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Interactive Map Highlights 50 Weird Halloween Facts Around the World
Did you know that in Dublin, GA, your face must be fully visible by law on Halloween?
When you think Halloween, you probably imagine carving pumpkins, crafting a costume and watching classic horror flicks. But did you know that, as you move around the world, this spooky time of year takes many different guises?
Across the globe there are some truly strange but wonderful ways locals celebrate their own versions of Halloween. Thomas Cook has collated 50 of the outlandish laws, traditions and locations to create a Halloween map of the world full of need to know trivia you never knew existed. Cook has also included some of the world’s most haunted destinations in the map.
Here are a few highlights from around the globe:
Halloween Haters
- In Dublin, Georgia, USA your face must be fully visible and recognisable by law on Halloween
- Vendragues, France it is illegal to wear clown costumes or makeup on Halloween if you are more than 12 years old
- The country of Jordan made Halloween in its entirety illegal in 2014
Most haunted destinations
- Multiple UFO, ghosts, orbs sightings and the abduction and reappearance a decade later of a young girl at Barranco de Badajoz in Spain make this the place to visit for believers in life beyond earth.
- Visit the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, to become one of many who have spotted a Pharaoh wearing his golden collar, headdress, and riding a fiery chariot with black phantom horse.
Ghostly Traditions
- The Romanian ‘Feast of St. Andrew’ involves eating garlic the night before and placing it near doors, windows and chimneys to ward off evil spirits.
- In Germany locals look to protect the visiting spirits drawn out during ‘All Souls Week’, by hiding all their knives so they won’t be injured.
- Hati locals celebrate ‘Fed Gede’ alongside the visiting spirits, eating, drinking, warming their bones by the fire and dancing with them.
CLICK HERE to explore the weird & worldly Halloween map!
Sam Neill, the New Zealand actor best known for his role in 1993’s Jurassic Park, has passed away this week at 78 years old. In a statement shared on Neill’s Instagram page this morning, the actor’s family said that his passing was “sudden and unexpected.”
Neill had been diagnosed with a rare blood cancer in 2022, but stated the following year that he was in remission. The family notes that he “remained cancer free” at the time of his passing.
The family statement reads, “It is with immense sadness that the whānau of Sam Neill share the news of his passing on Monday 13th July, in Sydney Australia. Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life. The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free.
“They would like to express their deepest gratitude to the staff at St Vincent’s Private Hospital for their incredible care. More details will be shared later, but for now, on behalf of the family, we ask that you respect their privacy as they navigate this immeasurable loss.”
In addition to his iconic role as Dr. Alan Grant in the original Jurassic Park and the sequels Jurassic Park III and Jurassic World: Dominion, Sam Neill left an indelible mark on the horror genre with memorable roles in Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession, The Omen: The Final Conflict, John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness, and sci-fi horror favorite Event Horizon.
Sam Neill’s vast resume in film and television began in the early 1970s and also includes the films Sleeping Dogs, Enigma, The Good Wife, A Cry in the Dark, Dead Calm, The Hunt for Red October, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Hostage, The Jungle Book, Snow White: A Tale of Terror, The Horse Whisperer, Bicentennial Man, Daybreakers, Escape Plan, and Thor: Ragnarok.
Sam Neill is survived by his four children and eight grandchildren.
Steven Spielberg said in a statement to Variety, “I owe a debt of gratitude to Roger Donaldson, Gilliam Armstrong, Graham Baker and Phillip Noyce for casting Sam Neill in the roles in which he was so brilliant that brought him to my attention and led to his playing Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park. Sam was exceptionally collaborative. It was a stretch for him to play a character who acted as though children were messy and smelly because this was the opposite of the loving father he was to his children. I adored making all the Jurassic movies with him.”
Spielberg adds, “Along with Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, we will always have our Jurassic family and Sam will never be forgotten by us or his many millions of fans around the world.”
Sam Neill in ‘Event Horizon’
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