“There’s nothing funny about a clown in the moonlight.” — Lon ChaneyEvery year the displays get more extravagant, as if they are tracking the national zeitgeist exactly, fright upon fright. You also have to wonder how much cash money is going into these displays of morbid anxiety, in many cases a hefty percentage of the annual household income plus who-knows how many hours of labor. . . to put out the message “Be scared, be very scared.”Halloween traditionally brings a dissolution of the boundary between the real world and whatever you suppose lies beyond it: the abode of dead souls,...