What happened to scary halloween costumes?
November 18, 2009 by
Filed under scary costumes
Personally I miss the scary costumes, but don’t hate the unique/funny/clever ones every now and then. I’m in college but want to dress up as something scary, but I realize a lot of people won’t get it and I’ll get weird looks at parties. So i decided I need to do something scary and kinda original/cool that people will notice and not think is weird. I’m having a really hard time on a scary costume appropriate for normal college parties. Can you guys help me out?
And yes, I’m a guy
I’m going to assume that you are a guy and honestly I wonder the same things too. What the hell happened to all of the scary halloween costumes? People are b*tches and can’t take it and it’s basically a new found holiday for stupid girls to act slutty and dress in little to no clothing. Anyways…if I was a guy…personally I would dress up as either Michael Myers or Freddy if you have the means to pull that off of course. I’m a fan of the classics and Myers scares the hell out of me. Just imagine dressed up as him walking around with a bloody knife…just be sure it’s fake so you don’t get in trouble with the law.
Stick with the classics – Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, wolfman. You can make those characters as scary or mild as you want, put your own spin on them. Regardless of how far you go people will probably still be able to “get” what you are, thus minimizing the “who is this freak?” looks! But remember you kinda have an oxymoron there. You want “original/cool” but not “weird”. Original is just that, people should notice if you’re putting this much effort into a costume. Some people are going to think anything other than the cheapo crap you buy off the rack is weird.
I don’t know what you find scary, but anything with a weird mask freaks me out. It doesn’t have to be one of the rubber masks that makes you look like a green-skinned goblin. Even a plain white mask that covers your whole face would be creepy and ghoulish but still wouldn’t raise any questions about your sanity.
Maybe a mask with a cheap cloak from a costume shop. Simple, inexpensive, and spooky. You could go for something like the Mysterious Stranger/ Satan from The Adventures of Mark Twain ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBGGAjMg9vw ).
Halloween is one of the best times of the year so try something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HA4kGoTcts
Love,
B.
Personally, I feel the whole scary costume thing got lost in the whole slasher movie genre and the desire for instant gratification. I’ve always felt that psychological horror is more impacting than anything else, which usually involves an element of subtle dread and surprise… not something generally found in today’s Halloween costumes. I find that the scariest costumes are the ones that are nice and low-key. The flashy ones (like the werewolves, ghostly gentlemen, and obvious vampires) are great for a bang, but then everyone gets used to them. However, if you look mostly normal but have an element of shock that no one sees on the surface, you’ll get more creep-factor milked out over the night!
My friend Jack dressed in his dad’s leather welding jacket and some heavy denim pants at one of my high-school Halloween parties, but otherwise looked normal. We all thought he was a lumberjack, since he was carrying around a chainsaw that had the blade removed. At midnight, he pulled out a hockey mask, killed all the lights, and turned the chainsaw on while laughing like some kind of whacked-out freak! Almost everyone freaked (except those of us who were dying laughing), and everyone was talking about how scary he was for weeks after at school. You could probably do something similar going as your basic mummy (with a twist).
You need:
Wife beater
Pants
Lots of cheap gauze
Duct tape (preferably a color that doesn’t clash with your gauze)
Safety pins (optional)
4 gallon twist-tie trash bags
Lots of small squishy bugs, mice, etc.
Costume makeup
Sandals (not flip-flops unless they have a leather thong)
Alka-Seltzer in a flavor you can stand
A good moment to command attention from everyone at the party
Instructions:
1) Double up two trash bags by putting one inside the other. Tie a knot about 3 inches in from the closed end, then make a respectable pot-belly shape by adding the squishy critters. Twist-tie the open end, leaving about 3 inches on that side too.
2) Put on the wife beater, then duct-tape your “belly” full of critters over your real stomach. Make sure you go all the way around, you don’t want your stomach dropping off before you get to scare people.
3) If you haven’t already, put your pants on and tuck in the shirt, then start wrapping yourself in the gauze (secure the ends with more duct tape or safety pins). Make sure you cover your potbelly really well so no tape or plastic is showing, but that you leave enough give over the center of the potbelly so that you can tear the trash bag open later.
4) Do some creepy makeup on your face so you look like you’re really the walking dead, then wrap your head and neck in the leftover gauze. Tuck your Alka-Seltzer away in a secure but easily accessible spot in your gauze, put on your shoes, and go party.
5) At an opportune moment in the party, shove the Alka-Seltzer in your mouth. When it starts really foaming scream, “All-mighty Osiris! Forgive me my crimes and let me finally die!” Then, tear open the trash bag and let the creepy critters pour out while you sink to the floor and spasm like an epileptic for a little.
6) STAY DOWN! I cannot stress the importance of this! Don’t open your eyes, don’t laugh, don’t smile, just STAY STILL and STAY QUIET. Wait until at least 4 or 5 people have poked you, then come back to life with a wail and cry for the rest of the party about how Osiris sentenced you to ten more centuries of walking as the undead, and how you now don’t even have your little mice-y companions to keep you warm. Who knows, you might even get a sympathy cuddle out of this!
Martha Stewart happened. I can remember in the mid ’90s seeing Martha Stewart Halloween magazines one year and then suddenly everything had to be all cutesy every year after that. There had been a nice mix of cutesy and scary before then, a take you pick on Halloween decorations and costumes. Now scary seems to be making a slow comeback, but there’s still tons of the oh so cute.
I don’t like scaring the little kids on Halloween and will take off my costume to show them I’m just a person in a costume (shirt and jeans on under the costume so I’m not exposing myself). But one thing the folks putting out the cutesy stuff don’t get is the majority of older kids and teens want a scare on Halloween, though even with things that are supposed to be scary they may not always get it. It’s part of the fun of Halloween. And it’s fun to try and give them a good scare, though I don’t always succeed. I know I don’t put on the scariest display in my neighborhood, but I have gotten compliments on it looking like Halloween and not something cute.