Arnold St. Pierre is having trouble moving his neck bolts. His fangs are gathering dust. " I haven’t done a Dracula yet, which is strange, " he says. " No one’s coming in for the Dracula or the Frankenstein. "

For the last 48 years, St. Pierre’s Broadway Costume Co. has outfitted local Halloween revelers in ghoulish get-ups — the grimmer the better. This year, however, he cannot give his fake warts and dangling eyeballs away. " Most of the costumes we’ve rented this year are not in the fright category, " he says. " Which is an indication that people don’t want that end of it. " Meanwhile, St. Pierre adds, customers cannot seem to get enough of his " fancy French " outfits. " It’s as if there’s a great big ball going on. "

But it’s not only St. Pierre who’s noticed a shift from the macabre to the merry this Halloween. With real-life events taking on an increasingly sinister edge, costume shops all over the city are seeing a downturn in demand for make-believe terror. " People are going back to the old standbys, your clowns, your prisoners, that sort of thing, " says Harold Bengin, owner of Jack’s Joke Shop. " Since 9/11, people are reverting back to happier times. "

At the Boston Costume Co., says manager Linda Bertolino, they are experiencing a run on cowboy hats. " Americana is very strong now, " Bertolino says. " Hugh Hefner and Playboy bunnies, Sonny and Cher, pimps and ho’s, flappers and showgirls. Everyone wants to be glitzy and fun — a little less on the horror and more on the entertainment. " At Samantha’s Costumes, in Salem, meanwhile, superheroes are all the rage. " I’ve sold a lot of Superman and Wonder Woman, " says owner Laurie Landess. " We still do a lot of gorillas, but nothing too scary. "

One Halloween get-up that is most definitely not selling well in area stores — or selling at all, for that matter — is Osama bin Laden. " That would be totally taboo for us, " says Bertolino. " We wouldn’t play into that whole negative war aspect. It’s just not a fun thing to be doing. " Harold Bengin agrees. " No Osama, " he says. " It’s a turnoff. He’s a hated person. "

And yet, Bengin continues, not only did his store do a roaring trade in Castro masks after the Cuban Missile Crisis, but Halloween sales " exploded " during the Vietnam War. " You know, it’s crazy, " he says, " but we usually do very well when the economy’s down, when there’s sadness, when people are frightened about what’s going on in the world. People want release. I guess ‘release’ is the key word. And remember, Americans are the greatest tricksters and jokesters in the world. We take something sad, and we turn it around. "

But even America’s seemingly indomitable sense of fun may have its limits. " I said to my wife this morning, imagine stores in the Washington, DC, area, " Bengin says (referring to the terror spurred by the sniper attacks in the Washington suburbs). " Business has not been as intense here as it has in years past. But I’m very grateful I’m not in the Washington area. Those poor storekeepers are going to be all loaded up for Halloween, and it’s going to be awful. I feel very sorry for them. "