Connie Primmer: Halloween & horror - love or hate?

When it comes to horror, I’m the biggest baby I know, and yet I still get excited about the celebration of all things terrifying.

Although my efforts at costume designs are inevitably rather poor, I blame that on my artistic skills rather than my attitude, and I enter into the spirit of the occasion whole-heartedly.

My theory is that it doesn’t matter if your pumpkins are a bit deformed (makes them even more scary!) or if you look like you’re still wearing the same fancy dress outfit that you made when you were four, as long as you’re shimmying away to the Monster Mash, making up ghost stories and eating as many sweets as you can before you feel sick.

Many people disapprove of the extreme commercialisation of the whole thing, but as a dedicated shopaholic, I embrace all the various seasonal shopping opportunities, and rather than seeing spending my pocket money on plastic broomsticks and fake blood as a waste, I think it’s wonderful.

It’s not just the shopping and wild wardrobe creations that make me such a fan of this autumnal festival.

Despite the fact that my overactive imagination manages to make me cry with fear at the mere sound of a creaky stair, I find myself fascinated by spooky things.

I’ve always loved a good ghost story, and even wrote my university dissertation on Victorian seances and spirits.

For hours I curled up in the creepiest corner of the library that I could find, (I don’t just mean the seat next to the resident weirdo), and poured over hundred-year-old books recounting tales of spooky encounters and other-wordly experiences.

I scared myself silly, and at one point considered filling in an extenuating circumstances form for my essay due to all the nightmares I’d been having, because although I seek out ghost stories and histories of haunted houses, when it comes down to it I’m actually a massive wimp.

There are some films, for example, which I would never dare to watch. Most 18 certificates are off limits for my delicate composition, and many tamer films which I thought I could handle frightened me to the point of anger.

A trailer for Paranormal Activity 3 took me by surprise in the ad break of Made In Chelsea on Monday night, and I was furious that E4 had inflicted it upon me.

I was contendely enjoying an evening at home alone, watching slightly-trashy television with my dog, when all of a sudden the horrifying ad started, causing me total panic as I tried to scream, cover my ears, shut my eyes and grab the remote to change the channel all at the same time.

They shouldn’t be allowed to show such things without some kind of warning, or innocent people like me will find their evening ruined by fear when the offending ad is sprung on them.

My bravado was also tested on a recent trip to Mead Open Farm, when I jumped at the chance to visit the new Halloween attractions for a feature.

Since it’s aimed at children, I thought it would be just the right level of gentle horror for me.

Alas, having found myself slightly unnerved by the spooky display in Creepy Tots Corner, by the time I got to the Haunted Castle I was shrieking like a banshee and shaking all over.

Yet despite the fact I nearly fainted in fright, once I’d got home safely and calmed down I started reading about local ghost stories and thinking it might be fun to go to the London Dungeons.

So it seems I have a love-hate relationship with Halloween and all things terrifying.

I guess the whole attraction of horror is the adrenaline rush you get from being scared, and I can’t be the only one to scream the house down when watching a scary film, covering my eyes with my hands only to go back for another peek seconds later.

(Apart from in Paranormal Activity - that is something I will never have the guts to watch).

Anyway, love it or hate it, Halloween is here, so I’m off to carve my pumpkin and build up the courage to get my ghost on for the festivities. Trick or treat!