Samhain

Dr. Sam Loomis explains a cryptic message left behind in Halloween 2... It's a favourite scene for many in Rick Rosenthal's enjoyable sequel, but I always cringe at Donald Pleasance's skewed pronunciation of the Gaelic word Samhain - which should have sounded phonetically speaking as "sow (as in the word for a female pig, sounds like south) in". Perhaps John Carpenter thought Samhain would sound too weird for American audiences, but Loomis, and Englishman supposedly well versed in Celtic mythology should have known better. I say supposedly because Samhain is not "the end of summer", but the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter - the Irish word for November is in fact Samhain, and here today in Ireland we are celebrating Oíche Shamhna (pronounced eee-ha how-na). Thankfully, that good Wexford man Dan O'Herlihy got it right in Season of the Witch...