It’s almost Halloween; it’s scary movie season. Recently I was asked to name the scariest movie that I’d ever seen. The answer was a no-brainer. It was the first movie I ever saw, at age five, and it still haunts me: The Wizard Of Oz.

Now, some of you may think that, on the scare-o-meter, TWOO is not in a league with, say, Saw 3 or Psycho, or that one about the hairy strangler with bad teeth. But I beg to differ. I mean, first, there’s the traumatizing dognapping scene, followed by that house-spinning tornado, which, if you lived in the Midwest as I did, triggered pants-wetting fears of natural disaster, like earthquake movies do in L.A..

Then, as you know, upon her arrival in the merry old land, Dorothy is threatened by horrors too numerous to list here, but, suffice it to say, lions and tigers and bears are the least of her problems. (High on my personal list of scariest beings—just above Glenn Beck—are those damn flying monkeys.) There’s no place like home? Ya think?

So if you’re looking for a good cinematic scare, forget The Chainsaw Massacre or Suspiria or Meet President Palin. For a real fright night, take a re-look at TWOO my friends. It took weeks for my nails to grow back after that one.

P.S. Leave a comment:  What’s the scariest movie YOU’VE ever seen?

Halloween is the easiest holiday to hostess: all you have to feed people is store-bought candy.

I take a lesson from my own childhood when it comes to Halloween handouts. My siblings and i did not care for people who gave you apples. One lady in our neighborhood gave them every year. You’d say a sullen thank you when Miss Gulch (that may or may not have been her name) dropped one in your bag, and then, as soon as she closed the door, you’d chuck it in her yard. I imagine her going out to get the paper the next morning and seeing her front lawn littered with rejected fruit. You’d think she’d have taken the hint after about a decade of this.

Once in awhile you’d get a caramel apple. While these were not quite as poor a choice as apples, due to the caramel factor, they were trouble: what were you supposed to do with them? You couldn’t toss them in the bag with the other stuff; they were way too messy. You couldn’t stop and eat them, because that’d take several minutes in an evening that’s all about urgency. You couldn’t bring yourself to throw them on the lawn, like you would a plain, bio-degradable apple. That was against our anti-littering upbringing. So we did the honorable thing and ditched them in a garbage can, up the street and out of view of the caramel apple donor.

While we liked most treats that were sugar-related, when we got a house that gave out full-sized candy bars, we felt like we’d won the lottery. Word would fly up and down the street: “Go there! That brick house! Big candy bars!”:

I always imagined the people who lived in the Big Bar houses to be wealthy beyond anything, calmly lounging in clothing that was not machine-washable, their hair perfect, sipping Scotch from crystal tumblers, casually distributing what I thought must have been thousands of dollars worth of candy to low-life scroungers like me.

Once, figuring they would be too rich to care or notice, I, in a frenzy of greed, hit the same house twice. But the lady of the house called my bluff: “I believe I’ve seen you tonight already, haven’t I?” I retreated, in a paroxysm of embarrassment, resolving that the following year I’d dress as a ghost instead of as a freaking Trick-or-Treat bag: an innocuous costume might make double hits at Big Bar houses easier.

Tonight I’ll be going to my friend Lynn’s house for a pre-Halloween party. As I’ve done in past years, I’m dusting off my witch’s hat (and attitude). Speaking of excellent Halloween handouts, Lynn’s are the best: martinis.

I found out what one daughter is wearing for Halloween because I read about it in Glamour magazine.

What happened was, she was in Boston one day last summer and Glamour employees were asking every college-age kid they saw what their Halloween costume was going to be. Amazingly, my daughter  already knew the answer to this question (it was July) and provided it. She told them she was twenty (false) and they took her picture.

There she was, along with a few other victims, in the magazine, a couple of months later, costume plans publicly revealed. (She’s going to be a robot.) Historically she has kept those plans flexible until October 30th, making  costume assembly somewhat frantic. While I admire my daughter’s new ability for advance planning and independent costume shopping, I have found I miss being a part of the process, the discussion, the weighing of options, the purchase of wigs and capes and bloody appendages.

But I got a little boost later when my other daughter, who is at college, called to ask if I could help her find a Jasmine costume. She had made exactly the same request when she was in second grade (see photo). Jasmine (yes, that’s Aladdin’s Jasmine) was in her heyday then; the costume’s not so easy to find nowadays. (Everybody wants to be Sarah Palin.) But I searched online, found one and sent it.

I felt restored, like an excellent mom and a valued Halloween participant.

If you are feeling marginalized this Halloween and would like to purchase a Jasmine costume to improve your spirits, click here.