Halloween used to be scary. I'll explain.

A friend of mine had a really scary looking skeleton figurine on display in his home for Halloween. The detail on the monster was fantastic, something that you might see in a gruesome horror movie.

Then I pressed a button on the base of the figurine and the skeleton began to sing and dance to "Bad to the Bone." Isn't Halloween supposed to be scary? Shouldn't that figurine moan and groan and threaten your life?

More and more people these days dress up as U.S. presidents, TV celebrities and other nonscary individuals. What happened to being a werewolf, a vampire or Frankenstein's monster - a creature that would terrify you and anyone else?

Even dressing up as a crash victim would be an acceptable choice for a Halloween costume. At least there's blood and guts.

If that's not bad enough, people have made "The Monster Mash" the soundtrack of Halloween. How does a song like "The Monster Mash," which belongs on "Sesame Street," become the anthem for what's supposed to be the scariest time of year, when ghosts and goblins and ghouls come out to frighten you?

When I was a kid, I wanted to be scared on Halloween. I wanted to see scary images. Come the first of October, I would hang decorations of witches, ghosts and monsters in my bedroom so that at night, with the help of my imagination, those monsters would come to life and frighten the PJs right off my back. You can't even find scary decorations anymore. Those same paper witches, ghosts and monsters now wear silly smiley faces.

These days, kids don't even go trick-or-treating on the streets. They go to community centers and shopping malls to collect candy. What fun is that?

Monsters don't hang out in brightly lit community centers or in shopping malls packed with people. Monsters hide in dark houses in strange neighborhoods far from your own block. Better yet, monsters hide in bushes and behind trees, waiting to jump out and eat trickortreaters.

People have told me that they prefer to have their kids go to community centers and malls for Halloween parties or trickortreating because they don't want their kids collecting "poisoned candy" from strangers. Heck, I've been to some restaurants where you take the same gamble.

Some people say that trickortreating in shopping malls is safer than trick-or-treating on the streets because it's better to be in a public place with lots of people.

Who wants safe?

As a young trick-or-treater, I always preferred danger. That's what Halloween is all about.

Right?

Yeah, that's right. And then you have kids and you don't even allow them to talk to strangers, let alone allow them to go up to a stranger's dark porch at night and ask for candy.

Scary Halloween decorations? Not in my house.

My 3yearold son has nightmares about Elmo, the red puppet that makes most kids laugh.

My wife and I have to stay up all night comforting him. I'm not going to introduce a slimy, bloody zombie to my son's imagination. I like sleep.

This Halloween, I have no problem taking my son trickortreating at the mall, followed by a visit to the community center for a Halloween party featuring dancing to ... "The Monster Mash."

And I have no problem buying happy-faced Halloween decorations for our home, or a skeleton figurine that sings and dances to "Bad to the Bone" instead of one that moans and groans and threatens your life.

E-mail Michael Picarella at pic@theacorn.com.