As someone who was a little kid in the ’70s, and not the ’00s or the ’20s, some of my fondest Halloween memories are going out for hours, and unsupervised.
That is, until I saw the movie Halloween; since then, my fondest Halloween memories are me hiding under my bed.
I suspect the same may have also happened if I had read Christopher Golden’s horror / suburban drama novel All Hallows…which would’ve been a neat trick given how it originally came out in 2023.
With All Hallows newly available in paperback (and still available in hardcover, Kindle, and audiobook), I crawled out from under my bed long enough to send Mr. Golden some questions about what inspired and influenced this scary story.
Photo Credit: Shivohn Kacy Fleming
To start, what is All Hallows about, and when and where is it set?
It’s Halloween night, 1984, in Coventry, Massachusetts.
In a busy suburban neighborhood, one family has created a “Haunted Woods” attraction in the woods behind their house, while another is throwing a neighborhood Halloween block party. It’s the ’80s, so the kids are basically unsupervised as trick or treat goes on, costumed kids going door to door to collect their candy.
But among those kids are four who don’t belong, who are wearing old-fashioned costumes like they stepped out of antique photographs, and those kids start to beg the neighborhood children for help, because — they say — the Cunning Man is coming to get them.
I love this book so damn much.
Where did you get the idea for All Hallows?
I knew I wanted to write a book about Halloween in the ’80s, and for me — growing up in the suburbs — it had to be about the fabric of a neighborhood. I told my editor I wanted to write a thing about families unraveling, about secrets discovered, like [Rick Moody’s novel] The Ice Storm but with evil. Halloween has always been my favorite holiday, and I wanted this book to feel the way Halloween feels in my heart.
So, is there a reason you set in 1984, as opposed to 1994 or 2024? And in Coventry, Massachusetts as opposed to Boston or Fall River?
Wait, is that because you knew that if you set in in 1986, and in Worcester, Massachusetts, that it would take place during my freshman year at Clark University, and you didn’t want me to have to deal with weird little kids when I should’ve been hitting the books? Because it takes place on Halloween, and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t studying that night.
That’s exactly it, Paul. If I set it in 1986 it would have been about you, and I don’t know that you would’ve liked all the terrifying adventures I’d have put you through.
I thank you. And my GPA thanks you.
Beyond that, though, when I think about Halloween from my childhood, and the kind of atmosphere I wanted, and the age of the kids in the story I wanted to tell, it just felt right. I was seventeen on Halloween night, 1984, which made me just grown up enough to think I could handle whatever came my way, but still young enough to make terrible decisions. I wanted to immerse readers in what Halloween felt like, back then.
Along with freaking people out, the four strange kids also expose some people’s secrets. Is there a reason you had them do that as opposed to, say, showing people what their afterlife would be like or something similarly psychologically scarring? Obviously, if they just went around, stabbing people in the face, someone would just shoot them or hit them with a bat, and this would be a short story instead of a novel, but why secrets specifically?
That one’s easy. If you want to unravel any group of people — in this case a neighborhood full of families — you expose their secrets. A neighborhood, especially when I was a kid, is full of people who live side by side and who are generally friendly to one another without ever really becoming close friends. There are exceptions, of course. But a suburban neighborhood was always sort of the definition of “polite society.” Pull the thread of someone’s secrets, and all of a sudden people aren’t so polite anymore. It’s insidious.
All Hallows is clearly a horror story, but it sounds like there’s more to it.
Oh, it’s very much a horror novel, but it’s also sort of a suburban drama. Even melodrama. My novel Snowblind — which is also set in Coventry — is the same.
Obviously, All Hallows is not your first novel; you just mentioned Snowblind. Are there any writers, or specific stories, that had a big influence on All Hallows, but not on anything else you’ve written?
I haven’t thought about that much. I often refer to a writer’s imagination as a big stew. It’s like everything you’ve ever read or watched has been thrown into a pot and when you create, you dip a ladle in, so it’s hard to separate one thing from another. There are always Stephen King influences and Rod Serling influences. This one has some Ray Bradbury influence, too.
What about non-literary influences; was All Hallows influenced by any movies, TV shows, or games? Because creepy kids always makes me think of those movies Children Of The Corn and Village Of The Damned.
I’m sure subconsciously there was some influence from Halloween III: Season Of The Witch. That’s one that I’ve probably never tapped into before. But really, it’s about the feeling of Halloween in 1984.
It sounds like All Hallows is a stand-alone story. But then, you just said your novel Snowblind was also set in Coventry, so…
It’s a stand-alone but it is set in Coventry. I’ve set stories there before, and I suspect I’ll set more there in the future.
Now, the reason we’re doing this interview is that All Hallows is being released in paperback; it originally came out in hardcover in 2023. Aside from correcting any typos or whatever, is there anything different about this version of All Hallows?
I didn’t add anything for the paperback. I’m just excited that it’ll be out in paperback at the perfect time, in September, right when folks are starting to get that exciting shiver up their spines as anticipation for Halloween grows.
One thing that’s new to the paperback version of All Hallows is an excerpt from your next novel, The Night Birds, which comes out May 6th, 2025. What is The Night Birds about?
It’s about a researcher working on a sunken freighter off the coast of Galveston, Texas — a bizarre ship that has a mangrove forest growing up out of its guts. One night, during a storm, his ex shows up with another woman and a baby she claims is her sister’s. They’re on the run from an ancient coven, evil things who want that baby and will do anything to have it.
It sounds like The Night Birds is also a horror novel, but also different from All Hallows.
It’s very different. There are certain kinds of stories I love to tell. Storms and frozen winter, and horrors at sea. In spite of that, in the past few years I’ve really been trying not to do the same thing twice. Road Of Bones, All Hallows, The House Of Last Resort, The Night Birds, and the one I’m about to start writing — they’re all horror, but they’re all completely different from one another.
Going back to All Hallows, earlier I asked if it had been influenced by any movies, TV shows, or games. But to flip things around, do you think All Hallows could work as a movie, a show, or a game?
I’m not sure if it could work as a game, though I suspect we could find a way.
Film or television, though? Absolutely either one would work. It could be a terrifying movie but might work even better as a television series. I’ve just signed two major film options but neither of them for All Hallows, so it’s still available. One of these days, I’d love to see that happen.
And if that day did come, who would you want them to cast as the four freaky kids and the other main characters?
It’s such a massive ensemble that it’s hard to say. There are so many actors I admire. For some reason I feel like Wyatt Russell [Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters] should be in there — that he’d make the perfect ’80s suburban dad caught up in unfolding horror and trying to protect his family.
I also think Riley Keough [Daisy Jones & The Six] isn’t getting enough credit — she’s hugely talented.
So, is there anything else someone might need to know about All Hallows?
I’m tempted to list all of the amazing blurbs I’ve gotten from fellow horror writers. I won’t do that, but I do have to say it always gives me such a lift when other writers read and really enjoy something I’ve written. Musicians can get together and jam. At a party they can form a drum circle or sit around with acoustic guitars and sing and play together. Writers can’t do that, but when you’ve got a new book out and other writers get excited about what you’ve done, that’s as close as we come. It’s a pretty amazing feeling.
Finally, if someone enjoys All Hallows, and it’s the first book of yours they’ve read, which of your novels would you suggest they check out next ?
I definitely think The House Of Last Resort will appeal to people who love All Hallows.
Also, Snowblind shares the same sort of tone and is set in the same town, so both of those would be great companions to All Hallows.
