Horror Ten Spot: 10 Awesome Ways to Spend Your Halloween!

Last Updated on August 3, 2021

With All Hallow’s Eve just around the bend, we’re doing a little something different with this week’s AITH Horror Ten Spot. Instead of calling attention to a specific trope found in our favorite horror flicks (best kills, best characters, best settings, etc.) we’re breaking down 10 awesomely different ways to celebrate the best damn holiday of the year. Halloween! Of course dressing up and trick or treating is a fun tradition, and an annual requisite, but we’re going a little further to create a truly killer curriculum. Costume balls, keg-stands, bong loads, tricks, treats, pranks, horror movie marathons, séances, rituals, dastardly decorations and other mischievous musts all abound ahead. Do wise and enter with caution!

#1. GET LOOSE AND WATCH HORROR FLICKS

With all the options afforded on Halloween, I have a feeling our number one option might be the most popular around these parts. Seriously, what better way to celebrate the day of the dead than by sitting around with a few friends, cramming the bong, popping a beer, emptying the fridge and running as many horror flicks as you can in a single sitting? F*cking nirvana! Of course, I insist on extending this tradition to the entire month of October, though it’s certainly not for the faint of heart. It’s actually quite trying. New films, old films, re-watching all time favorites, revisiting half-remembered works, catching up on long lost gems…no matter, it’s the principle. The experience. The memories. Happy Halloween y’all!

#2. ATTEND A COSTUME PARTY

As one’s age grows, we inevitably trade pillowcases for cocktail napkins…sugar for booze! You get to a certain age where you cast an insolent tone at mom that rings “I’m too old for trick or treating,” completely unaware you’d circle back to the ritual a few years later as a hip retro rite of passage. Costume parties though? Timeless. A perfect way to celebrate Halloween every year. Got to play it smart though. You plan on getting laid? Can’t rock the foul puss-eyed zombie mask, can you? Do wise and be The Driver from DRIVE, replete with satin scorpion jacket and toothpick. You know you’re going to have a run in with hot nurses, vamps, cat-women, girl scouts, secretaries and other sexy superheroines. Best be prepped!

#3. FREQUENT A HAUNTED ATTRACTION

Call it trick or treating for grownups! Whatever the designation, it seems there’s a greater proliferation of themed haunted attractions each and every year. Be it organized chains like L.A.’s Halloween Horror Nights or Knot’s Scary Farm, San Jose’s Winchester Mystery House, or homemade lawn mazes and haunted pumpkin patches located just across the street, we strongly urge you to get the blood bubbling by partaking in some imminent physical torment. These things run regionally, locally, nationally…for instance there’s one in Ulster, New York where the legend of Sleepy Hollow originates. There you can indulge in a terrifying haunted hayride out in the woods.

#4. HOLD A OUIJA SEANCE

This one works best after a few imbibed spirits, funny how that works, huh? I haven’t personally done this one in well over a decade, but I just may this year. Optimal effect is yielded as a youth, don’t we all have a spooky Ouija Board story from age 12 or 13? As a wee lad or lass, you want to so fully believe that a specter is responsible for eerily zigging and zagging the hand-piece across the board, but as you get older, you suspect it’s the smart ass buddy of yours pulling mere shenanigans. Still, if a board-game must be broken out on the Day of the Dead, there’s only one game in town. Open the closet, dust off the box, pour a shot, down her, sit in a circle and communicate with the dead!

#5. GO TRICK OR TREATING

About as basic as it gets on Halloween, but damn is it fun! Granted, the best time to be had trick or treating is either when you’re a kid yourself or have children of your own and pass along the tradition. Either way, it’s as much about the memories as it as getting jacked up on sugar. I remember as a young tyke myself going around the neighborhood with friends, and while en route to the most sugary houses staked out from the year before – launching water balloons, egging houses, mummifying landmarks with toilet paper – whatever got the job done. Then, after siphoning all the candy we could on first go around, we’d coyly switch costumes, grab another pillowcase and round the block once more. Double duty that shite!

#6. VISIT A GRAVEYARD

Whether you have a fallen family member whom you want to pay a heartfelt visit to, or whether you just want to pack a bowl, roast one up, pass the flask back and forth and tell ghost stories with some friends…I strongly recommend frequenting a graveyard or some kind of cemetery during Halloween night. Hell, have some fun with it and play a game of Frolf. Seriously though, there’s something creepily humbling about graveyards in general, but if you can find a smaller, dilapidated, even neglected one, the atmosphere and ambience is bound to make your blood curdle that much more. Just don’t piss on anyone’s grave, you never know what karma could come.

#7. SCARE TRICK OR TREATERS

Ever pull off an elaborate hoax to frighten the piss out of a throng of hopped up trick or treaters? No? Never? Y’all are missing out on a fun, therapeutic Halloween must! Thing is, simply opening the door in a mask ain’t gonna suffice. You got to go the extra mile, really put in some planning. Grab a few buddies, concoct an intricate scheme to really leave a ghastly impression. Practical pranks are always good, prop based ones even better. A quick ghost story on the stoop followed by some kind of jump scare usually does the trick as well. Either way, don’t soft sell it, wait till midnight for the young teenage punks to make their rounds and spring a trap on their jacked up entitled little asses!

#8. HALLOWEEN (MOVIE) DRINKING GAME

So, bored one day a few years ago, I for some reason decided to create a drinking game based on John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN. Probably to entertain some friends on All Hallow’s Eve. Simple directions are as follows (feel free to add your own): Take one shot every time a pumpkin is shown on-screen. Take one shot every time Loomis says the word “evil”. Take one shot every time Linda says the word “totally”. Take one shot every time someone is killed on-screen. Take one shot every time Michael Myers appears out of focus in the background. Take one shot every time the word “Boogeyman” is mentioned. Quite simple really, but don’t sleep, this formula will f*ck you up proper. Be safe!

#9. PUMPKIN CARVING

Such a simple idea, such a good time to be had! Whether you have children and want pass on a longstanding tradition, whether you are an artist and want a new kind of canvas to express yourself on, or hell, whether you’re just like me and want to make a decorative mess…pumpkin carving is an absolute Halloween essential. Of course, the scarier the face-design the better, but no matter, benevolent or malevolent, it’s all about taking ownership in one’s ingenuity. Scoop out the seeds, maybe toast those bastards, hollow out the guts and grime of the gourd, throw a candle in that bad boy, light her up, and proudly display your creation on the front stoop for all to marvel at.

#10. GET FESTIVE WITH DECORATIONS

Quick question…how festooned is your abode this very moment with all things Halloween? Less than two weeks yo, better get going! Of course, doing it day of is never a bad thing, so no matter when, we encourage your ass to get inventive. Extra respect goes to the peeps who handcraft their own sets and props, you needn’t spend an arm and a leg to string up an arm and a leg, if you know what I’m saying. Get creative. Then again, there’s something to be said for the ultra-elaborate, labyrinthine attractions many people across the world proudly display on their property, like my neighbor across the street. Dude’s got the dry ice, the animatronic mummies, the rumbling coffin, spider webs, the lines of kids rounding the block. Own that shite!