Too scary for children! How Halloween used to be – in pictures

Ghouls in Y-fronts and ghostly bums feature in Ken Werner’s vintage Halloween pictures, taken between 1976 and 1980 at San Francisco’s outrageous outdoor parties

Reissued for the first time in decades, Ken Werner’s underground classic Halloween: A Fantasy in Three Acts explores a magical dream/nightmare-land of terror and joy, with uninhibited celebrants revelling in stunning self-made guises. Originally published in 1981, the photos were taken by Werner at San Francisco’s adult Halloween celebrations from 1976 to 1980, assembling a visual narrative of American popular culture as seen through lenses of queerness, dark humour and the macabre. Ken Werner’s Halloween is available via Anthology Editions. All pictures: Ken Werner

Once touted as the ‘Mardi Gras of the west’, the raunchy, mostly open-air nighttime costume parties documented by Werner were hugely popular events organised primarily by LGBT and sex worker advocates, attracting tens of thousands of curious attendees as well as conservative ire from around the nation

Ken Werner: ‘I had two main motivations when I created the original edition of Halloween. Firstly, as an artistically oriented documentary photographer, I felt I had a set of unique and amazing images I wanted to share with the world …’

‘… and secondly, I was terrified that San Francisco’s spectacular Halloween street parties – the source of these images – were about to disappear due to the socio-political factors detailed in the book’s introduction. I wanted to reach out to my fellow San Franciscans to try to save it’

‘Although the conservatives’ hostile characterisations of the street parties were unfair and largely untrue, some of the costuming and behaviour did push the limits of what was acceptable, albeit almost always in a playful and creative way. For a photographer like myself, this was a big part of the events’ appeal: stunningly inventive homemade costumes – creations I could never see anywhere else – were all around me, and their creators were generally happy to have me photograph them’

‘On my book’s front cover, I wanted to immediately convey two things: firstly, that the photographs inside were of adult celebrations, and secondly, that they had been taken at night and (mostly) outdoors. I decided that this image best accomplished these goals: the four-armed costume shown was too heavy (and probably too horrifying) for a child to wear, and the circular, illuminated Donuts 24 Hours sign clearly signalled an outdoor, night-time setting’

‘I wanted my book to conjure up the playful, outside-the-box thinking on display on that special night. One example of how I tried to accomplish this is found on the back cover, which was the logical location for a brief bio and a traditional headshot of myself. But what exactly is a headshot? Well, it’s an image of a head without a body. So, its most appropriate companion would be a body without a head. Happily, I’d been able to photograph exactly that, nonchalantly walking down the street’

‘Halloween’s goals were simultaneously artistic and political, and my selection and sequencing of its images reflects this duality. My hope was that by creating a compelling photo book experience – magical, frightening, sensual and ultimately unforgettable – I would also be making a “political” case for the preservation of the remarkable freeform night-time street parties which had given birth to my images’

‘My fears and my desire to reach out were graphically and evocatively depicted by this image. That’s why I chose it as the very first image of my book’

‘In the late 1970s, TV was the dominant mass medium, and it had been used very effectively by rightwing politicians to disseminate grossly distorted and dishonest descriptions of the “goings-on” at the street parties, which they were targeting primarily because of their location in the growing gay “ghettoes”. This image depicts a bandaged “victim” literally encased in a TV set, an ironic visual counterpoint to my analysis of the politicians’ attacks presented in the book’s introduction’

‘At the time, there was a well-known line about San Francisco: the North American continent was actually tilted, and all the “loose marbles” had rolled to the city by the Bay. There was, in fact, a grain of truth in this: ever since the 1950s, the city had offered a congenial refuge for artists, recreational drug users and nonconformists of all stripes. First came the beat poets and writers, then the hippies, then the gay community’

‘I felt it was important to acknowledge that the use of marijuana – then illegal but effectively decriminalised and readily available in San Francisco – played a generally positive role in the festivities and the spontaneous and often wonderful interpersonal interactions I’d observed among its costumed revellers’

‘

San Francisco’s Halloween street parties survived until 2006. As the crowds swelled, the city authorities increasingly tried to control and domesticate the events. Most unfortunate was their attempt to convert the active-participant celebrations into passive audience/celebrity performer-type events, complete with loud, intrusive sound-stages. I continued photographing them (in colour) until 2001’

‘This is the final image of Act III in my book. To my eye, this image of Death pointing directly at the viewer strongly suggests the famous Uncle Sam Wants You recruitment posters from the first world war. I felt it was the perfect closer because it directly reaches out to the viewer, seeking her or his engagement and hopefully underlining my appeal to help save San Francisco’s amazing street parties’

‘This image sets up the ending of the book. It appears as a double-page spread, accompanied by large-type text which reads “… as the ominous scent of the big-city night seeps back into the streets …” Its placement was a key part of my “paper movie” structure, signalling that my synthesised night was coming to an end’