Kids’ costumes in modern times have gone from sickly sweet to just plain sick. A walk down the dripping, splattered, fake-blood-soaked Halloween aisle of your favorite drugstore proves a point last heard in 2000: Gore wins the popular vote.

When I went online to find my kids costumes, I found life-like swords and machetes, clear masks that filled up with blood, and a variety of disembodied heads and severed limbs. I saw a “zombie doctor” costume with “PVC rotting chest, pants with rotted knee, zombie mask, surgical mask, surgical cap and latex gloves” that came in size 4-6!