That seems to be the deal with modern Halloween – it isn't just kids covered in sheets, demanding sweets with menaces.
Pete Postlethwaite, a lanky, craggy-faced character actor whose range stretched from sweet sentimentality to acid menace and who was nominated for an Academy Award in 1994 for his role as the father of a man unjustly accused of terrorism in "In the Name of the Father," died on Sunday in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England.
Sweet, with an edge of menace, they speak of childhood devotion despite harsher realities.
Part of the secret is his natural offbeat charm – although he looks like he has had his hair cut by the Unabomber, he comes across as a sweet-natured, vulnerable younger brother than a menace to society.
On his journey, he is castigated first by a bunch of xenophobic carrots, then by a menacing gang of vain eggplants (Little Sweet Potato "didn't know the world had such scary vegetation in it," writes Ms. Bloom).
They have exhausted the limits of sweet reason and international idealism in handling the Soviet menace.
He was a sweet-looking guy, with none of the gold-tooth menace that often goes with tattoos and dreadlocks here.
But there could be something a touch menacing about his face (something open and sweet too), which bunched as tight as a fist, and his towering height (he stood 6 foot 4) at times loomed like a threat.
The band kept it up for the rest of its hourlong set, slinking with predatory menace through "Red Right Hand" (which nonetheless featured a sweet flute solo from Warren Ellis) and bringing a deranged garage-rock energy to "Deeana".
For Bob Crowley, the dark side of 1950's New York displayed in "Sweet Smell of Success" led to a skyline that is black and menacing, an ominous cluster of jagged towers that suggest a shark's teeth ready to snap shut.
