Sean Haugh, the Libertarian pizza deliveryman running for US Senate in North Carolina 

The first question that comes to mind when people meet North Carolina Senate candidate Sean Haugh is “This guy is for real?” That’s definitely what I thought when I met him. A Libertarian pizza deliveryman, Haugh looks the part in his campaign uniform of oversized NORML T-shirts, and baggy I-gave-up-on-getting-laid-long-ago jeans.

Despite the homely stoner vibe—and against any expectations—Haugh is actually making a real impact in North Carolina’s Senate election, a close race that could determine which party controls the upper chamber for the next two years. In what has been the ugliest and most grotesquely expensive campaign of the 2014 midterms, North Carolina’s Democratic incumbent Senator Kay Hagan is running dead even with Republican challenger Thom Tillis, with outside groups spending $72 million to influence the race.

Enter Haugh, a virtually unknown Libertarian Party candidate whose campaign has raised less than $10,000 this year. The pizza deliveryman is polling at about 5 percent—not enough to actually win anything, but in a race where the two mainstream party candidates are in a statistical dead heat, it could be more than enough to swing the vote. And if, as most analysts assume, Haugh is taking votes that would have otherwise gone to Tillis, he could be responsible for helping Democrats keep control of the Senate.

Which explains why American Future Fund, a conservative group connected to the Koch brothers, is trying to sell Haugh to liberal voters. In a bizarre little ad campaign that the group dropped last week, smiley young actors wave slogans like “More weed, less war,” and “Get Haugh, get high,” and encourage other young people to vote for the candidate who “supports our values.” The intent, it seems, is to turn Haugh to conservatives’ advantage by getting all those hippie youths who were going to support Hagan to vote for Haugh instead.

Haugh himself didn’t have anything to do with the ads. In fact, his brand of conservatism is probably too hardcore for the Kochs and their Tea Party ilk. (Ironically, Haugh got his start in politics by collecting signatures to get the Libertarian Party presidential candidates on the ballot in 1980, when David Koch was the party’s vice presidential nominee.) A former political director for the LP, Haugh’s positions are libertarian in the truest sense, which makes him a lonely loser in the two-party system. He's made five bids for public office before this race, including another campaign for US Senate in 2002, and lost every time. His campaign mostly consists of YouTube videos in which Haugh drinks beer and offers his political thoughts and frustrations.

When I met Haugh earlier this month, at a bar in Durham, he told me he only had an hour to spare. Three hours later, when our interview was over, I couldn’t get him to leave. After throwing back a few craft beers and playing some skee-ball, we chatted about politics outside of the bar as he bummed cigarette after cigarette off me. After the second smoke, the two cameramen I was working with gave up and went back inside. But Haugh didn’t care. He didn’t need cameras; he had an audience, even if it was just an audience of one. Unable to afford his own ads, Haugh is content to share his politics with anyone who will listen. Among his many views, he tells me he supports gay marriage but thinks the government should just stay out of people’s bedrooms, considers the death penalty to be cruel, and would like to end all war. And don’t get him started on the NSA and government spying, because he’ll never stop.

Haugh also supports legalizing drugs—all of them. In an interview with me for my web series Bills and Brews, he tells me he’s not a fan of PCP—“you’re stupid to take it”—but acid? “I’m not gonna judge that.”

“Amsterdam worked,” he told me, referring to the Dutch city’s notoriously lax drug policies. Then he was off, talking about America’s “overstocked prisons” and draconian drug policies. When I asked if he smoked weed during this year’s Senate campaign, he said he had.

“I actually do,” he told me in our interview. “This is the first time I’ve ever admitted it to anybody, but this is the first time anybody’s ever asked me directly.” He added that he smokes weed for his arthritis, although medical marijuana still isn’t legal in North Carolina. But he doesn’t seem to care what state or federal authorities have to say on the matter. As for the beers—his campaign signature this year—Haugh says he’s not much of a drinker, but likes to do it for his YouTube videos. It’s a schtick, and as such, the only sign that this pizza deliveryman is, at heart, a politician after all.

“It’s calculated,” Haugh tells me. “Totally being myself and understanding the calculations behind how other people are going to perceive me. I love taking advantage of that.” He adds, “I know the rules of politics and decided to break this one.” Which seems like an understatement.

Matt Laslo has been covering Congress since 2006. He recently launched Bills and Brews, a web series that features interviews with politicians over craft beer.

I'd never been to a haunted house before, so when I heard Rob Zombie was bringing his Great American Nightmare to my city, I figured I'd check it out. 

After reading some of the descriptions (“a hallucinogenic trip... designed to twist the mind”) I decided to explore the attraction exactly the way they seemed to be encouraging… on acid!

Placing an LSD-laced Sour Patch Gummy on my tongue, supposedly dosed at 128 micrograms (who really knows?), I headed over. What follows is sure to contain spoilers, so proceed at your own risk.

We were already about two hours deep into the trip when we arrived at WestWorld—an enormous, blobbish multi-purpose tent normally reserved for boring shit like classic car auctions. Today, it facilitated the B-movie director’s grotesque pet project. It looked dystopian and menacing. I kept pacing, unsure I was ready to go through with this.

The most important guideline of any psychedelic trip is the setting. Ideally, you should see pink elephants in a cozy, familiar place, ensuring you won’t lose self-control after over-stimulating yourself. In other words, a terrifying public attraction is the last place you want to be if you start freaking out. I consider myself an experienced (but by no means professional) psychonaut, but even so, I was a little concerned I would tumble down the rabbit hole, never to return. 

Waiting in line, I heard ominous, swelling drums (mixed with fog horns, for some reason) as the PA system repeatedly squelched, “Go to the merch table.” But my mind was on what the eyesight of mosquitoes is like, for some reason, and I kept watching the bugs attracted to the stadium lights, probably because I was seeing lots of colors I’m pretty sure weren’t there.

Outside the tent was a corral of vendors and gigantic animatronic monsters that people were snapping selfies next to. Nine Inch Nails blared over the speakers. Ads were everywhere. The general vibe was no more spine-chilling than a corporate BBQ in Chandler.

Because we held VIP passes, we were let in before everyone else. As we entered, a girl clipped our wristbands, telling us, “Actors cannot touch you, do not touch the actors.” I took a deep breath, then stepped inside. 

The first house or segment or whatever was called “Lords of Salem in Total Black Out,” which I think is a reference to a movie Rob Zombie directed.

At first, it was mostly dirty Victorian-style hallways. Every so often, faceless dudes in white chef uniforms would lunge out of the shadows at us, but, probably because of the acid and because I'd been told they weren't allowed to touch me, I only stood there, grinning uncontrollably, until they stumbled onto the next victim. I'd expected to be a lot more freaked out, but so far I was keeping calm. Then I rounded a corner into complete darkness.

It felt like I was walking in circles. I tripped once or twice, my hand pressed against the wall for balance. Was it supposed to be this dark? Or had I accidentally walked off set? I thought I was lost. I kept poking strangers in front of me, then apologizing for touching them. I was more afraid of accidental physical contact than the darkness. A flashlight flickered on, a creepy face appeared, then disappeared. Some people screamed.

A face suddenly appeared that I recognized from the billboards. “It’s you!” I said and then giggled. Next thing I knew, we were out of the dark and in line again. 

While waiting for the next segment, “Captain Spaulding’s Clown School in 3D,” I observed the trippy posters hung on carnival stages, promoting things like “elephant skin baby” and “shrunken heads.” Hey, I have a shrunken head, I thought. It made sense at the time.

As I looked at the carnival posters, they started breathing and leering out at me. We were given 3D glasses, making everything mildly more vivid. I snapped a few shots on my phone before a little person rolled by in a wheelchair, hissing to "put it away!" I wondered what her job was really like and what all the other actors jobs were like and I wondered why anyone would ever be afraid of clowns. It’s just makeup. Everything felt hyper-fake, like the cheese they put in pretzels.

As we were herded through this hypnotic maze of black lights and neon stains, a fat clown in a grease-smudged shirt made come-ons at all the women passing by. “Hey baby,” he said. “That’s sexist,” one girl responded. We rounded the corner into a "classroom" with desks glued to the ceiling. A girl clown in a satin tutu was lit up like a Christmas tree. I told her she was beaming and she asked if I wanted to get ahead in her class. How? “Well, how do you want to?” she asked, one eyebrow raised. 

Oh. A porn script. I didn’t respond, so she and another clown backed me into a corner, mocking me. Their faces were contorting in to sinister fisheyes, but for some reason (guess) I couldn’t stop laughing. The clowns seemed to know, maybe they're used to handling people who were stoned. Bored, they moved on.

Overall, the clown section was pretty un-scary in my drugged state. Each time sections of the wall popped back so clowns could poke out and go "Boo!" I laughed harder. Some actors wore dark Morphsuits taped with cotton candy or balloons, so they could hop out of the backdrop unexpectedly. I oooohed and ahhed because frankly it was incredibly visually stimulating. Something I appreciated right then.

Back in line, I became too high to remember to take photos (sorry). I was in some lot with police cruisers surrounding a dilapidated farmhouse, somehow vaguely related to The Devil’s Rejects. The "cops," who kept sparking cattle prods in the air, made me more uncomfortable than anything else all night. Then, on cue, they staged an incredibly loud, incredibly hokey "shootout" with unseen murderers in the farmhouse. When it ended, I noticed I was the only one clapping, like an idiot. I stopped. 

Before being filed inside the final house, a dead-eyed girl dressed like a skeleton appeared from behind a curtain to ask another employee about her break or something. 

The final section was the last chance to get a rise out of people, so it employed every phobia not already covered: gross clothing, insects, sirens, whatever.

I was having trouble focusing on details, but each room was dressed up like fresh crime scenes. Blood splattered everything from the curtains to the rugs, with mannequins arranged to appear raped and eviscerated. One toilet, filled with vinyl intestines, glowed like a pink moon. I leaned in for a closer, dumbstruck look and it sprayed me in the face. 

At one point, we reached a three-way fork. A hillbilly, noticing me, accused me of trying to hide (I wasn’t), then pushed me into a room separate from my friends. The door closed, leaving me alone with a shotgun-wielding redneck in a bloody wifebeater. “You’re not getting out of here so easily,” he said, shutting the other door.

Scenarios like this made it feel like walking onto the middle of a movie set when it was your turn to deliver your lines. I was forced into a role, but I didn’t know what it was, so each time I said nothing. Should I try to run? Fight? Am I the hero or the victim here? After a few moments of silence, the redneck said, “All right, you can go." He then opened the door he'd closed just ten seconds earlier. Well, that was easy.

While walking through some tunnels or hallways, the noise level would suddenly drop—the part in the scary movie where something freaky jumps out. Inevitably, this happened, but I was far too gone to anticipate it. I was too busy having trouble discerning between what was and what wasn’t an auditory hallucination. Were the screams around me real or looped?

The one time I actually jumped and went "Ahh!" was when I was being herded through a fog machine mist accented by strobe lights. Suddenly, a hillbilly face appeared above me. “Ahh!” I said. 

Otherwise, nothing ever made me feel like wetting myself. I appreciated the immaculate set design, but while walking past scenes of mental patients tied up or a suicide victim cut up in a bathtub (before she’d jump out at you) all I could think was This is entertainment? And that made me depressed.

Back outside, I reflected on what just happened. The acid seemed to take this event very seriously, like it was somehow representative of all American culture. By paying admission, I felt complicit in the extortion of psychological abuse and murder/rape fantasies that went into this project. I already see enough of this splattered on the news—why was I ever worried this attraction would scar me for life? If anything, the acid was the only thing keeping it interesting. 

By the merch tents and beer garden, costumed actors wandered around while people scrambled to get pictures with them. One woman—who was dressed as, I guess, a stripper that had been set on fire and then drowned—kept flossing some stringy, bloody gunk from her mouth. An dude in a polo and shorts tried taking a selfie with her, then dropped his phone. I laughed so hard my sides throbbed with pain, but that, to me at the time, illustrated exactly what is abhorrent about modern America: Regular dorks getting to laugh at the real cruelties of the outside world, which we are all sufficiently insulated from.

A few days later, when my equilibrium returned, I got over myself. It was just a ride. The Great American Nightmare wasn't some metaphor for an America gone awry, I was just really, really fucking high.

Follow Troy Farah on Twitter.

How we choose to spend our time on this planet is generally up to us, but that doesn’t stop me often being impressed by some of the decisions made by the people living in Berlin. The city is full of true pioneers—folks pushing the boundaries of what’s acceptable every day. And they always do it in style: A the jacket is delicately placed on the ground when digging through the gutter, chic black umbrellas are used to protect right-wingers from flying gloves of piss and young, trendy couples fondle romantically on shattered Jäger bottles.

However even a paradise has its laws, and where there are laws there are overly padded protectors in green and blue to enforce them. Our guardians in disguise are here to beat us into shape when we step out of line, to spray things in our faces and drag us through the streets. If this is how we behave with them around, what kind of shit would we be getting up to in public without them?

Follow Grey Hutton on Twitter.

“The safe word is Red.” Not what one would expect to hear before entering a haunted house. But this is no ordinary horror show: This is Hell in the Armory, and it’s held in the basement of the world’s largest porn mansion, and I was there to experience it in all it’s disturbing, naked glory.

I heard about Hell in the Armory from Danielle Walker, one of the show’s tour guides, who sold it as “an adult-themed haunted house." In fact, Hell in the Armory is the bastard child of an ongoing relationship between Kink.com—a porn production company that specializes in BDSM and bondage—and Vau de Vire Society, a circus and theatre troupe from San Francisco. The spectacle, which only began this year, is set inside the San Francisco Armory, a 200,000 square foot Moorish Castle reproduction that was acquired by Kink in 2006. Its massive porn headquarters had all the lighting, sets, and ambience needed for Mike Gaines, co-founder of Vau de Vire, to create what he calls “an immersive theatrical experience.”

Grappling with my conflicting interest in fetish porn and aversion to all things horror, I entered Hell in the Armory with apprehension and my boyfriend in tow. It turns out I would need both: within minutes of our descent into the basement, I was hooded and roped together with my tour group. Our unseeing party was pulled through a narrow hallway, single file and fumbling, into a dark, damp dungeon where we were quickly unmasked. Pressed up against the chamber’s walls, we were casually inspected by a tall, blonde dominatrix who whispered, “Will you get naked for me?” Undeterred by the head shakes and shivers, the dom eventually came to the young lady next to me, who gave a tentative nod and stepped forward. Then, before our now-adjusted-to-the-dim-light eyes, the woman was stripped, gagged, and bound by the dom. I would be lying if I said this light BDSM scene wasn’t sexy. And judging by my partner’s face, and the other patrons’ gasps (was that disgust or delight I heard in their voices?), I wasn’t the only one paying attention. But it wasn’t over yet: As the dominatrix locked the final chain, the dungeon door flew open, a frothing werewolf crawled menacingly towards the restrained volunteer, and the last thing we saw before the lights flashed was the beast’s mouth on her body and a gush of blood from between her legs.

Just to be clear, the “volunteer” was an actor and the entire scene was both staged and consensual. This seemed obvious to me, but apparently the performers have had visitors fooled: “That first scene is really profoundly affecting people,” Gaines tells me later, “when people truly believe that somebody is in danger.” Apparently, at least a few people come to the defense of the planted actress every night, claiming they heard her say the safe word, pleading with the dominatrix to stop the scene—I guess our group was heartless. On the flip side, Gaines mentions that the dom “has to deal with a lot of yeses” from kinky attendees who want to get more involved—I guess our group was also lame. In the end, he rationalizes starting with the controversial scene “because it’s a haunted house; you’re supposed to be fucking scared.”

This first vignette was arguably the scariest portion of the entire tourand I was left with the lingering sensation that things could get weird, and this feeling had me nervous for the entire tour (just ask my boyfriend; I don’t think I let go of his hand except by force). Just like a good horror movie, Hell in the Armory used a combination of shock and suspense, bolstered by Vau de Vire’s high production value, to keep visitors on edge. Take for example the interaction between the deranged doctor and his pliable patient, played by a world-class contortionist. Herded into a viewing gallery, I flinched as her limbs twisted and stretched in response to the surgeon’s scalpel and cleaver. A self-diagnosed hemophobe, I was at once repulsed and mesmerized by the bloody, bendy scene.

Then our group of 28 was split up by the commanding voice of our guide (“You, get the fuck in there,” Walker snarled at me when I hesitated). I found myself with just a few others in a padded room with a mirror. A strobe light started flashing, and I came to the uncomfortable realization that we were not alone: with us was a distraught, disheveled young woman in a dirty gown; on the other side of the mirror was a ghoulish child, only visible in the pulse of the light. As the former woman darted around the cell, I tried to place myself between the other patrons—my tactic for minimizing contact with creepy crawly characters—but found it difficult with only ten other people (read: human shields) in the room. The young woman was begging us to help her when a booming voice stopped her short. It was the doctor from the previous scene, carrying a heavy chain that, despite my best attempts at invisibility, found itself wrapped tightly around my neck. “Is this your boyfriend?” he sneered before wrenching us apart, adding “I like your hair, boyfriend,” as he shoved me out of the room.



All photos via the author.

Dragged by the heavy leash, I was followed by the rest of our small group to a set of enormous French doors. “Look at my wife!” the doctor ordered. I looked through the panes of glass to see a naked vampire, writhing below the severed body of a man, his torso dripping blood, his face frozen in ecstasy. I wrinkled my nose, partially because, as stated above, I don’t like blood, but also because I could feel moisture coming off the actor onto my back. Please be sweat, I thought.

If that scene sounded disturbing, then our next stop was even more gross: A meat locker, complete with dangling slabs of decaying meat and a Jesus figure nailed to a cross. From the crucifix, he encouraged us to “read the books”  and find the clue—at his feet were a collection of Bibles. Having already been choked out by the doc, I let others distract themselves while  my eyes darted around the room waiting for the next surprise that I knew would come. Then a maniacal butcher with a chainsaw rushed in and proceeded to sink his tool into the body of the Christ. This is the one installment that had me cringing for the wrong reasons: the act was more gratuitous than gruesome, and I ended up with fake Jesus blood on my dress.

But it wasn’t all blood and gore in Hell. Less gruesome scenes included a visit to a spooky speakeasy, a humorous vaudeville routine put on by a trio of zombies in various states of decay, and a clown masturbating in a phone booth. “We do 14 tours a night; that’s four hours of staying hard [for the actor],” Gaines reflected. “That’s a fucking task.” It was also the first time my boyfriend had seen an erect penis in the flesh.

The most memorable scene took place in the eerie haunted garden. Led by a towering queen, played by Shannon Gaines, co-founder of the Vau de Vire Society, our group took part in a seance that culminated in the resurrection of the queen’s lover, Svetlana. Again, as I stood in our defenseless circle, I felt uneasy and unprotected, a testament to the performers: they had me psyching myself out. It didn’t matter that I knew it was a show; the sets, actors, and stories had me distracted enough to forget it was fake.

It is these overlapping elements of fantasy and performance that naturally link sex, role play, and Halloween. Hell in the Armory had the campy feel of a theatrical and perverse adult theme park (Gaines even called the Kink building’s basement “an abandoned Disneyland”). This form of deliberate, calculated deviancy is characteristic of the practice of BDSM as well, where consent, respect, and safety are necessary in order to remain sex-positive (and legal).

Now sold out for its final runs, Kink.com and Vau de Vire’s erotic fear experiment has proved successful with San Francisco’s dedicated kink crowd as well as what Gaines describes as “bridge and tunnel people that come into the city and want to be titillated and scared.” Whether you’ll find Hell in the Armory titillating or terrifying depends on your fetish, but those who can stomach counterfeit carnage and live sexual interactions will leave entertained. Just don’t forget the safe word.

Hell in the Armory runs through November 1 at the San Francisco Armory. For other events and information, check out the Vau de Vire Society Facebook page.


@_anubha

Photos by Jason Walcott

These days, Halloween decorations run the gamut from garish and gory—decapitated rubber heads and smashed arms sticking out of car doors—to cheap and cheesy—fake cobwebs and tree-hung ghosts. But Halloween decorations made before the 1950s aren't nearly as heavy-handed. Instead, they are subtly insidious and deeply weird. The old school decorations often feature haunting figures in twisting contortions, sporting leering smiles. Their bodies are crumpled up or stretched and their faces seem off and unsettling. Many of the pieces are downright demonic. Although these vintage decorations are rare, there is a small group of people who spend a great deal of time and money hunting them down.

“Most—but not all—of the Halloween items that collectors go after today were made by three basic sources: two American companies, Beistle and Dennison, and various German artisans who made holiday items to be imported to the USA between the two World Wars,” explained Jason Walcott, a dedicated collector of old-timey spooky stuff.

These companies, back in the early part of the 20th century, weren’t making Halloween decorations for kids. “Back in the 20s and into the 30s, if you were going to have a Halloween party, it would be adults throwing the party for other adults. They didn’t want cute decorations,” said Mark B. Ledenbach, proprietor of Halloween Collector and author of Vintage Halloween Collectibles. “They wanted something that would be unsettling and memorable for adults.”

And that unsettling nature is the common theme in these classic decorations. Each piece seems to be a study in devious grins and perverse, impish nature. And for the collectors I spoke to, that’s the whole point. “I think I am drawn to their darkness,” said Brenda McNeilly, “in particular the ones from the golden era of Halloween. [Back then] the party favors and lanterns were less benevolent, and more malevolent in design and intent.” These pieces, coming from rural Germanic towns and Germany itself, evoked a kind of creepiness that we don’t see in today’s decorations. 

But collecting at this level isn’t cheap—some pieces fetch more than $5,000. As Mark said, “You have to have some financial resources to truly delve into vintage Halloween.” When I asked collector Cynthia Vogel if she ever had to sacrifice anything for her Halloween collection, she told me, “There have been years where I have purchased items for the collection that precluded me from doing other things such as vacations that most people would find enjoyable. But for me, acquiring a piece on my most-desired list is far more fun than any vacation I could ever imagine.”

All the collectors I spoke with were careful to point out that collecting Halloween decorations is an art. And at this level of collecting (we’re dealing with pros here) they don’t purchase anything without inspection, meticulous grading, and a confidence that they could flip it to recoup their investment. As Brenda puts it, “I always make a conscious effort to pay no more than what I believe is a "recoverable price" for a top flight, museum-quality item.” While some collectors don’t purchase at all, “All the advanced collectors, they want what you have and you want what they have. If you can work out a trade, that’s much more satisfying than money, which feels kind of mercenary,” said Mark.

When people on the outside come to a collector's house, they generally have a whole lot of questions. “When it comes to Halloween memorabilia, most non-collectors look at me and say, ‘Really?’” said Cynthia, “and then they begin to speak about their own pleasant childhood memories of Halloween. A lightbulb begins to shine and understanding begins to show.” For a lot of non-collectors, seeing is believing. “People just don't get it until they see it,” said Jason. And as Mark said, “There are people who collect and people who don’t collect. I was always one of the collectors. If you’re not a collector, there’s nothing I can say to you to interest you in the collection, except to maybe throw out a value here or there and say, 'Look at this piece of cardboard. Did you know that this cardboard is worth $2,000?'”

Prices on these decorations always generate a lot of interest from outsiders. A quick search I did on eBay for “Beistle Halloween” produced results with lots of cheap reprints and some staggering asking prices for originals, like a rare Halloween Lamp for almost $1,600. The value of these pieces comes from their rarity. Halloween decorations weren't preserved as carefully as those of other holidays. "No one cared about Halloween back in the 20s and 30s," Mark told me. "So if you threw a party, unlike Christmas decorations that were passed down and lovingly curated, on Halloween no one did that. So they were just ripped down and thrown in the garbage.” Cynthia described, from that rarity, a broader appeal, “Most people, even if they are not collectors, appreciate the historical value of the items we collect.”

After speaking with these collectors, I was impressed with the level of passion and dedication they give to their hobby, but not surprised. For some people, collecting in all its forms (baseball cards, vintage cars, old pornos) can be “a means of control to elicit a comfort zone in one’s life, like calming fears or erasing insecuritm.” wrote Mark B. McKinley for the National Psychologist. “Some people collect for investment... some collect to expand their social lives, attending swap meets,” and “for some people collecting is simply the quest, in some cases a life-long pursuit that is never complete.”

Whatever the motivation, collectors love to collect. When asked what she would say to people who don’t understand her hobby, Brenda told me, “They don't have to, and that's OK. It's my strange little obsession, and that's how I like it."

Follow Giaco on Twitter.

Immigration lawyer Rocco Galati is challenging the constitutionality of Bill C-24. Photo via the author.

As of two months ago, Canada has two kinds of citizens: One is an inalienable Canadian, the other is a Canadian who holds a second passport and can be banished by the government.

This monumental change happened under a law misleadingly called the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act.

The act, known also as C-24, is heralded by the government as one of the ways to protect Canadians from threats to national security. In his first speech after the Ottawa shootings, Stephen Harper listed C-24 as an example of how the government is acting to strengthen its laws. This week, Harper tabled amendments to C-24 and the CSIS Act to empower police to surveil, detain, arrest and to revoke citizenship.

Specifically, C-24 permits the government to strip citizenship from Canadians who hold another nationality if they're convicted of certain crimes (the crimes include terrorism, treason and spying). Aside from its provisions for stripping citizenship, C-24 creates longer wait times for would-be citizens, and higher processing fees.

Toronto lawyer Rocco Galati is one of C-24's biggest critics (though he’s by no means alone) and he's currently taking the government to court over the constitutionality of the law. His concern with C-24 is its effects on people who are politically active in ways beyond casting a ballot. Terrorism, as defined by the criminal code, is more all-encompassing than most realize. For instance, a protest that blocks an essential service like an ambulance could justify a terrorism charge, according to Galati.

"It's a vehicle by which they can literally banish dissident voices," he said in an interview.

As an immigration lawyer whose history of clients include Omar Khadr's older brother, Galati is also personally concerned C-24 which could pave the way for his own conviction on terrorism charges in the course of his job. "I was under wire tap for 10 years," Galati said in a court hearing for his challenge. "In the states, defense lawyers who've been under wiretap have been charged and convicted for breaching terrorism laws, so my fears are not whimsical or illusionary." The infamous case of Lynne Stewart, a defense lawyer who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for defending her client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, against terrorism charges weighs heavily on Galati's mind.

Galati filed his challenge of C-24 after it became law in June with the Constitutional Rights Centre, represented by lawyer Paul Slansky. They argue citizenship is a constitutional right and, under Canada's current constitution, Parliament doesn't have the authority to pass a law that would take it away.

But surely someone, over the course of the three readings that proposed legislation goes through, should have noticed that C-24 violated our constitution, right? Technically there are two people designated to ensure that this problem never occurs; the Governor General and the Attorney General of Canada. The AG is supposed to ensure government action complies with the constitution. The GG provides their "royal assent" to all legislation that makes it through three readings in the house. With the GG's assent, bills become law. A seemingly well-oiled machine—except for the fact we now, according to Galati, have an unconstitutional law on the books. Galati sent a letter to Governor General David Johnston before C-24 passed outlining his position.

"He responded saying well, you know, I've read your letter... Sayonara!” said Galati. Johnston declined to comment to VICE. “So we also moved to declare that his royal assent is unconstitutional." Then all hell broke loose.

Galati's fears seemed to come true when the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Chris Alexander linked him to Al-Qaeda on CBC and in the House of Commons. The government's affidavit filed to the court denied that Alexander meant for his comments to link Galati to Al-Qaeda. The government lawyers declined to be interviewed for this article.

The affidavit includes a transcript of Alexander’s interview with CBC’s Evan Solomon:

The court case heard on Oct. 23 would make any constitutional nerd/law student go wild. A major point of contention was whether the case should even be in court at all. The government's legal team conceded the legitimacy of whether Parliament has the authority to make C-24 law but argued Galati and Slasky as individuals don't have the legitimacy to bring the case to court. "That's where the perversity and the really repugnant aspect of the system comes in," said Galati, after court adjourned. "They know in most cases people won't go and bother—and they bank on that."

The government’s legal team argued that the issues raised by Galati and Slansky should be coming to the courts through people who are directly affected by the law, which comes into effect in June 2015. "They recognize that we're acting as watchdogs for government abuse but they're trying to undercut us anyway," said Slansky.

Neither Galati nor Slansky could say how much this case has cost them in terms of hours worked, out-of-pocket expenses and work they've had to pass up. Galati estimated the total would be more than $42,000, which was the cost of their last case to challenge the appointment of an ineligible justice to the Supreme Court. The fight itself is over for now. After five hours of explanation and debate, the judge retired to reflect on the arguments. Galati expects a decision in a few months but regardless what the judge decides he's confident they'll be back in court soon. "No matter how it goes it's going to appeal one way or the other. If we win, they'll appeal. If they win, we'll appeal. So, it's just a rollercoaster ride."  
 

@EK_Hudson

Photo via Flickr user Ginny

In the last decade, the trick-or-treating experience has devolved into a sugar-crazed brouhaha. It used to be that parents herded kids down the streets of their respective cul-de-sacs, neighbors tossed a few “fun-size” goods in the makeshift bags of little witches and ghosts, and that was enough. But now the stakes are higher. Halloween is a test of the survival of the fittest—with trick-or-treaters migrating to the most affluent neighborhoods, vying to score whole candy bars from cobwebbed mansions. And as the ritziest communities host hundreds of out-of-towners, others have seen a steep decline in local activity, creating a vacuum in the door-to-door economy.

If you want to find the best neighborhoods this Halloween, check Zillow. For the last six years, the real estate website has published a “Trick-or-Treat Index” that draws from marketplace housing data to determine which cities and neighborhoods around the country “will provide the most candy, in the least amount of time, with the fewest safety risks.” The Index quickly became the standard-bearer for insider information on Patch blogs and parenting forums across the web, spurring petty competitions between communities not unlike the 100-year-old childhood contests of who got the most candy on their All Hallows’ Eve run.

Skyler Olsen, an economist at Zillow, described how the company uses housing metrics to scope out the hot spots: “You want to be able to hit the most homes. But not only do you want to hit a lot of homes, you want to be able to hit those swanky, wealthier neighborhoods with the king-size candy bars.” So the lists of localized rankings rely upon four main factors: density, home value, walkable-ness, and crime statistics—but especially home value. The bigger the house, the bigger the score.

“We’re really into Halloween,” she added. “So what better time to do what we do best—to leverage data to get some insights.”

Looking closely at the results, the popularity of these lists (as well as the neighborhoods it cites) correlate with nationwide trends, which can be generally characterized as a gentrification of Halloween: a new normal in the trick-or-treat tradition wherein masked visitors patronize only the most moneyed neighborhoods while adjacent localities fall to the wayside.

But what do residents of these “top-rated neighborhoods” think of Zillow’s lists? And, more to the point, how have they responded to these annual surges?

“There were van loads full of kids coming in,” said Reyn Blight, president of the Toluca Lake Chamber of Commerce. Toluca Lake is a ritzy neighborhood just north of Los Angeles, which gets thousands of trick-or-treaters each year. “We’d shut the door and the doorbell would ring, and sometimes there would be a dozen or 15 kids before we’d close the door again.” Then, a minute later, it’d happen again—and these weren’t kids he recognized from around the neighborhood. For Blight’s part, he didn’t mind. Halloween was just once a year, after all. But for some of the other residents, it became an “annoyance.”

“Some people just go elsewhere, since they don’t want a bunch of kids trampling their lawns,” he says. “But other than that, I haven’t heard any stories of damage. We haven’t had any of that kind of thing, where there have been tricks instead of treats. But I think some people worry about that when you have a big influx of people from other areas.”

Photo via Flickr user Colleen McMahon

Whether or not residents oppose the proliferation of costumed outsiders within their communities, the candy-driven pattern—which seems to have become more and more common since websites like Zillow started ranking neighborhoods—reflects socioeconomic shifts in metropolitan areas around the country. Take this year’s Trick-or-Treat Index, for example: In Boston, the historic Beacon Hill neighborhood has been named the number one place to migrate this Halloween. It is the third time in the Index’s history, and there’s a good chance that that’s because the picturesque tourist destination has been effectively gentrified, starting in the 1970s. So, the logic goes, market value and candy shares are inextricably linked, and parents have to stay ahead of the curve if they want their kids to get their fair share.

In the District of Columbia, gentrification trends have caused significant shifts in the trick-or-treating dynamics of neighborhoods like Logan Circle, where “one is more likely to see young professionals in costume than children going door-to-door asking for Halloween candy.” While the community’s population continues to increase, the under-18 cohort has steadily dropped, and the annual candy-grabbing tradition now seems to be in decline.

There are at least two reasons why this has become a thing in recent years: Parents are either responding to the imagined pressure to provide their kids with the best trick-or-treating experience available, or they’re genuinely concerned about safety. That is, there’s the self-indulgent rationale and the preventative perspective.

Understandably, if you’re living in a low-income, high crime community, you might not have access to the best (or safest) trick-or-treating experience, with decked-out houses and bags of brand-name candy. Partaking in the festivities in a different neighborhood could certainly alleviate the anxiety of door-to-door solicitations, which is the idea behind community outreach programs like UCLA's All Hill Halloween program, an initative that used to invite "2,500 kids from low-income areas of Los Angeles to...trick-or-treat safely among the decorated floors" of the university's residence halls. 

But in the last decade—with parents festering on online forums, challenging Zillow’s Index and posting firsthand accounts of the “best” neighborhoods to raid—it’s clear that safety is not, in fact, the central factor accounting for the inter city exodus. We’re increasingly drawn to the side of the fence featuring greener grass and full-size Twix bars, and in cities experiencing rapid gentrification, that manifests into what you end up seeing on the eve of October 31.

And it's not just low-income parents giving their kids a safe trick-or-treating experience in middle-income neighborhoods; the socioeconomics of the trend are superficial, premised on the notion that mommy’s little candy-grubber is entitled to the best sweets from the most exclusive, festooned homes on the upscale block down the street.

Some residents might consider it an “annoyance,” but it comes with the territory, so to speak. The trend shouldn’t surprise anyone. Halloween has always been about getting the most candy: Why should the kids in Bel Air have all the fun? It’s just that, nowadays, the stakes are higher and the competition is fierce. No self-respecting, middle-income kid is going to settle for the “fun-size” M&Ms next door anymore.

Follow Kyle Jaeger on Twitter.

Last night, we celebrated our 20th birthday by throwing a gargantuan party in an abandoned power plant in the Toronto Port Lands area, and whoa-boy: it was a doozy. If you weren't one of the lucky thousand people to make it in, allow us to paint a picture for you: a massive stage and lighting show, prodigious amounts of booze, an indoor ferris wheel, and face-melting performances by Action Bronson, A-Trak, and Skrillex—all inside what looked like the set of Batman Forever (fun fact: they shot the latest Robocop there!). Needless to say many attendees spent this morning picking up the shattered pieces of their minds. Here is a collection of our favourite images from one of the biggest parties we've ever thrown.

Mike and Claire are a collaborative artist duo who craft bizarre worlds through gifs, film, and performance. VICE readers may remember their previous video piece, Fried Eggs, which we premiered back in July in conjunction with our 2014 Photo Issue, and the psychedelic Easter Sunday gifs they made for us last April. 

Today we're hosting the world premiere of their new piece, "RATS," just in time for Halloween. "RATS" is a queer journey through a mischievous monochrome world that features an original score by Dev Hynes (AKA Blood Orange) and a cast filled with young and beautiful New York artsy types. The actors were given parts they might not typically play, ignoring traditional gender boundaries. The short uses color and lighting to convey the narrative of a commanding woman who takes control over a risky situation. It is also really freaky.

A short version of this video will play before each film in this year's MIX NYC Queer Experimental Film Festival. In its 27th year, MIX is a 15,000 square foot beehive that will feature a 175-seat cinema, a gallery of 12 diverse, ambitious installation artworks, and colorful characters who breathe life and magic into its one-of-a-kind queer utopia. It runs from November 11 through the 16, so be sure not to miss it. 

See Mike and Claire's previous contributions to VICE here.

As the battle between Kurds and Islamic State militants rages on in the Syrian border town of Kobane, Kurds in neighboring Turkey are becoming increasingly angry at the Turkish government's failure to intervene. And so protestors have taken to the streets in cities such as Ankara and Istanbul to show their support for both the Kurds fighting in Kobane and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a resistance group in Turkey classified as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, and several other Western nations.

VICE News traveled to Istanbul, where a memorial march for two fighters who died in Kobane devolved into a night of chaos. Amid clouds of police teargas, we spoke to members of a PKK youth wing as they threw Molotov cocktails and shouted support for Kurds in Turkey and Kobane.

As I often do when I’m told to immediately watch something by people on the internet, I strenuously avoided the elegantly titled “10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman.” I knew what it was about, grappled with the theme of the piece (men need to grow up), and felt safe in saying that I completely agreed with its thesis. If you can't understand why women don't want to be barked at by strangers on the sidewalk, then you probably missed a very important day of kindergarten or your dad is Tucker Max.

I’ve witnessed catcalling. It’s a very real, very unfortunate thing that happens every day. Not only does catcalling objectify and dehumanize women, I’m fairly certain it’s one of the least effective means of securing someone’s sexual interest outside of sending unsolicited dick pics or repeatedly phoning her parents at 2 AM to ask what her favorite color is.

Catcalling is like the Mirror Universe version of the romantic comedy “meet-cute.” Instead of awkwardly bumping into your future spouse in the middle of a vintage record shop, you scream “Great rack!” at her while she’s trying to get to Duane Reade for tampons. I don’t think the latter scenario actually works, but if there is a pair of lovers whose first words to each other were “Hey mami, I like the way the pockets of your jeans frame your bum” or some derivative, then I would hate to share a cab with them. I don’t need a video to tell me this, but maybe it’ll work its magic on those who do. It’s already started a conversation on the issue of how men speak to women, and that’s great. What actually got me to finally watch this damn thing is that there are those who seem to believe it’s racist.

On Wednesday, author and cultural critic Roxane Gay took to Twitter to chastise the makers of “10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman” because of the dearth of white catcallers in the finished product. To Gay (and others) it's problematic that the clip reinforces the notion that minority males are to be feared and loathed, since the vast majority of the predators are black or Latino. Slate’s Hanna Rosin then pounced the same day to chime in with similar thoughts on the matter. Pundits are like your coworkers when the soggy remnants of a lukewarm executive lunch is dumped into the break room on a Thursday afternoon. They waste no time lining up to reheat the leftovers.

It's difficult and uncomfortable to admit that we have to talk about race/class/gender/sexuality/ability/etc, all at once. I get it.

— Roxane Gayrten (@rgay) October 29, 2014

Rob Bliss, head of marketing agency Rob Bliss Creative, took to Reddit (the internet's capital of cultural sensitivity and rational thought) to defend his video. His rebuttal consisted of reminding us that white people are a minority in New York City and questioning whether or not there would be an uproar if the vast majority of the catcallers in his video were Russian rather than black and Latino.

What that reading fails to take into account is that the predominant image of Russians in America isn’t that of the unrepentant street hoodlum. "Horseback-riding dictator, heavyset grandma, or elderly fishmonger" is probably a bit closer. I guess I could toss in "well-dressed mob enforcer who always tips well at the bar" too, but as long as you don't stiff them on a gambling debt or accidentally sleep with their girlfriend, you'll be OK running into them at Sbarro.

At this point, I don’t know who I’m supposed to be mad at, what I’m supposed to be mad about, or which nonprofit I’m meant to be giving my money to. I could easily drop back, punt, and toss a few bucks to UNICEF, the Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation, or Zach Braff's latest Kickstarter, but I don't want to throw my money away. Should I appreciate that this video is shedding light on the problems of gender or be pissed that it's not racially sensitive?

Gay has a point: Most Americans have a hard time balancing more than one aggrieved minority group's concerns at a time. We ask ourselves if it's enough just to be mad about sexism without having to muddy the waters with some idle chit-chat about ethnic minorities being constantly labeled as thugs, shiftless layabouts, and excellent pick-and-roll defenders. Can't we just focus on one thing and get back to the rest later? How to Get Away with Murder is on, and I love that show.

I'd like to be very glib about this issue. That's kind of my thing. I'm like the MLK of DGAF but I also live in a country where unarmed black men are shot by the police for appearing threatening, where a disproportionate amount of prison inmates share similar skin pigmentation. Part of the reason why there's so much fear lingering around ethnic minorities is because we have such a hard time divorcing our perception of those people in real life from the way they are portrayed in film, television, music, and gimmicky one-off web videos. Life is only kind of like New Jack City, in that both New Jack City and real life both contain drug use, crime, and the unassailable laws of gravity. Nino Brown is not a real person. No one could get away with wearing a chain that big without tipping over like the top at the end of Inception or Rob Ford on a Tuesday night. Media portrayals of minorities are powerful. They influence how we look at the world, even if we don't realize it until it's too late.

I shouldn't be surprised that Rob Bliss doesn't get why people of color are disappointed in his work. He's a marketer, not a sociologist. No matter what you think about the appropriateness of catcalling, “10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman" is a propaganda film. Yes, it's a propaganda film for a cause I support, but that doesn't make it any less of an appeal to opening pockets. That's why organizations hire this guy. They want him to make videos that people will share; that will convince well-intentioned folks to pony up to assuage their guilt or mollify their fear.

Propaganda is designed to shake you out of your complacency and drive you to direct action. What better way to do that than throwing out a bunch of images of intimidating blacks and Latinos in an urban area? It clearly worked, as the video has almost 24 million views as of the time I'm writing this. It's not explicitly racist, but it's definitely using race as a tool, and that's been a smart rhetorical strategy in the United States for a long time—from Abe Lincoln to Lee Atwater to Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Race-based persuasion isn't going away any time soon, not as long as we keep buying into it in droves. 

The Most Racist Tweet of the Week:

Chinks are the only people that compete with fat women over parking spots.

— Mister Nixin (@MisterNixin) October 30, 2014

Follow Dave Schilling on Twitter.

Nine witches from an indeterminate time in history. Image via

Tonight, cities across the country will be teaming with throngs of sexy witches, stinking out the back seats of the bus with the heady combination of cheap facepaint, perfume, and cider. Plastic noses will be snapped on, broomsticks will be dry humped, and cheeks slicked in various shades of algae—only to be streaked later with sweat and pre-vomit drool. But while you're shuffling to the bus stop cackling, beer in hand, it's worth paying some mind to the truly shitty time witches have had throughout history. 

Earlier this week, the supposed actual grave of a witch, Lillias Adie, was found in Torryburn, Scotland. Because at one time, if the church saw you as a threat, or a 16-year-old little shit decided to spread a rumor, you would be publicly executed. That was the reality. 

The contemporary witch mythos, see, is a palimpsest; a new story written over the top of an old one and only linked to the original by the fact it literally supersedes it. Underneath we have Aide, who admitted to fucking the devil after bouts of torture and was either murdered or driven to suicide. On top we have Sabrina, a girl who goes to a small liberal arts college in Boston and has a talking cat. This is fine. History becomes woven into modernity in lots of silly ways. But we don't really have particularly adequate language to talk about witches and maybe we should. 

Historical Western witches, modern tribal witches, green witches, and the sexy contemporary ones all get lumped together into some curious mismatched sports team. You can spend days wondering which witch is which. But here's the thing: you don’t want to be a fucking witch. Not then, not today.

A West African vodun. Image via

In the past few years alone, hundreds of women have been killed for being a witch. Most have been beaten, raped, burned, stoned, flogged, or hacked to bits with a machete before being killed. But because this is happening outside the Western world—in places like Tanzania, India, and Saudi Arabia—there is a tendency to suggest that this is an example of tribal barbarism, the sort of hideous stuff we would never do.  

This isn’t really true.

Take, for example, Pittenweem, a small coastal village in the East Neuk, Fife, Scotland, known for its Arts Festival and proximity to Britain’s finest fish and chip shop. A little bit down the coast rests an old church whose graveyard juts into the North Sea like a severed finger. It is, by all accounts, a damn fine example of Scottish romanticism: remote, eerie, and with a violent history that is retold as a sort of mental masturbation, a way of saying, "look at how civilized we are now."

The story goes that in 1705 a young buck named Patrick Morton—inspired by stories of the Pittenweem Witch Trials of 1645 where four women were put to death—decided to claim that Beatrice Laing, the former town treasurer, was a witch, along with her husband, Thomas Brown, and friend, Janet Cornfoot.

All three died. Cornfoot, however, escaped from incarceration, was recaptured by an angry mob, flogged, stoned, and then tied between a ship and the shore. Eventually, she was crushed to death by a door piled high with rocks. Apparently a man then drove his horse and carriage over her, just to make sure. Her body was then left to decompose somewhere along the Western braes, denied a burial.

From our remove, it’s quite easy to read what happened but not really understand it. Politically, socially, and economically, Britain at the time resembled somewhere like Gambia in 2009. Rising independence for women, coupled with greater devotion to capitalism, meant that those in power feared their control would be reduced—especially by those with dark magick in their hearts. 

Historically, the word "witch" was conceived to mean someone who practices in petty theft, sheep stealing, and the like, but by the 16th century it came to represent women who went to bed with Satan and were hellbent on bringing down the church. Malleus Maleficarum, published in 1486, said: "All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable." God damn those women and their insatiable desires. Why couldn't they just keep it under their cloaks, eh?

There is a common belief, too, that witches were the original terrorists. Time Magazine argued as much this week, saying that their re-emergence in popular thinking (American Horror Story, etc) bodes badly for society. Maybe. But it's also a show that systematically explores how misogynistic history is. And Christ knows we need more powerful women on television, in whatever form they take. If it's Lange, Kathy Bates, Frances Conroy, and Angela Bassett basically reclaiming the idea of a witch as a superhero, that's pretty powerful. 

Salem Witch Trials. Image via

But the idea of aligning witches with terrorists is problematic. Sure, in purely propaganda terms, the Salem Witch Trials is comparable to the war on terror because witches were believed to be widespread and hidden. Anyone could be one. Doubt thy neighbor and all that. But there is a tendency to over-intellectualize the witch mythos, removing it from the realm of blatant misogyny toward a safer, more palatable idea of the masses rising up against an insurgent force. 

So if you're dressing up as a witch tonight, remember the 20 executed on Gallows Hill while you stick fake warts on your face. Benjamin Franklin might have swept in to make a mockery out of the Salem slaughters with a satire involving sheep and hangings, but behind our modern, cartoonish interpretations are centuries of savage means to keep women from getting too big for their pointy boots. 

Follow David Whelan on Twitter.

Hello Halloween people, what are you up to tonight? Are you going to be a cultural icon or a fictional character? Will you slip into one of those silly sexy adult costumes, or go with a classic distasteful/stupid/racist getup? This is your only opportunity in 2014 to be the thing you’ve always wanted (unless you’re a sex offender).

Regardless of what everyone does tonight, we’ll see the consequences tomorrow. We'll learn how many children were possibly drugged with candy, and people will realize that their sexual conquest was more of a sexual catastrophe (that's just one of the perils of flirting with people in full-body costumes). We might even uncover a bit of Halloween ultra-violence.

Say, for example, a murderer used the cover of Halloween to commit a heinous act. Not only could he hide in plain sight, but the drunken citizens out on the street might actually applaud his bloody, realistic costume. Before you go out and take that advice, check out this pitch-black comedy short, The Body, which is about that exact premise.

Alfie Allen, who plays Theon Greyjoy on the Game of Thrones, stars as a murderer who, after his deadly deed, wraps the corpse up and lugs it down London’s busy streets to bury it. On his way, a group of inebriated strangers stumble into him and strike up a conversation about his “costume.” What results is a mercilessly twisted and funny Halloween night out—one that cleverly comments on a society that never looks beyond the surface (or underneath the mask). 

Check out The Body below. Then take a gander at my interview with director Paul Davis.

VICE: Do you really think someone could get away with murder on Halloween?
Paul Davis: The whole idea was to highlight the age of cynicism we live in. We’re so sophisticated with special effects and props, that you just wouldn’t even second guess someone dragging an actual dead body through the streets. It’s almost the perfect crime—which I do not advocate in any way shape or form, kids! Even when we were shooting in the middle of a busy London street, there were times when we would purposefully leave the wrapped up body in the middle of a crosswalk to see how people reacted. Almost everyone walked right on by. It is disturbing, if you think about it. 

There's no doubt that our society has a fascination with death (as long as it's not us). Do you think that it gets us into trouble?
Absolutely. But one of the things I deliberately touched upon is that all the guys involved in the film are drunk. We make stupid decisions when we’ve had a drink, and I took that to the extreme. It was very much born out of the notion that I’d probably go along with it too if I was hammered. Their lack of questioning comes down to circumstance. It’s like a fatal domino effect of stupidity.

There's some great deadpan humor in your short.
The comedy in this was important for me to get right. We walked a narrow line to make sure that this didn’t turn into parody. I’ve since jested that we were one joke away from being John Carpenter’s Weekend at Bernie's. What’s wonderful about the story is that it didn’t have to set up any jokes. I like putting real, grounded characters in surreal situations. That way, we get genuine and somewhat relatable reactions when something goes seriously wrong. That can be very funny. If you play it straight, the humor will ease out the deeper you get. 

You have a lot of other horror film references in The Body. What are some of your favorite Halloween movies and influences?
There were a lot more in the script, but I cut them out because I wanted to stick mainly to visual gags or audio cues. If people picked up on the Easter egg, then great. But if they didn’t, they weren't taken out of the story. One Easter egg is the trick or treaters at the beginning from Halloween 3 and the use of "Swan Lake"—the song was used as an opening track to a handful of Universal horror pictures in the 1930s, including Dracula and The Mummy.

The major influences on this were visual more than anything. Both the Director of Production, Eben Bolter, and I wanted to capture an authentic yet cinematic Halloween look that was faithful to the likes of John Carpenter’s Halloween and Trick 'r Treat. Films such as Hitchcock’s The Trouble with Harry, Scorsese’s After Hours, and Mary Harron’s American Psycho also had a big hand in terms of keeping the tone consistent. 

What are you working on now?
I’m currently in prep with producer Paul Fischer on a horror anthology titled Its Walls Were Blood. It’s very much a "contemporary throwback"—drawing inspiration from the 60s and 70s and giving it a modern flavor. I’m directing the through-line story and final story in the piece. The other three directors include Tom Shankland, Sean Hogan, and Paul Hyett, who have written all their segments respectively (mine is co-written with Stefan Hutchinson).

We have a tremendous cast on board and start shooting at the beginning of next year. In addition, I’m attached to direct a feature next year for a company that I’m a huge fan of—and am extremely excited and humbled to be associated with. I also have a few screenplays with my co-writer that have just gone out to various producers. I’ve just completed my first solo attempt at a feature screenplay, which I’m very excited about. We’ll see what happens. I’m being kept busy... Busy is good.

The Body premiered earlier this year at Fright Fest and screened a number of other festivals including Tribeca and Sitges where it won Best European Short. Paul Davis is a horror dude through and through. He made a number of films in the genre from the award winning short film Him Indoors and the 2009 documentary on An American Werewolf in London.

Jeffrey Bowers is a tall mustached guy from Ohio who's seen too many weird movies. He currently lives in Brooklyn, working as a film curator. He's the Senior Curator for Vimeo's On Demand platform. He has also programmed at Tribeca Film Festival, Rooftop Films, and the Hamptons International Film Festival.

Stephen Gough, the Naked Rambler. Screenshot via this video

The Naked Rambler has never hurt anyone, but he'll be in prison for longer than Oscar Pistorius. In fact, Stephen Gough has already served twice Pistorius' sentence, not for the crime of culpable homicide, but for neglecting to cover his dick up while wandering around in public. The 54-year-old has boomeranged in and out of jail since 2003, when he served four months for breach of the peace. Each time he's locked up for being naked, Stephen insists on leaving the prison naked. Which, on one occasion, saw him arrested and sent back inside almost immediately.  

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decided on Tuesday that, in being continually convicted (he's spent about seven years behind bars overall), Stephen has had neither his freedom of expression violated, nor his right to private and family life. They were, in other words, sentencing a nudist to theoretical life imprisonment. In non-theoretical real life, he's currently one month into two-and-a-half years for disobeying an ASBO [an anti-social behavior order] that forbade him from—no surprises here—walking around naked.

In a Guardian interview from 2012, Stephen reveals himself to be rational and polite, capable of eloquently justifying his actions. I spoke to Neil Forsyth, who wrote the profile. “I can't see him backing down,” he said, before explaining his frustration about the “conservative interpretation” of the offense—breach of the peace—that Stephen keeps getting locked up for. “There has to be a more humanistic approach,” he sighed. “Who's the victim?”

Imprisonment, release; imprisonment, release; imprisonment. Stephen's routine is a ludicrous charade that serves to perfectly underline his philosophy: society's attitude towards the human body in public needs to be re-wired.

I also spoke to Mike Schwarz, Stephen's lawyer, who argues that “criminalizing his activity on whatever test is disproportionate and intolerant.” The ECHR ruling affects Stephen's predicament in a significant way, said Mike, because a change in the law will be harder to affect as a result. “But we need to work out if there is any wiggle room within that judgment.”

Rigidly puritanical, the restrictions on Stephen seem to serve the best interests of absolutely nobody: not Stephen, who is unaffected by their supposedly rehabilitative intent because he sees no immorality in his actions; not the state, which spends thousands of pounds keeping him in prison; and not the public, to whom Stephen is absolutely harmless. The responses to a Guardian poll indicate that 51 percent of its readers deem "naked rambling" not to be a human right. But 69 percent of the public believe we should retain the monarchy, and 45 percent that the death penalty ought to be reinstated. Stupidity finds a comfy home in crowds.

Stephen with some clothes on. Screenshot via this video

It's in Scotland, where nudity is condemned more harshly, that Stephen's rambles have caused him most pain. Like many offenses, the wording of Scotland's "breach of the peace" is vague enough to be almost meaningless: It is "conduct severe enough to cause alarm to ordinary people and threaten serious disturbance to the community."

That his cock and balls have caused some minor alarm is very likely, but then so do fireworks and car alarms. “Think about how many people saw him each day,” said Neil, referring to Stephen's well publicized walks from Land's End to John o' Groats. “For every person who phoned the police up and said, 'Oh, there's a naked guy walking past the house,' there'd have been ten, 20 people who saw him and went about their day. If they're saying that it causes offense to the ordinary person, the facts of the case don't back that up.”

Perhaps the most pressing question is why exactly Stephen keeps doing it. Why he doesn't just put some pants on before he goes for a walk.

Stephen's devotion to nudity is best framed as a religious obligation. Despite being non-religious, he's as wedded to his beliefs as most of this country's faithful. Religious freedoms must be protected at all costs on condition that they don't impinge upon the rights of others. This means, for example, that if you're religious you can wear whatever the hell you like—even if your dress does offend "ordinary people"—as long as you aren't compromising another person's freedoms. Seeing Stephen's pasty ass, while maybe not all that desirable, is hardly an infringement on one's personal liberty.

Stephen having a wash in a stream. Screenshot via this video

As British Naturism ("the UK's representative organization for all naturists") points out, the ECHR proffered no evidence on the actual or potential offense caused by Stephen's nude state, which is apparently liable to be “morally and otherwise offensive” to “unwarned members of the public.” Stephen isn't a naked ghoul jumping out from the bushes, or a handsy creep assaulting people in the street. As Neil says, “It's not exactly provocative, walking about with a flaccid penis.” British Naturism also correctly mentions that “the World Naked Bike Ride is encountered by tens of thousands of people, most of them 'unwarned,' and is enthusiastically received.”

Mike bolsters this view, pointing out how small a proportion of the public complain about Stephen's nudity. He also said, “We've had, throughout the legal proceedings, expert evidence from psychologists saying that children—and, in fact, adults—aren't adversely affected by seeing non-sexual public nudity, male or female..

Cases about the human body matter. They matter because when the state adjudicates over the body it reveals a tremendous amount. Embedded in every case about abortion is the implicit assumption that women cannot be allowed full autonomy over their bodies; within rulings over assisted dying lies the insidious notion that life must be preserved not for the sake of the subject but for a mysterious higher cause. At the heart of every Gough conviction has been the pernicious belief that the human form is either something to be ashamed of, or a potential weapon.

That Stephen disputes this premise is something that deserves championing, not castigating. He's got balls, and they ought to be seen more often.

Follow Ralph Jones on Twitter.

Halloween is the best day of the year for kids 15 and under. They spend the other 364 days doing bullshit like going to school or eating dinner with their families, but on October 31 their only responsibility is to play make-believe and fill up a bag with free candy from strangers. I don't remember much from my childhood, but I can vividly remember every one of my Halloween costumes. I asked some of my favorite cartoonists, artists, and illustrators to recreate their best or worst costumes in illustrated form.

Cayetana Conrad was Baba Yaga

"This is my costume from about 1959. I wore pajamas and a bathrobe under it. I liked the Russian story about a witch named Baba Yaga who looked like this."

Jonny Negron was Bob

Simon Hanselmann was Batman and Robin

"There is no Halloween in Tasmania. People hate it and say "oh that American thing" in a snarky tone, but my best friend Luke and I used to go out anyway. We would put together really complicated Mortal Kombat costumes. We did it until we were 15, and that last year we made no effort whatsoever. We wore cheap, injection-molded Batman Forever masks with HUGE pouty lips. They looked really creepy. We had towels for capes. Luke was six-feet-tall. He was Robin. We were drunk as fuck. Nobody would open their doors so we glued up their locks. Years later I masturbated while wearing the Batman mask. That was pretty funny."

Alex Schubert was the Rocketeer

"My mom used to make all of my Halloween costumes, and one year I was the Rocketeer. The rocket pack was paper mache. My dad made the helmet out of wood, and it was so heavy that I had to take it off. Not sure if it was the best or the worst."

Penelope Gazin was a Ghost Queen

"I wanted to be a 'ghost queen' for Halloween when I was five. I draped gold sparkly fabric over my head and decided it didn't need any eye holes since I could kind of see through it. My mom secured it with a gold ribbon tied around my neck so the fabric wouldn't slip off. It looked a lot better in my head. I ended up looking like a fabulous hostage."

Dennis Chow was Cobra Commander

It was 1987, I was obsessed with Cobra Commander, so I dressed up as him for Halloween. I wore mostly denim-jean jacket, jeans, and then a blue t-shirt over my head with two eye holes cut out. Voila, Cobra fucking Commander!

Happy Halloween Everybody!

Motel Top

PHOTOGRAPHY: FREEL AND GORSE
STYLING: KYLIE GRIFFITHS

Makeup and hair: Jessica Cheetham
Models: Lydia at Models 1 and Estelle at M and P

Motel top

Beyond Retro top

Shirt from Black Heart Vintage 

Topshop T-shirt

Motel top; top from Black Heart Vintage >

Photo via Wikimedia

Anyone still thinking it might be fun to dress up as a Native American (aka a "sexy Indian" or "warrior chief") this Halloween should reconsider. Members of the Native American community are once again reminding the public that wearing a headdress is no more acceptable than dressing up in a sombrero, a yarmulke, or a hijab-which hasn't stopped celebrities like Pharrell Williams, Gwen Stefani, Paris Hilton, and even Princess Charlotte Casiraghi of Monaco from doing it, but still.

"It's 'redface.' Just like 'blackface,'" Deejay NDN, a member of the First Nations DJ trio A Tribe Called Red told the Huffington Post. The group has repeadedly asked fans to stop wearing "Indian" headdress costumes to its shows. Twitter users are speaking out as well, asking retailers like Party City to stop stocking the costumes.

Despite this public outcry, this Halloween "Native American" costumes are available online and in stores across North America, with online retailers offering over 100 options. "Sexy tribal princesses," Native American "Indian warriors" (found under the heading "Indian"), and "sexy Indian chiefs" (found under the heading "undergarments") are common examples. When sorted by popularity, the "American Indian Woman" is the 12th bestselling adult costume on Walmart.com, ahead of both Catwoman and Wonderwoman, and the site's 54th bestseller overall-out of over 3,000 options.

"Word just came in from the ancient Indian tribal gods that this Sexy Tribal Princess Costume will have you looking hot," reads the marketing copy for one costume. Another promises the feathered headband is "historically accurate" and notes "an Indian chief needs his squaw, and every squaw needs some nice accessories." Walmart, Kmart, Target, Party City, and HalloweenCostumes.com could not be immediately be reached for comment. 

Photo via Walmart.com

"We, as First Nation people, have never had control of our image in colonial media since its birth," notes Deejay NDN in his Huffington Post interview, explaining why dressing up as an historically oppressed minority is problematic. The award-winning group, known for its civil rights activism and support for the campaign to change the Washington NFL team name, asks its audience members to confront this historical appropriation via video installations at each of their shows. Each show presents a powerful, endless loop of movie clips in which white Hollywood actors appear in redface "playing" Native Americans. Old westerns are particularly guilty of this-white men wearing headdresses wielding tomahawks while chasing buffalo on horseback-but this appropriation is still visible throughout society today: from the Halloween costumes to the Land O' Lakes butter "Indian maiden," to Indian Motorcycles, to the Washington NFL team name and mascot.

In Thomas King's The Inconvenient Indian, a darkly funny book about the history of Indigenous peoples in North America, King writes, "North America no longer sees Indians." What it sees, King argues, are "war bonnets, beaded shirts, fringed deerskin moccasins, face paint, and bone chokers." The Native peoples represented by this reductive imagery are what King refers to as "Dead Indians."

To illustrate this King shares an anecdote in The Inconvenient Indian about Running Antelope, whose image appears on the $5 silver certificate that was in circulation in the US from 1899 to 1914. The story goes that Running Antelope was asked to wear his headdress for the photograph, but, feeling it inappropriate as it was only for special ceremonies, he refused. Another story has it that he arrived to the sitting without a headdress so was asked to wear a Pawnee headdress rather than the one of his own Lakota nation. He refused. The final image, however, features Running Antelope in a headdress-perhaps the product of an early photoshop-esque move by an official who was convinced he needed a "real" Indian for his photo.

A generic "Native American" Halloween costume is just part of a long tradition of a false representation of the culture. "Whatever cultural significance [headdresses] may have for Native peoples," King writes in the book, "full feather headdresses and beaded buckskins are, first and foremost, White North America's signifiers of Indian authenticity."

And therein lies the problem, note Tribe Called Red members. It's part of what the group calls "Pan-Indianism," which creates a false impression of what being a member of a First Nation means. Instead of a dynamic, diverse group of hundreds of nations each with unique language, traditions, culture, and dress, the "Indian" is reduced to a costumed stereotype that never truly existed, except as a construct by White North Americans. 

It's in light of this very recent history that many First Nations' members are reminding everyone this Halloween that it isn't OK to play dress up in someone else's culture. Unless a costume, like this one, that makes a mockery of genocide is your thing.

"Here's your chance to rewrite history, in this version the Native Americans slaughter the Europeans!"