Halloween the movie is having its moment at the box office. Again. And Halloween the holiday is having its moment Wednesday.
So the timing is right to get to see what is in Arkansans' bag of tricks and treats.
• Clicking around on Frightgeist, a Google Trends experiment (tinyurl.com/geistar), can help one "conjure up Halloween's most popular costumes."
According to their map, the most popular costume in Little Rock and Jonesboro (and the No. 4 costume nationally) is the dinosaur. The most popular costume in Fayetteville (and everywhere else in the country); is from Fortnite.
And if we put them both together: Halloween becomes extinct because everyone would rather just stay home playing Fortnite.
• CandyStore.com put together a map of "America's Favorite Halloween Candy" (tinyurl.com/arcandy).
Fine print: "This year, it is expected that $2.6 billion will be spent on trick-or-treat, which is a lot of money. If we as a nation are spending that much, we might as well get it right. We gathered 11 years of data and made this map of 2018's Most Popular Halloween Candy in America by state to help you choose wisely."
Now, I reported in a previous column that Arkansans are sweet on boring ol' Jolly Ranchers; they came in at No. 1. But I didn't get to this hard-to-swallow hard candy explanation: "The only state with an active diamond mine is rich in a lot of things. Johnny Cash, Douglas MacArthur, dulcimers. You might even say they're jolly. That's right, Arkansans love Jolly Ranchers at Halloween. This is even more fitting when you consider the vast acres of national and state parks in the state. If you find yourself in Arkansas for Halloween, double down on Jolly Ranchers."
In second place with Arkansans: tongue-torching Hot Tamales. In third place: teeth-sticking Butterfingers.
When it comes to candy, we're not so Smarties.
• Streamingobserver.com compiled a map of "Favorite Horror Movie By State" (tinyurl.com/arscarymovie).
Fine print: "Using data from Rotten Tomatoes, proprietary Amazon MTurk surveying, and other public sources, we compiled a list of the most popular horror movies of all time. Then, we partnered with Mindnet Analytics and used Google Trends data to determine which horror movie each state was most obsessed with relative to other states."
Whereas people in other states prefer Halloween and Silence of The Lambs, we favor The Thing, starring a shape-shifting alien, Kurt Russell and Wilford Brimley.
Says ThisIsInsider.com: "Directed by Halloween director John Carpenter, the 1982 sci-fi horror flick was initially a major flop, reviled by critics and viewers alike. But it went on to find a fan base of cult viewers ... and perhaps many of them reside in Arkansas."
Apparently Arkansans have a thing for The Thing.
• Meanwhile, because The Thing is not the thing for kids, Frontier Communications put together a map of "Your State's Favorite Spooky Movie for Kids" (tinyurl.com/arkidmovie).
Fine print: "We tracked Google search data from the past year on children's Halloween movies rated PG or below and selected the top 18. We then ran the search volume of these 18 movies in every state and reported only the movie with the highest volume."
Movies popular with kids in other states include Hocus Pocus, Harry Potter and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
Arkansas kids must be meddling kids. The favorite: Scooby-Doo.
But -- zoinks! -- which Scooby Doo? Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island? Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost? Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders? Just plain Scooby-Doo, the 2002 live-action/computer-animated film, starring Freddie Prinze Jr. and Sara Michelle Gellar?
We Doo not know.
Creep it real and email:
jchristman@arkansasonline.com
Spin Cycle is a weekly smirk at pop culture.
Style on 10/28/2018