Come along, forget the real horrors for a moment.

Forget that we're galumphing around a theme park in Florida, a state sodden by pungent politics, profound natural disasters and sandals with socks. Forget that we're walking down the hallway of a Jimmy Fallon simulator ride behind a park guest in Minions goggles. And, uh, forget that someone threw up near an emergency exit, possibly from too many pumpkin ales and potatoes on a stick.

Behind the Fallon ride, we true believers have stepped into a haunted house recreation of "John Carpenter's Halloween." We scream at a man in a William Shatner mask painted ghastly white. We hear the iconic, discordant theme music. We see Laurie Strode with her knitting needles of death, Michael Myers towering atop a staircase, staring out a window, waiting in closet after closet. It is bliss.

Oh, hello! I went last weekend to Universal Orlando's Halloween Horror Nights with the goal to flee the real world and be swallowed by a 1970s, orange-hued maze of mayhem. Now, some may ask, why would a person escaping stress find euphoria in a fictional murder scene? If you know, you know.

John Carpenter's "Halloween" is one of my favorite movies. It might be my favorite movie, but commitment = frightening. I was born five years after the film came out. When I wear my 1978 Haddonfield T-shirt into the grocery store, dudes who look like their collective name is Keith give me a thumbs-up. I guess these are my people?

Everyone remembers that first "Halloween" viewing. Universal's senior show director Matt Flood writes Halloween Horror Nights story elements and oversees the art and design professionals. He nerded out with me on a video call a few days after my visit. In view behind him, his "Halloween" lunch pail and a Dr. Loomis action figure.

"I was in my early teens, buddy's house," said Flood, 40. "I wasn't allowed to watch these films. His dad had the cool VHS collection." He recalled being "terrified on the couch. Like, oh... what is happening?"

Same. Same! I didn't always like horror, not at all. I first watched "Halloween" in my 20s with an ex, before learning the joys of being voluntarily scared. The ex stood between the blinds as I drove away, Michael Myers style. In retrospect, I appreciate this as a classic prank. These things take time.

The movie stuck in my side like a kitchen knife. Gore and jump scares are strategically minimal. Mostly it simmers along, forcing the viewer to sit idly by while a big ol' lug in coveralls lurks in the bushes. No mummies, no zombies, no explanation for the atrocities, which is the scariest explanation of all.

I've watched this movie so many times that new flaws pop out constantly. Some dialogue is awkward, and holes abound. Why are parents leaving kids with babysitters on Halloween? Why was the hardware store where Michael stole his mask closed in the middle of a weekday, Keith?

But we fans know that, despite its flaws, "Halloween" birthed the slasher formula. We have consumed copious documentaries, know when to catch John Carpenter's cigarette smoke wafting into frame. We've seen inferior sequels full of Busta Rhymeses and Paul Rudds and face-melting children's masks and... cults of druids? Looking at you, Six. I can't stomach the dreadfully dark Rob Zombie cuts, which sacrifice all charm.

Let's quickly review the original plot:

Six-year-old Michael Myers kills his sister on Halloween. That scene is one of the most famous in cinematic history, shot with new camera technology that allowed for contiguous motion. The opening isn't a single take as many think; Keith and I would love to explain this in a brewery sometime.

ANYWAY, 15 years later, Myers busts out of a sanitarium. He returns to fictional Haddonfield, Illinois to slice up the town, specifically the teen babysitters. He stalks Laurie Strode, a young Jamie Lee Curtis in the iconic Final Girl role she's still playing. "Halloween Ends," the latest installation, comes out Friday. A ruddy Donald Pleasance as psychiatrist Dr. Loomis chases his irredeemable patient, talking about "EEEE-VIL."

I recommend "Halloween Unmasked," a fabulous 2018 podcast from The Ringer. Film critic Amy Nicholson interviewed Nick Castle, who played Myers, or "The Shape." He recalled asking Carpenter for motivation.

"Just walk," Carpenter said. "Get over there and walk over here."

Carpenter did not provide his villain a rich interior life, nor share our impulse to psychoanalyze the film. He and his then-partner, the late feminist icon Debra Hill, wanted to make a tight movie on no budget.

However, he was influenced by racism he witnessed living in Bowling Green, Kentucky. He knew the capacity for baseness beneath the surface of polite society. His subsequent films are metaphors for politics and mass paranoia. When neo-Nazis tried to co-opt his movie "They Live," Carpenter tweeted:

"THEY LIVE is about yuppies and unrestrained capitalism. It has nothing to do with Jewish control of the world, which is slander and a lie."

More than any of Carpenter's movies, though, "Halloween" transcends the zeitgeist. This must be why the franchise remains wildly popular more than 40 years later.

I stayed in the park Friday until almost 2 a.m. because of some sick, completionist mission to visit all 10 haunted houses. Friends, Bugs: Eaten Alive could not compete with Myers, though it was creepy. The sexy marquee haunted house inspired by singer The Weeknd sopped up most of the line lingerers. But at closing, the "Halloween" maze still had an hourlong wait, one of the lengthiest.

The movie remains a receptacle for... oof, so many difficult concepts. Rampant violence, soulless power grabs, even ferocious weather, all set in the 'burbs. Viewers often watch the action play out from the killer's point of view, as if we are the ones heavy breathing behind a mask.

In other words, the boogeyman could be us.

"This is something that's human that has gone past humanity," said Flood. "To think there are some of us who have left humanity behind, it's a horrifying thought."

Watching horror has gradually become a release for me, a fairly optimistic, sunny person who tends to joke away problems. Ninety minutes of darkness means a chance to catch the elusive floaty feeling, the brass ring endorphins, the tasty, therapeutic screams. "Halloween" never lets me down. It's a Tupperware container to stow away terrors that, like Michael Myers, can't be killed. Only managed.

OK, here's my favorite moment in the haunted house. We're winding through the front yard of the Myers house in a foggy night sky, greenery around porch banisters, white sheets hanging out to dry. But move too fast, race too hard through the moment, and you'll miss it: Michael Myers, standing in an upstairs window, staring down at all of us, waiting.

Stephanie Hayes is a columnist at the Tampa Bay Times in Florida. Follow her at @stephhayes on Twitter or @stephrhayes on Instagram.

Photo credit: ELG21 at Pixabay