By Bridget Valls
With Halloween one day away, it is time for the results of THE ANNUAL ONLION HALLOWEEN SURVEY.
2026 has been a year of horror movies, with the most talked-about being Backrooms, directed by Kane Parsons, and Obsession, directed by Curry Barker.
Backrooms is about a furniture store owner named Clark, who finds a maze of empty yellow rooms in his furniture store. His therapist, Mary, and everyone else around him think he is losing it until they see the terrifying maze for themselves.
In the film, characters are chased around by a very tall pirate, but we wanted to know what Lovett students would least want chasing them through the “Backrooms.” The responses included various A-Team members, some classmates, monsters, and even, well, me (OUCH to that!).
A few responses were even more unexpected–and abstract–with one student putting “a job application” and another “something uncanny, just to the left of human.”
After seeing how students would survive in Backrooms, the survey’s next question asked what they would wish for if they were given a “One-Wish Willow” from Obsession.
If you haven’t seen Obsession, it is about a music store employee named Bear, who uses a toy he found (the one wish willow) to wish for his coworker Nikki to become obsessed with him. His definition of obsession is just to be loved, but the consequences of his wish suggest he might have been better off just asking her out on a date.
Lovett students submitted many things they wished for, but knew would backfire on them. One student responded, “I would wish to have wings that allow me to fly (bros just gonna make me a bird).” And yeah, I would have to agree that would backfire very quickly.
Many students responded to this question by saying they were rich or wished for billions of dollars. One student explained why they knew this would backfire. “Unlimited money, but at a certain point I’d probably be bored,” they said. Given how…extreme…Bear’s consequences are, boredom would be getting off very easy. Then again, boredom can be pretty boring.
If you know me at all, I am no movie critic, and most people do not take my word on movies seriously since I usually watch low-budget Hallmark rom-coms, which I suppose would be terrifying to some people who hate the genre. So I had to talk to my best friend and “Ms. Letterboxd” herself, Evvie Bresnahan.
Evvie rated Obsession 5/5 stars. “I thought Obsession was so good, especially coming from such a small studio and having lesser-known actors. I think it did a lot for the industry,” she told me. She rated Backrooms ⅘ stars. And told me, “It was the first time a studio had taken an internet concept that fans had made and made it into a big movie.”
Other student horror film favorites include: Alien, The Nun, Seven, Scream, The Conjuring, and, well, The Cat in the Hat.
Next, we had some pretty intense Halloween-themed “would-you-rather” questions.
First up: Which nightmare future would you prefer to live in: You have to take an AI chatbot to prom OR an A-Team member collects your phone for three weeks.
I am sure a lot of you are thinking there is no way people would rather take a robot to prom than be without a phone for a few weeks. But you would be wrong… 50% of students said they’d prefer to go to prom with AI than have an A-Team member take their phone. I guess these are just the times we live in…just so long as their AI date doesn’t write their essay the next day.
And what candy trends? You have one choice for the rest of your life? Swedish candy or Dubai chocolate?
With both candies being so popular right now, I honestly did not know which one would win, and I still do not know what I would pick. Swedish candy won with 61%, and Dubai chocolate lost with only 39%. A sad day for all those pistachios.
Since only seniors get to dress up for school, we unfortunately miss a lot of good costumes from other students. Some students who responded to the survey said they were wearing some pretty unique costumes, including the Joker, mermaids, various animals, pirates, and Arch Manning.
And when we’re not being haunted in real life by women with tails and Texas Longhorns, we are haunted by nightmares.
One student remembered an awful dream where “Moe’s ran out of steak.” Wow. Chills. Another student said, “Bane from Batman put me in time out on the steps when I was 5…he was huge.” But our unconscious fears are richly diverse, with students having nightmares about science class, dead dolls, the apocalypse, and being chased (by dinosaurs, chainsaws, knights from the “High Middle Ages,” clowns at the OK Cafe, and a “black void consuming everything”). Of course, some of the night terrors are much more relatable, like their mom yelling at them, and “not getting into any college.”
So whether you are running for your life in the backrooms, begging for your phone back from an A-Team member, or crying because Moe’s ran out of steak, do not fear, because Halloween will be over this Sunday!
Happy Halloween!
