Found Objects, Vol. 6
Miniature visits with items that say something about the world they occupy. Today: Halloween press-on bullet holes.
YOU NEED THIS POST like you need a hole in the head.
And with Halloween 2023 at hand, that need actually may be somewhat pressing — or, at least, press-on. That’s the proposition of a company called “Fun World,” a division of “Easter Unlimited,” which sells actual facsimiles of holes in the head for the offer-you-can’t-refuse price of $3.64. It’s a product that not only features “stage-quality realism!” but manages to resemble a set of mini jelly donuts along the way.
Also included: a Taco Bell Fire Sauce-shaped packet that gives you enough “bloody scab” ooze for the ultimate in ballistic-cranial realism. The instructions also offer this helpful workflow for some auxiliary makeup tricks:
BRUISES: Mix a little blue and red makeup to create a purplish bruise color. Dab color around edges of hole and across cheek, forehead and nose.
I do feel that the model on the packaging (imagine booking that gig) looks a bit more beleaguered than bullet-riddled — perhaps to mitigate the visual effect of the holes themselves and subtly reassure potential purchasers that yes, all scenes were captured using trained actors. The typeface on the packaging is more distressed than he seems to be.
My favorite chatter from the instructions on the back of the package: “Bloody scab is a professional quality product that dries just like a real scab!” (The exclamation mark is Fun World’s, not mine.) It’s intriguing, too, that nowhere on the packaging do the words “bullet hole” or “gunshot wound” appear, though it seems pretty clear that’s what’s being implied. You be the judge.
Nothing against Fun World; they’re just going where the action is. I find it far more interesting to examine the cultural motivations behind the market for “Hole in the head,” particularly in a society where far too many people end up with them. (Aside: It’s really bothering me that “Hole” is capitalized but “head” is not.)
Somewhere along the line in the past generation or so, the necro-industrial complex pivoted from the ghost-focused, supernatural-saturated aesthetic of Gen X and Boomer Halloween childhoods to the more aggressive, blood-and-dismemberment approach of the “Saw IV,” “Walking Dead” and “Child’s Play 5: Seed of Chucky” epoch.
Is this product an indicator of a more violent society? Who knows. Yet it’s hard not to wonder what the historians of 2370 or 2525 — if humanity is fortunate enough to reach those years — will make of the fact that we as a society conceived of, manufactured and sold (and in my case, I guess, bought) carefully calibrated, bullet-like holes for decorative and entertainment purposes.
Fun World’s website notes that their factory in Pennsylvania “is the only remaining American factory manufacturing Easter grass and Halloween spider web.” One can’t help but picture the halcyon days of the 1960s when the American landscape was dotted with tiny family factories turning out Easter grass and Halloween spider webs until the numbers started dwindling through the malaise of the late Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations.
A parting note: The packaging of “Hole in the head” recommends that, in its words, “This product is designed for one-time use only.” In that respect, then, it’s a lot like the real thing, no?
This made me laugh, thanks! It also reminded me that when the ice cream topping Magic Shell hit the market, my cousin referred to it as "Chocolate Scab."