The ’90s gave us plenty of good advice.

For example: You should never trust a serial-killing cannibal, even if his face mask and straitjacket appear secure and even if he’s articulate and really easy to talk to.

Also, while being adored for your talents sounds swell, steer clear of anyone who calls herself your “number one fan.” She’ll inevitably end up breaking your ankles with a sledgehammer and holding you hostage in her remote cabin, forcing you to write bad fiction.

And even if you and your three bestest friends swear yourselves to secrecy — and even if it seems like a really good idea at the time — you should never toss a dead man over a cliff without first making sure that he’s not actually still alive and prepared to mount a murderous year-long revenge campaign.

Less essential to life-saving, but also important: Scrunchies are scary.

The decade was surprisingly educational. If the ’80s were our late-night, cone-bra-wearing, big-haired best friend who knew how to have a good time, the ’90s were an older but wiser sister who said, “Take it from me — if you’re babysitting and the phone rings late at night, let the machine get it.”

We’re smarter because of the ’90s. We’re smarter because of ’90s horror movies.

And in homage to the didactic decade that gave us “The Silence of the Lambs,” “Misery” and “I Know What you Did Last Summer,” comes the ’90s SCREAM Halloween Dance Party at Bubba’s Sulky Lounge next Saturday, Oct. 22.

The event — another in the ’90s NITE series organized by Kristen Bartlett and DJ JON — is zeroing in on the fright films of our youth.

Attendees can dance it out to music from the ’90s while dressed up as their favorite ’90s horror-movie character (think “Scream” masks and fishermen who have hooks for hands and really good memories).

Undercover judges will survey the crowd throughout the night to spot the best costumes, and one ultimate winner will walk away with $50 cash. Sure beats being lost in the Maryland woods with nothing but a video camera and a legendary lunatic.

Boston-based burlesque performer Miss Madison West will take the stage for a “grotesque but still sexy” performance, and photographer Justin Lumiere will be taking photos in his gore-filled photo booth — a nice way to remember the night, as opposed to “remember that time at that Mexican strip club when we battled vampires until dawn?”

The ’90s NITE happens monthly at Bubba’s, and Halloween-inspired horror themes aside, it’s always an ideal time to reminisce over the decade that watched many of us come awkwardly of age.

“I was kind of aching for a ’90s night,” said Bartlett, who started the ’90s NITES three years ago. “It’s when I grew up; it was my heyday.”

The event was slow to catch on, she said, but lately people have been embracing the idea. Perhaps enough time has finally passed that we can finally look back fondly. After all, said Bartlett, the ’90s are almost vintage.

Besides, the past is the past. It’s not like it can come back to snatch us up and drag us to the underworld. Not unless we chant “Candyman” five times into a mirror. We can thank the ’90s for that useful tutelage.

Staff Writer Shannon Bryan can be contacted at 791-6333 or at: sbryan@mainetoday.com

Twitter: mainetoday

 

 

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