NZ Skeptics Articles

Hell Houses, Trunk-or-Treats, and Light Parties: How Hallowe'en alternative spread the gospel during the spooky season

Bronwyn Rideout - 30 October 2023

As a major fan of Fall and Hallowe’en, the sudden absence of the holiday from my calendar was one of the few points of culture shock I had when I migrated to New Zealand. I soon found out that nothing could unite the members of this fine nation more than a chorus of tut-tutting about how corporate and how American Hallowe’en was, how tacky it was to send your kids out begging for treats, how much the holiday glorified chocolate, and so on and so forth. It can get a little grinchy sometimes, especially in the comments section of the NZ Herald website.

Plus, we all know how Kiwis celebrate and commercialise Christmas, Easter, and Guy Fawkes.

But enough semi-good-natured, trans-pacific ribbing. Let’s talk about the parallel importing of alternative Hallowe’en celebrations.

Light Parties/Colour Parties

These are a prime example of “if you can’t beat them, join them”. Light Parties are the half-hearted white flag of Christian churches who have admitted that Hallowe’en is a juggernaut that even a rockin’ worship team can’t defeat. That’s at least if you have a cool pastor, and not a reverend who thinks his flock should shun any celebration on October 31st.

Still, Light Parties have become a global phenomenon in their own right. The appeal of such events is in being an upbeat, daytime alternative to the darker themes of traditional Hallowe’en activities. Children are encouraged to dress as positive role models; some churches are permissive about TV characters and superhero costumes, while more fundamentalist churches restrict options to saints and angels. I dunno, sounds like someone has forgotten 2 Corinthians 11:14.

Mom…. Can I dress up as the Morning Star Angel for the Light Party? Please!! Sarah is going as Agatha of Sicily!

While Light Parties are not the exclusive domain of Christian churches, they do host the majority of them. By all accounts, a Light Party is no different than any other church fete, other than its deliberate Halloween timing and prohibition on certain costumes. While most skeptics would be skeptical of any event hosted by a church, those who are not in the know would miss out on the iconography and in particular, the brand attached to many of these events:

The official story is that Light Party, the business, had its start in 2000. Wendy Reid, a mother and children’s worker, was frustrated with the dark and negative side of Hallowe’en and developed the Light Party concept to bypass that. Reid’s idea obviously caught on, and she went from entertaining Sunday Schoolers to trademarking her brand both in NZ and internationally in 2003. It isn’t clear if Reid invented the concept outright, as a lot of churches host light parties of their own and do not use the Light Party Logo. The only director and shareholder listed for the company is Dennis Smith. The company was removed from the Companies Register in 2011, but the website and associated facebook page are still operating and promoting Light Parties in NZ, Australia, and the UK.

The website offers five reasons to host a Light Party instead of celebrating Hallowe’en, which echo many of the kiwi-based criticisms I’ve come across:

That first argument tends to annoy me, as a Canadian who more than once had to fit their costume over a hefty snowsuit and head out into the dark just after dinner. Given that October 31st lands during New Zealand’s Spring season, dusk usually isn’t until 8:30pm-ish anyways, which in North America is usually the tail end of trick-or-treating. Young children wouldn’t be out that late, or unaccompanied.

If the candle/lighthouse imagery wasn’t ringing bells as to the true leanings of this venture, the Resources page definitely hits you on the head with the gospel. The illustrations may seem strangely familiar to anyone familiar with Ray Comfort’s more kid-friendly offerings, because some of the activities were created by previous Comfort collaborator Richard Gunther.

Despite their longevity, the Light Party brand isn’t the only alternative Hallowe’en party going. Equippers Church host their own Colour Parties, their Porirua branch is having a Light Party Disco, with one branch even holding a Colour Light Party, while the Knox Church here in Lower Hutt have a Saints and Angels party.

Trick-Or-Trunks

Name three things in this picture you wouldn’t see at a light party

While a new concept to me, its origins allegedly predate the Light Party by a few years when (you guessed it) church groups wanted to offer a trick-or-treating alternative only. It’s largely a US phenomenon, and is a riff on the tailgate parties that occur in parking lots before sports games and concerts. With Trunk-or-Treats, people simply get together in a parking lot, organised by a church/community group/charity, with elaborately decorated cars and give out candy and offer games. Since the concept of trick-or-treating is still on the table, events I’ve seen recorded online appear to be far more lax than light parties and their ilk when it comes to appropriate costumes.

Wendy Fonarow, an anthropologist who researched Halloween-related rituals, believes that Trunk-or-Treating fits more with a general trend to encourage centralised trick-or-treating locations due to urban legends about child abduction and contaminated candy or apples. Some families do live in areas that are not safe, are dimly lit, or with neighbours who have forgotten the unspoken contract of leaving the porch lights on to indicate that trick-or-treaters are welcome. Trunk-or-Treats offer the opportunity for kids to get a large amount of candy in a short amount of time, without completely sacrificing the essence of Hallowe’en. In one article, parents were fairly pragmatic about church-run events as being a dry-run for costumes in advance of the real thing, and one church did notice that they had fewer attendees when they held their event on the same day as Halloween.

In 2022 a Trunk-or-Treat event was held in Rotorua, hosted by radio station The Hits FM, so the potential exists for a secular version to take off in New Zealand.

Hell Houses

On the opposite end of the spectrum are Hell Houses, or Judgement Houses. To describe a Hell House as an evangelical Spookers is to misunderstand its intention. Instead of Zombies and Serial Killers, visitors instead watch a series of grisly, oftentimes tasteless, frequently misinformed skits about abortion, suicide, homosexuality, drugs etc. Basically, a common description is that a trip through a Hell House feels like a Chick Track brought to life. At the end of each performance, attendees are given a chance to give their lives to Jesus. Standard stuff.

Jerry Falwell is believed to have kicked off this in the 1970s with the ScareMare at Liberty University. Falwell’s version required people to walk through seven rooms, each representing one of the seven deadly sins. Today, ScareMare is more of a traditional Haunted House with a bit of sermonising at the end. The concept has spread beyond the bible belt, but has yet to penetrate New Zealand save for Victory Church in Rotorua, who last put on their Welcome to Hell production in 2019.

The answer is yes.

While touring a Hell House may be a camp thrill for many, those who are inclined to be moved by its message are less inclined to recall the experience positively years later. It seems that the pure offensiveness of the Trinity Church Hell House was a major selling point for the curious, one that continued for over 25 years before the Pandemic seems to have shut things down.