Not everyone loves Halloween.  And some of us have a much lower threshold than others . . .

There's a modern dance company in Park City, Utah that does a show based on "Thriller" each year.  And a group of dancers was promoting it recently, by dressing up as zombies and scaring people outside the theater.

It's not clear how many zombies they had, but a bunch of them were teenage girls.

Well, a 56-year-old guy named Drew Hyde happened to walk by with his family and wanted no part of it.  So he threatened to KNOCK THEM OUT if they touched him, or scared his daughter.

He claims they still didn't back off.  So he was FORCED to defend himself by punching a 14-year-old girl in the face . . . punching another girl in the chest . . . grabbing several of them by their necks . . . and shoving three girls down a small set of stairs.

Now, it's worth noting he's about 6-foot-2, 215 pounds, and played football in college.  So he's not a small guy.  But luckily the girls only ended up with bruises.

He's facing five counts of child abuse, but claims the whole thing was scarier than it sounds.  And he says any father would have done the same thing. 

(KSL / Park Record)

(Here's his mugshot.)