Too scary even for Halloween

[fiona_grady]

All the houses are decked out for Halloween, as are all the restaurants and stores.  Every patch of grass has sprouted a fake graveyard and every tree has either a skeleton, or a bat, or a giant spider.

Harold Pinter's "The Room" has no scary props: all the skeletons are, evidently, in the closet.  The words of the dialogue are also not really scary, yet, the ever-present tension, the menace and the unspeakable horror lurking just beneath the surface in every scene were the very embodiment of terror.

Coming out of the theater, it was a great relief to see Jack-o-Lanterns grinning with their gaping mouths.

After spending an hour or two with Harold Pinter, even a fiery-eyed witch on a broom can be a comforting sight.