Victoria Pratt | It's Halloween! Get Your Freak On!

You haven’t lived until you’ve been to the Viper Room in a full gorilla costume.

It was Halloween, two years ago, and work had prevented me from traveling back to Toronto to spend the holiday with my sister and her kids. I was sad. It’s one of my most treasured rituals.

Luckily, I had a plan B. My friends Sean and Juliette, of the band 8mm, were doing a Halloween performance at the Viper Room on LA’s famous Sunset Strip. Their only request was that everyone wear a costume, and I was more than happy to oblige. My friend Jodi offered me the use of her full gorilla suit. (That woman knows me.) Needless to say, I was thrilled.

I had never gone out for Halloween in a costume that completely concealed my identity before, and it was a blast! The best part of the evening, though, was the reveal (I mean, eventually you have to take off your head and hands to have a cocktail). I’ll never forget the reactions of those around me. The men, who until this point had been shooting me dirty looks and protecting their girlfriends from the rapey gorilla, relaxed and smiled to see a fluffy blond woman emerge. The girls were even more happy. Arriving at an adult Halloween party dressed like the unsexiest creature on the planet is a tacit agreement with all party-going females, that you are NOT there to pick up their men. Happiness all around.

Then last year, I dressed up as an inflatable sumo wrestler. I’ve never seen such joy on the faces of my niece and nephew. My 14 year-old niece, who until the moment I descended the stairs as a 600 pound man wearing a loincloth, had been too cool to come out trick-or-treating with us, squealed that high-pitch squeal that only the newly pubescent can produce, and raced up the stairs to put on her costume. She was a little kid again, swept up in the fantasy of it all. She held my hand as we strolled along the streets of Roncesvalles Village. It was a magical night.

So... I’ve decided that Halloween costumes are magic. They bring our fantasies to life for one fantastical night. You might wonder how a gorilla suit and an inflatable sumo costume contribute to the fulfillment of MY fantasies, but I’ll get to that later. I want to start at the beginning.

Think back to when you were a little kid picking out your Halloween costume. What did you want to be? A superhero, a princess, a dragon, a pirate, a cute animal, a witch? Now think about why. As kids, we picked the costumes that represented the attributes we most wanted to embody ourselves. They’re pretty basic, too - power, beauty, strength, relatability… As adults, not much has changed… sort of.

Enter, the ‘adult’ Halloween costume. When we become adults, all of the costumes become sexy. It even says so on the packaging, There’s the sexy nurse, sexy pirate, sexy bar wench, sexy gypsy, sexy red riding hood… the list goes on. And lest you think me judgey, I’ll proudly admit to rocking a sexy Bo Peep costume a few years ago. Hey, it happens… And I have a theory as to why.

When we grow up to be responsible adults – childbearing, job-going, ladder-climbing, sleep-deprived adults, we tend to lose a part of ourselves. Or bury a part of ourselves, might be more accurate. It seems that in order to be taken seriously in the adult world, we, as women, need to sublimate the sexual side of our nature. It makes people uncomfortable. It’s like a super-power that we all have as women, yet aren’t allowed to whip out in public. It’s kinda’ Clark Kent-ish, when you think about it. It’s a power that we’ve been told is dirty, or bad, or even abnormal. And it’s sad.

On Halloween though, women get to take that power back. And do we ever! Think about how you felt the first time you stepped out in your fish nets, high heels and tiny police-woman skirt – like a bona fide, card carrying badass. In my book, DOUBLE DOWN, that’s the costume Cassidy Jones wears up on stage at the strip club, and you know what? She was in the same boat we all are – fighting to be taken seriously, in a man’s world, but thoroughly loving her chance to be naughty and powerful, and even let someone else take the reigns for a bit. There are no judgments on Halloween, and no judgments in our world of romance. Halleluiah!! Get your freak on! May we all go forth and fantasize!

Your fantasies don’t necessarily dictate who you are, but maybe, they might indicate what you’ve been missing. As for me, why the gorilla suit and the sumo costume, or this year’s inflatable bucking bronco? I’ve thought a lot about that too. My day- to-day life is played out in the world of fantasy. Between the characters I play on TV, the red carpets I attend at night, and the naughty books I write in the canyon, I don’t fantasize about having even more of it. What I don’t have, though, and what I do crave from time to time, are children. Luckily, I have an awesome niece and nephew, who let me play out that fantasy with them. Sometimes it’s in a Halloween costume, sometimes it’s in a baseball cap, and sometimes it’s in a Despicable Me movie with a box of hideous sour gummy things, but at the end of the day, I do cater to my fantasies – as often as is earthly possible. We all should.

About Victoria Pratt

Victoria Pratt has spent her adult life playing superheroes, supervillains, and cops on television and in movies. From her start on the action series, John Woo’s Once a Thief, to Marvel Comic’s Mutant X, to ABC’s Daybreak, to a mountain of Lifetime movies, Victoria has learned a thing or two about crafting strong female characters.

Victoria’s writing career actually started long before her acting career, with a monthly column in Oxygen Magazine. Next came screenplays, women’s magazines, and finally, this, her debut novel, DOUBLE DOWN.

Victoria spends her time between her home in the Hollywood Hills, and her family in Canada. Currently, Victoria recurs as Casey McMurtry on Canada’s longest running hour-long drama, Heartland, where she literarily… that’s right… runs the rodeo.

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About DOUBLE DOWN

Small-town-girl turned big-city-cop Cassidy Jones, is a fast-driving, sharp- shooting, man-loving ball buster with a loud laugh and boundary issues. She’s also really great at her job–a fact that is completely irrelevant to the good ol’ boys at the station.

When a local mobster ends up dead, Cassidy is on the case. Unfortunately, if she wants to catch the killer, she’s going to have to do it in a G-string and five-inch heels. Oh, and there’s the little problem that she’s fallen hard for the mobster’s brother, who might also be a murder suspect.

Cassidy has to save her man and her reputation or risk losing it all.