The Best Scary Halloween Costumes
Halloween is a time for fine frights. It's also the season to let your creativity run wild. With costumes that are just right for trick-or-treating or parties, you can stand out and spook friends and neighbors. The best scary costumes don't need to be overly grotesque or horrifying. Here's how to get an eerie look that maintains holiday fun through good taste, with looks that unsettle, without turning stomachs.
Best Scary Costumes for Kids
Although dressing up is fun for all ages, children are most likely to get an enormous thrill from disguising themselves. Kids often enjoy pretending to be their favorite heroes, but donning a horror's outfit is just as easy and as much fun. For instance, ghosts, pirates, and skeletons remain traditional choices that are prone to delivering autumnal chills. With a few simple masks, cloaks, and paint, you can make almost any variation of these looks without spending much money.
Mummies, vampires, and aliens comprise a similar category. With a little makeup and the right props, your kids can enjoy frightful appearances with endless creativity. Your look needn't be overly realistic to achieve the desired effect.
It's more important to highlight strange features that seem naturally uncanny to most people. A little black eyeliner and a deathly skin pallor as a ghost or ghoul instantly brings visions of a corpse to mind. Kids don't need to actually look dead. They need only prompt the right psychological response by reminding people of unearthly creatures.
Adult Costumes
Adults who are trying to conjure Halloween scares can take a little more liberty than children with their costume designs. As a launching point, putting a new twist on the old traditional monsters that are good for kids is just as wise for adults. Consider mixing monstrous categories together. An alien vampire, or a ghostly pirate is a good way to add diversity to a fearful fashion.
Older folks may enjoy options that are off limits to many children too. Devilish costumes, alluring witches, and real world monsters like murderous clowns are sure to provide a more adult look. All in all, a scary adult costume operates on more than just fear for success. You should merge humor, elegance, and inventiveness into your terrifying mystique. Maintaining this tight balance will make you the toast of your Halloween gathering, and could even win lucrative costume contests, if you attend event where these are held.
Scary costumes for adults are generally well suited to look weirder and more frightening than children's costumes. Adding the odd splash of blood or gigantic fangs helps round out your look and promotes a more jarring effect. However, you should always tailor your style to suit the occasion, and the attitude of the crowd you're hanging around with.
Whatever scary costume you choose, make sure it lives up to safety and moderately tasteful standards, both for your children and yourself. While there are many upscale masks available around Halloween, choosing a traditional starter is often cheaper and allows you to flex creative muscle. By making your own scary costume, you'll usher in one of the year's most fun filled holidays in real style.
