CBD brand Goodrays conjures up Halloween horror from a mental mashup

I think Goodrays was trying to be insightful, but what the CBD brand has done is given me nightmares.

Using YouGov polling data from 1,745 people, Goodrays found out which horror movie characters British people found the scariest. That’s no bother, but then they created an ultimate horror mashup of the winners! It’s freaky.

The results are that it depends on age, reflecting what was on the screens at the time. There were 18 options, and the top scares are; Hannibal Lecter, Pennywise the Clown, Freddy Kruger, Chucky and Damien from The Omen.

Both 18-24-year-olds and 25-49-year-olds found Pennywise the Clown scary. Based on Stephen King’s novel It, the 1990 film was remade in 2017. Some kids have seen Pennywise twice, so it’s no surprise he’s a top fear.

Older generations ranked Hannibal Lecter as the scariest. The Silence of the Lambs, released in 1990, was praised for its cinematography.

Eoin Keenan, the founder of Goodrays, has shared some tips in a press release.

Beneath the fun and humour around Halloween, the holiday really addresses human fear and can be a time of heightened anxiety for a number of reasons.

One of the coping strategies that can help alleviate Halloween anxiety is understanding that your fear response, especially at this time, is completely normal and very common. Secondly, practising mindfulness and relaxation techniques can help reduce your body’s fight or flight response to what’s going on around you and ease the anxiety.

Finally, take time to reframe your thoughts. Remind yourself that a lot of our surroundings at Halloween are specifically designed to scare but are works of fiction – reducing the power you give them and rationalising the fears.

Eoin then goes on, as you might imagine, to shill CBD as a way to cope with anxiety. Actually, weirdly, there’s even the suggestion to use CBD gummies as trick-or-treating handouts. CBD gummies are edible candies of cannabidiol oil. They’re legal in the UK and readily available from sites like Goodrays or even Holland and Barrett. Legal, yes, but what parents expect kids to come home with? I wonder!