Algernon Graeves Is Scary Enough (review)

Algernon is beset by the perennial trick-or-treating challenge—how to come up with the "darkest, scariest, set-your-teeth-on-edgiest Halloween costume ever." As he roams around his shadowy attic seeking inspiration, he considers all the tried and true creatures of the night, but the vision in his imagination never comes close to the reality in the mirror. For instance, when Algernon thinks, "Ghosts are scary" and dresses up as a ghost, the audience shares Algernon's image of the ideal: a vaporous, wrinkle-faced, chain-rattling, glassy-eyed, shrieking apparition that should set the neighbors' hair on end. The next spread, though, reveals the sad, banal get-up Algernon actually dons—the classic sheet with two eyeholes. The same problem occurs with the grinning skeleton, a tattered mummy, a crimson-eyed vampire, a snarling werewolf, and an attacking zombie: sublime horror peters out into ridiculous costumes that comprise family jetsam and bits and bobs of old packaged Halloween wear. Resourceful Algernon finally does come up with a winning idea, and although the hybrid monster suit he concocts from the parts of previous castoffs may not be the B-movie beast he aimed for, he's far and away the weirdest of his friends, who regard him with awe as they gather under a sliver of October moon. Bollinger leads his audience in a merry dance in the eerily illuminated attic as he toggles back and forth between truly gruesome images and utter silliness, delighting both the thrill-seekers who want some really scary stuff and the timid who need prompt reassurance. Parents who believe in the value of homemade costumes—and those who put off the Halloween shopping trip too long—will laud Algernon Graeves as the epitome of creative possibility.