Bloody Zombies No Longer Shock Our Streets | The American Spectator

On Halloween, young people in Europe now dress up as zombies too. Imagine how our streets have changed — I can hardly tell the difference from any other day. There are guys with blank eyes scaring passersby, another with a dagger through his chest, a couple of girls hiding under veils dressed as black widows, and a bunch of bloody, screaming drunks. As I said, just another ordinary day, thanks to the EU’s immigration policy.

Shop windows are filled with tombs, images of hell, and grinning demons, which seems to me a fairly accurate reflection of our postmodern society. Children go trick-or-treating nonstop, much like the government does when it comes to collecting your endless taxes. Everything feels familiar.

The common thread in everything we do these days is fear, and I don’t notice anything different about this day compared to any other day in 2025. We’ve survived a pandemic, the climate hysteria of environmentalists, jihadist terrorism, and our own governments. We know fear better than anyone.

A few years ago, a song by my friend Santi, from the band Los Limones, sang that science is advancing, “every day we’re on the verge of achieving another invention,” and yet he confessed in the next verse: “If I’m honest, it’s just as cold / and I’m just as scared / as when life was explained with stories.” I don’t know if technology is making us freer, or if this is what progress was supposed to be, but it’s impossible not to shudder every time humanoid robots appear on the news, conversing with their unpleasantly human-like faces. They’re machines that will eventually devour us, and for my part, I’m ready to defend myself the moment I cross paths with one on the street. I’m a born joker, and I’ve been told that humanoid robots get really funny if you pour a glass of water down their neck. It’s nothing personal, just business, WALL-E.

There’s no way to oppose the demonic acculturation of Halloween. In theory, it arrived in Europe as a cute anecdote from the commercial tradition of the United States, but once here, the anti-Christian ideological masses went even further, trying to reinstate the original Samhain, the Celtic festival marking the end of summer and the beginning of winter. The Celts believed that on that night, the worlds of the living and the dead merged, and that spirits could cross over into the human plane. That’s why they lit bonfires and wore masks or costumes: to scare off evil spirits or confuse them.

Terrified of nonexistent gods, the Celts lit sacred bonfires, left out food to appease the wrath of ancestors and wandering spirits, and the Druids performed divination rituals. What is rarely told is that during Samhain, the Celts offered sacrifices to the gods — both animal and human. Reclaiming Samhain is a bit like throwing a party to celebrate Cain’s murder of Abel, or the start of World War II, or to honor the crimes of the Assyrian kings. Let us recall the poetic delicacy of their campaign diaries: “I flayed as many nobles as had rebelled against me and draped their skins over the wall of the city. Their corpses I hung on stakes around the city.”

Some time ago, I found a practical guide for good Christians on Halloween. It may not be very orthodox, but I find it useful. As a good Christian, I plan to go out and toast with friends on All Saints’ Day, Nov. 1, and return on Nov. 2, perhaps looking worse than those dressed as zombies. To preserve the Christian meaning of All Souls’ Day, every time I encounter a zombie wandering tormented through the streets, I think of the souls in Purgatory and offer a prayer to the Lord for their eternal rest. I’d rather spare myself all this homage to the sordid, the ugly, and the atrocious, but since that’s impossible, at least let those pale idiots, with dark circles under their eyes and blood on their bodies, serve the purpose of reminding me that it’s time to pray for those we love so dearly and who are already on their way to eternity.

Happy All Saints’ Day to everyone. Blessed be the name of God. Endless rage at the modern age.

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