It’s after September 22nd, which means that summer is officially over and the cold days and dark nights are drawing in.
Instead of lamenting the sun, it’s the perfect weather to feel the chill of the season and scare yourself silly. You’re never too old to indulge in some Halloween fun – and we have some suggestions here for how to spend a perfectly frightful night. Treats only, no tricks.
Find a Haunted House
There’s nowhere as spooky as London at Halloween. Previous years in London have seen punters experiencing horse-drawn carriages into the mists of Richmond Park and being treated to ghost tours of Hampton Court Palace. This year, guests can stay in Hampton Court Palace with the Dusk ‘til Dawn Sleepover. The London Month of the Dead allows scare-fans the chance to tour the cemeteries of the city in a gruesome history lesson. The Natural History Museum opens its doors for Crime Scene Live, which takes the macabre gutsy elements of Halloween to send shivers down your spine. Or, if organised fun isn’t to your taste, there are countless supposedly haunted London landmarks that will be immersed in spooky-ness the closer Halloween gets.
Watch a Classic
One of the most popular things to do around Halloween is to watch a scary movie. If you don’t fancy venturing out, you can always stay in, get some friends or family over, and turn out the lights. From the modern day special effects packed blockbusters (Annabelle, It, The Cabin in the Woods), to the more subtle classics (Halloween, Friday the 13th, The Exorcist, A Nightmare on Elm Street), to the light and breezy ones (Hocus Pocus, The Nightmare Before Christmas). There are even enough scary movies to fill every day of October leading up to the 31st with a spooky flick.
Halloween-Themed Everything
Back in the day, Halloween could only be celebrated one night a year. But, it’s 2017, and the shops are filled with decorations and ways to get into the Halloween spirit. The high streets are decorated from top to bottom – a stroll down Oxford Street gives the impression you’re back in Halloweentown! From Halloween-themed cocktails, to Halloween-themed foods to try to make, you could replace almost everything you do in your day-to-day life with the Halloween-themed equivalent. There are even a slew of spooky games to play to get into the Halloween spirit, from Scooby Doo-themed browser games and classics such as Resident Evil and Home Sweet Home to the Hexbreaker 2 slot game, which incorporates an eerie soundtrack ringing out with the theme of bad luck (black cats, ladders, etc.) to emulate the vibes of Halloween from the safety and warmth of your own home.
Tell Haunting Stories
There’s nothing that gets us in the mood for Halloween more than telling some scary stories. The internet is chock-full of attempts to scare us. There are even tweets that attempt to draw the fear reaction from us. Telling ghost stories is truly an art form. While we’ve all heard the one about the man with the hook, why not best your friends by finding real-life scary happenings from right where you live. London is a city steeped in history and there’s bound to be a few skeletons hiding in areas and neighbourhoods you might frequent. The aim is to have your friends still retelling the story come Christmastime!
Decorate and Dress Up
Decorating for Halloween is one of the best way adults can get in touch with the season. Homes, gardens, and even offices are the perfect landscape for getting into the Halloween spirit and covering everything with fake spider webs. You can even turn your love of decorating into a competition or a game at work and have the whole workplace getting involved. Prizes for the most spookily decorated desk or the most decorated person – costume contests are perfect for allowing even the smallest fan of Halloween to get involved.
Halloween Party!
No, we’re not talking about sitting around your house with a cape on bobbing for apples and avoiding answering the door. We’re talking about heading out into London and experiencing the very best of Halloween in the city. If anywhere can do a theme well, it’s the Big Smoke. From the Silent Sounds Halloween silent disco on a boat, to the class factor of champagne and a view over the city with the Halloween in the Sky event atop the iconic Sky Garden. There’s an event for everyone and a party that will leave nobody out in the night. Well, except those uninvited guests…
There really is something for everyone when it comes to celebrating Halloween: whether you wanted to reconnect with the Pagan meanings of the holiday, or amp up the Hallmark and cheap plastic decorations of it all. Halloween is apparently when the realm of the living and dead is closest but it really is the when the realm of the goofy and the serious comes together.
