#Sorry, party animals: Halloween in NYC sucks

In the horror movie series “The Purge,” frightened Americans hunker down at home one night a year while their rowdy compatriots outside legally shoot and slaughter each other on the street.

This weekend, New Yorkers should follow that sage advice and stay locked away inside their apartments as a bunch of obnoxious 25-year-olds take shots and get slaughtered. 

Halloween — the worst holiday ever — is back. 

How, you wonder, can I be such a fun-hating, miserable, nasty person after such a difficult year of cancellations and postponements? Easily! But first be aware that All Hallows Eve in NYC is a uniquely grotesque experience I wouldn’t wish on anybody. I’m sure it’s absolutely fabulous in Bismarck, North Dakota.   

Beyond the city, and in the more residential areas of the outer boroughs, cute kids dressed as princesses and Wall-E scamper up to astonishingly well-decorated suburban homes, say “trick or treat!” and get a Snickers bar. Adults go to parties with punch bowls. Nice. Sweet. Park Slope-y.

Manhattan, meanwhile, is a high-price hellhole.

Here, Halloween lasts for days. Vomit on the sidewalk becomes puke-biquitous. Cheap matted fake cobwebs litter Marc Jacobs and Kiehl’s storefronts. Guys who make six figures at Goldman Sachs by day can’t remember their own names as they shout in your face like Jack Nicholson in “The Shining” at last call. You can’t get a glass of wine anywhere without paying a cover charge to watch a magician.

And, oh, the endless preparation. Like Lady Gaga on Oscars night, multiple expensive outfits are required for every sweaty bacchanal at Lavo and the Q. Note: All your employees who have been “working from home” spent every second of the week putting together their sexy “Squid Game” look that will probably get them canceled in 10 years when some loon decides it’s offensive. To torture the young, schedule a mandatory Zoom meeting for 8 a.m. on Monday!

And this year, I guarantee the fright fest will be the worst we’ve ever seen. Halloween 2021 will make SantaCon look like Good Friday.

While Midtown is slowly getting back to its old self before tourists reemerge en masse, downtown has turned into a 24-hour bacchanal of pent-up pandemic energy. Washington Square Park and Gomorrah. LES Vegas. New New Amsterdam. When it doesn’t smell like pot, it smells like PBR.

The other night on East 10th Street, I walked by an NYU student (I have no proof of this, but come on) passed out face first on the sidewalk, surrounded by a group of friends.

Said one of his pals: “Dude. It’s 8 p.m.” 

Child’s play! On Saturday and Sunday, you’ll be stepping over drunken 20-somethings at the crack of dawn like it’s the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse. Wear good shoes at your peril. And take an Uber if you wanna go broke.  

Or, better yet, stay home and watch a fantastic New York horror movie like “Rosemary’s Baby” — a film that, even though it concerns a traumatized young wife and a Satanic cult worshipping the spawn of the devil, offers a more civilized vision of the city than anything you’ll witness on this cursed weekend.