomach flu one year on Halloween. I was a month shy of turning 11.
My parents took my younger siblings out trick or treating and I was stuck alone in the house blowing chunks out of both ends.
7. Now that’s cold.
I grew up in Northern Canada and when I was probably 5 or 6, I got me a Darth Vader costume, one of those vinyl costume and capes with a light sabre and thin plastic mask. I thought I was so cool back then.
Well, being northern Canada, it was exceptionally cold that year, like below -30C. I went out that evening bundled up and ready to show off my cool outfit, but it was so cold, the costume just cracked and disintegrated as I went around the block.
Due to the weather, I barely got around the block, but by the time I was home, I just had the lightsabre and mask. The rest of the costume just fell apart in pieces as I moved.
8. Nobody wants that to show up.
I was in the 5th grade and went going to trick or treat, I got this pain in my lower stomach so my mom took me back home.
After what my mom saw in the bathroom, we figured out I started my period for the very first time.
9. That’ll teach you.
My mom was pretty strict with how much candy I was allowed to eat on Halloween. One year, after some annoying begging, I finally got my mom to say “eat as much as you want.”
Heh, spent about an hour barfing up peanut butter cups and warheads.
10. Hard work, too.
I was walking home with my friend when i was like 9 and a car of high school kids or around that age stole all our candy.
Three hours of work, gone.
Thought that kind of stuff only happened in sitcoms.
11. Thanks, I hate it.
A woman telling me I’m too old to go trick or treat 🙁
12. She forgot to go shopping.
My mom took away all my candy to give to the later kids.
13. You gotta be yourself.
I was 14 and I went out with my group of friends and I was always the one left out. They dressed in girly costumes and I was a full on clown with big shoes. I walked with of of the girls moms the entire time because they were ahead and the big shoes slowed me down.
They went into a haunted house and I was too scared so I waited outside and then I couldn’t sleepover because I was really allergic to my friends cat.
I did find a 20 dollar bull on the floor though.
14. Kids are the worst.
My “friends” telling me they weren’t doing anything only to all hang out all evening while I stayed home alone. Teen years can suck.
Edit: I must clarify this was like 15 years ago, thankfully I have some great friends now.
15. Too awful for words.
My girlfriend asked me to go with her and her son trick or treating. We picked out costumes for everyone, invited the neighbor kids and went around for about 4 hours. We took tons of pictures of us and the kids and a kitten followed us back to her house that we ended up keeping.
We dropped off the kids with their parents then went home and got the kiddo ready for school the next day while trying to keep him from eating too much candy. Next day at work our mutual friend asked what i did for halloween. I told her to check the girlfriends facebook cause she posts everything and i wanted her to see the kitten pics.
ya, i’m cropped out of every picture…. all people we visited, all the other kids parents and a few of the neighbors we stopped and talked to are tagged in her post about how much fun her and her son had
Felt like i was cut out of her public life
16. Kids also aren’t that bright.
my friends in 7th or 8th grade told me they were going trick-or-treating across town and the host parents’ car didn’t have room for me. And then they instead went to a party at my next-door neighbor’s house.
Like dude I can see you all arriving, what made you think your lie wasn’t going to fall apart?
17. An actual horror story.
It’s Halloween night and there’s a knock on her parent’s door.
Dad goes to open it and there is a man with a bag on his head standing on their porch, silent.
The man makes a move to step into their house and Dad pushes him backwards. Everyone watches as the man falls backwards off of their step and smashes his head on the ground.
It is revealed that the man with the bag is my friend’s grandfather (mom’s dad) who was trying to Halloween prank them. He was rushed to the hospital with permanent damage, no longer able to care for himself or his wife who had health issues as well.
They both ended up in convalescent care. Additionally, my friend’s mother never forgave her husband, placing the blame of the accident entirely on his shoulders. They divorced shortly after.
18. So much for love.
I was going out with a girl back in high school whose birthday fell on Halloween. Her brothers absolutely hated my guts for no reason whatsoever. I wasn’t a troublemaker, didn’t do things I wasn’t supposed to, and tried really hard to get on good terms with them.
Anyway, she threw a birthday party for herself at her older brother’s basement. I showed up with a couple friends and while the party was pretty lame, I was there for her.
When I went to give her the gift I had wrapped, her older brother grabs me by the collar and shoves me outside on the concrete steps. I asked him what his problem was, he told me to get the hell out of his house, his sister tries to get him to stop and tells me it’s okay to go back inside the house. Her other brothers then showed up shortly after and… well, I got my ass handed to me.
I ended up just leaving the party with a black eye and a bruised up face. I lied to my parents that I picked a fight with someone and lost. We broke up shortly after.
19. That’ll kill it, for sure.
Halloween 2014, my dad died. He had cancer and I had a flight out November first to say goodbye. Got a call early on Halloween morning telling me to get on a plane, ASAP.
during my layover I got the call he had passed. Holiday still kinda sucks for me.
20. That one true friend, though.
Got made fun of and bullied for wearing a full costume when I was 13. Cried and wanted to go home by like 5pm.
There was one true friend who waited with me at a park until my parents came to pick me up…
21. An actual nightmare.
When I was around 8 or 9 I went over to my friends house to fool around a few hours before a Halloween party, which we would be going together. In the backyard, his sister came up to me and asked where their dog was. They had a black chow-chow who was fairly docile, was around 4 years old and bigger then me. I showed her to the dog and he was chewing on a bone.
Of course, back then I made a huge mistake but, I pointed to the dog and in a split second, he went from chewing on the bone to chewing on my arm. I tried to run but he had a vise grip on my arm but eventually he let go. At the time my friends parents weren’t home either (lol) so his sister called 911 and they ran inside and left me outside in the backyard with the dog circling and growling at me. The maid came running outside and threw a chair at the dog which made him back off.
Also while I was out there, I felt strange. There was no pain and there was a ton of adrenaline in my system but I sort of felt at ease? I also started to reflect on what just happened. There was a lot of white stuff which looked like whipped cream (tissue) oozing from my wounds a long with a ton of blood. Blood was everywhere. Stained the concrete and grass. Everyone was crying too. Paramedics arrived and really everything up until the ER was a blur.
I had 6 cuts, 3 cuts on the inside and 3 on the outside of my forearm. 4 stitches for 2 cuts and 1 for 1 and vice versa. And 10 more stitches for the inside of my arm (muscles and whatnot) 20 or so stitches total. The doc said I was lucky to still have my arm as the dogs mouth was just the right size that it missed several vital veins and arteries. It was very traumatic but thankfully it did not ruin our relationship and funnily enough, I was back at his house after a few weeks, petting the dog again (with a lot more caution).
I think it’s safe to say, we did not go to the party later that night.
22. I bet their parents were thrilled.
Skinned my leg on someone’s driveway and covered it with blood, then waited a few hours for a ride to come that didn’t come when it was also cold and a police officer brought us home
23. I hate that man.
I was 12 and a man yelled at me and told me I was too old to be out trick-or-treating. I felt so bad I gave all my candy to my little brother and just walked with him for next hour or so. When I got home my mom asked me why I didn’t have any candy so I told her what happened.
She asked me who said that to me and I told her which house. I don’t know if she ever did anything about it. But since I’ve become an adult and bought my own home, I don’t care if your 90 years old. You’re getting candy. Halloween is for everyone.
24. Bad associations.
My dad got fired on Halloween once out of nowhere when I was 10. No explanation or anything, so we had to move the next week for him to try to find a new job.
Also, I got sick a couple halloweens.
25. Pure chaos.
Getting tear-gassed on Polk St. in San Francisco. Mid-1970’s, evening, everyone is milling around in crazy Halloween costumes.
Lots of fun, very chill, until some a$$hole chucks a teargas cannister into the crowd. Pure chaos ensued, and my throat was sore for 24 hours.
26. This is horribly sad.
My mom picking me up so drunk another parent give us a ride home. Everyone knew from that point on my mom was a drunk. I was in 4th grade .
She died when I was 21 from liver failure.
27. A whole story.
When I was a child I had a Barney-ish costume (it was a homemade hand-me-down dinosaur that was the right color palette to be Barney). The main costume was the body, and there was a headpiece of the dino head that went on top of my head.
When I looked in the mirror, with the dino head, it’s friendly felt teeth, and then my face below that, all I could see was that it looked like Barney was eating me alive. And I was not having it. I threw a tantrum and refused to wear the head.
So if you lived in Pennsylvania in the late nineties, and had a half-girl-half-knockoff-Barney show up at your door, now you know why.
28. Minimal damage.
Not on Halloween, or not my story, however you want to look at it, but:
Some years ago I was at the elementary school that my children were attending -a few days after Halloween, (dropping the kids or a forgotten instrument or lunch who knows) Anyway there was another mom in the office and Her daughter was a kindergartener who was just returning to school after an absence because of a trick or treating injury
Pause here for all the moms, kid is physically fine if emotionally scarred for life.
She tripped while running across a yard in the dark, like you do, and face planted into a tiny cute cemetery decoration that had a tiny pointy plastic fence around it. The fence went INTO HER EYE and got stuck! Ok, so not into the eyeball, but shimmied it’s way between her eyeball and eyelid and ffs you can’t pull it out!! You’d scratch her eye!! So they had to transport the poor screaming tiny person to the ER with a fence sticking out of her face.
They got it out with miraculously minimal damage, she had to wear an eye patch for a few days, but as of our last encounter, the child hates all things Halloween.
29. A totally different meaning.
Brother died 2 years ago …he had battled cancer for awhile.
The Great Pumpkin took him home.
30. Middle school, man.
It’s a tie, but for very different reasons.
The first was in middle school (age 11 or 12) while trick or treating with friends. Some jerks threw eggs at us out a car window, hitting one friend and splattering raw egg on at least one other, and while we were recovering from that some older/bigger kid stole another friends bag (pillow case) of candy. It was not very fun.
The other worst Halloween was with my abusive ex. He was invited to a costume party by work friends and told everyone went all out for it. So he decided that we would go as a “fairy pimp” and “fairy hoe,” basically a pimp and whore with wings.
He decided that i had to dress super slutty, getting me clothing from a sex shop for me and some cheap premade pimp outfit for him. My costume cost over $100 and we did not have that type of money to spend. We go to the party, him looking like s*%t and me looking like a literal street walker, something i’ve never been comfortable with and he knew that.
I was over dressed as f**k (technically underdressed, as i was basically in panties and a bra), meeting these people for the first time, in October in WI, USA. It was cold, embarrassing, and a waste of money.
I had a bad night, felt completely objectified – in a bad way -but my ex loved having the ”sexiest” girl at the party at his side, even though he largely ignored me (unless i started talking to someone other than him.. that was interrupted right quick as he had to be my not just my main focus, but my only focus).
I was 24ish around this time and it took over a decade – and ditching the less-useful-than-an-a$$hole of a bf – for me to enjoy costumes again.
31. Not a great memory.
My mom’s funeral happened to fall on Halloween.
32. Some friends.
Same. I was 12 and it was gonna be my first ever trick or treat because I was very shy, but somehow that year I mustered up the courage to ask my ‘friends’ if I could go with them. They said yes, and I was excited. Bought a costume, candy bucket, etc. When Halloween night came, I went to the meeting spot and stood there… waited in the cold for an hour. Turns out, they never even intended to go with me.
Never tried it again.
I’m sure a psychologist would have a field day on the effects this had on my ability to trust other people.
See what I mean? Be thankful for your petty Halloween gripes, my friends.
Did you ever have a really, really bad Halloween? If you think your story belongs on this list, share it with us in the comments!
