Dear Kid,

It’s that time of year.

The time of year when—if you don’t like scary movies—you have to be very careful about randomly searching for something to watch on TV.

It’s the Halloween-y time of year when the people in charge of deciding what to put on the airwaves cablewaves love their jobs because it’s easy. Late October? Roll out the Halloween movies! Let there be scary!

Zombies? Bring ‘em on. Crazy people killing crazy people? Add them to the schedule. Ability to market “shock and terrify”? Bring on the advertising!

And those of us who are not fans of terror? Beware the ads, beware the commercials, beware the sneak previews, and mostly beware of channel surfing.

On the other hand, if you love scary movies, you shouldn’t have any trouble finding something to watch.

I was going to make you a list of the best scary movies, but then I saw some of the titles and the movie posters and I decided if I ever want to sleep again maybe making a scary movie list wasn’t such a good idea.

I’ll stick with happy little ghosts and cheerful pumpkins and candy.

Love, Mom