Life Hackery

Halloween is just around the corner and for most people, it means only one thing: jack-o’-lanterns, witches, kids in costumes and trick or treats. For children, Halloween means dressing up as their favorite monsters or characters and pestering each house for bags of candies and treats. For adults, it means the chance of bonding with their kids and sometimes, acting like kids themselves.

The only problem with such established holiday celebrations is that sometimes, it can get boring doing the same thing over and over again. Kids dress up, take their bags and then ring your doorbell and try to cutely scare you with their threats of trick or treats; in fact, you yourself may have been part of such a group when you were a kid, too. As an adult, it is already expected of you to have a bag of candy or some other treats to give to the children, or suffer their cute wrath. There is also the same old costume or masquerade party in one of the neighbor’s houses, and you may have worn the same costume for the past five years (seriously, that old vampire getup has become really old). The point is, sometimes, it becomes routine and any event no matter how fun, loses their luster if you do the same thing over and over again.

That having been said, why not do something different this Halloween? After all, it only comes once a year and there’s really no reason for you to suffer the same old trick or treats, costume parties, and horror movie re-runs on TV. The good news is that you don’t have to rack your brains trying to think of how to do it different this time around. Here are five unusual ways to spend your Halloween. Remember, half the fun of the holiday is getting the living daylights scared out of you, or someone else.

1. Have a horror video game marathon. Most people are used to having horror movie marathons during Halloween, and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, there is only so much horror movies around that it’s hardly worth the scare anymore. Add to that the fact that people of today are so used to computer-generated special effects that scary movies of yesteryear will probably incite chuckles instead of screams because of their outdated effects. So what’s a better replacement? Why, video games, of course!

The advantage of video games is that it is immersive in ways that a movie never can. You control the control, you interact with what’s on the screen—essentially you become the person you’re playing. When it comes to horror video games, you are forced to play in a certain perspective so the developers have total control of what you see and hear, so when a zombie or a monster suddenly leaps out of the corner or from the fog, chances are you will scream like a little girl. And that’s just for the action-oriented ones. There are survival horror video games such as Silent Hill or Fatal Frame that uses psychological scares and atmosphere to lead you to a night of endless screaming and probable nightmares for days to come.

If you have a kid or a family, a horror video game marathon is also a good time to have some family bonding. After all, the family that screams together, stays together.

2. Spend a night in a real haunted house. What could be more frightening than spending a night in a real reputed haunted house? Just think about it: it’s Halloween when all the ghosts and goblins and bad spirits are said to roam freely across the Earth, and there you are, lying in bed in a room that is supposedly the place of a brutal murder. The psychological implications alone can scare you more than any horror movie or story can; you’re actually living the terror!

It’s not really hard to find a haunted house, either. Almost every town has their share of a haunted place, whether it’s an old abandoned house, a school, or even a church. Just get your sleeping gear, a flashlight, extra batteries, and maybe your very own ghost busting weapon (some people swear to a club drenched in holy water). You can even bring along a camera or some recording device and see if you’ll be lucky enough to catch an actual ghost on film. Upload it on YouTube and watch those views hit staggering numbers. Who knows, it might even be your ticket to success, and Oprah! (Why not spend your halloween in one of the Top Ten creepiest haunted places that will bring chills to your spine)

3. Plan a secret gross-out party. Ask any person what their most memorable scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is, and chances are you’d probably get the banquet scene. You know what it was: live snakes, eyeball soup, and then chilled monkey brains; it’s enough to make a vegetarian out of anyone. Well, what better way to celebrate Halloween than to emulate that banquet and watch your guests’ eyes pop open in shock and disgust?

Of course, it’s impossible to get live snakes and monkey brains (unless you want to be burned at a stake by PETA—a fitting punishment, considering the holiday) so you have to be a bit creative. It helps a lot of you have friends who work in prosthetics as well as great cooks; they’ll be sure to come up with really harmless dishes that look really nasty. For example, you could have treated jello for brains, served complete in a cup dressed to look like heads. You can also have meatballs fashioned to look like eyeballs, floating in corn soup. Your sick imagination is the limit. Just be sure to have some sort of plastic bag handy. One or more of your guests might really give it up before you can finish explaining the whole thing. (Learn how to make bloody eyeballs on the rocks)

4. Play a slasher film prank on one of your lady friends. Slasher films such as Scream and Halloween may not be as popular now as they were a decade ago, but there’s really no reason why it can’t work in real life. All you need is a creepy mask, some stalking tendencies, and elaborate set-up and planning and you can give one of your girl friends the fright of their life!

You might need to have some of your friend in on the prank though. The more people in on the plot, the easier it will be to plan and set everything up. For example, one of your friends could invite the intended victim over to her apartment and then disappear while someone cuts off the light. If you’re more daring, you can even have another friend be a dead victim too. Then, donning your mask, you can have the girl get glimpses of you standing outside the lawn, or something as creepy. It’s guaranteed to scare the wits out of her. Just a word of advice though. Make sure she doesn’t have a heart condition or things will really take a horrid turn.

5. For the lovers: plan a monster role-playing before some hot loving. For those fortunate enough to have someone special with them on Halloween, you can try dressing up in your favorite monster pairings. However, instead of going to a Halloween party, go straight to your bedroom and then act out some monster and girl in distress skit. Role-playing enhances a couple’s sex life and what better way to be in a getup than during Halloween? And for those of you who think that there’s really no romantic pairing possible where monsters are involved, think again. How about Dracula and his intended victim? Or the Phantom of the Opera and Christine? Maybe even King Kong and the girl. Okay, so maybe the last one is a bit on the weird side, but you get the idea. Have some Halloween loving and show her how much of a monster you really are, in bed that is. Rawr.

These are just five things you can do to break the monotony of Halloween. You can probably think of a lot more. Just remember to keep it safe and scary, and most of all, fun. Happy Halloween!