We just sent out a press release with 13 Halloween party themes and killer prop ideas that will help you out-do the extreme haunters down the block. Here are some of my favorites.

1.    Theme: Crime scene. Killer prop: Plastic blood pools. Guide your guests through a bloody crime scene without leaving fake blood tracks through the rest of your house. Bloody shows like Dexter use shiny red plastic blood pools to get the look of wet blood without the mess.

8 inch resin blood pool – $20

5.    Theme: Vampire. Killer prop: Safety wooden stakes. Divide your blood-sucking guests into Team Edward, Team Bill, Team Eric and Team Dracula. Select vampire hunters and give them rubber wooden stakes. Let the hunt begin!

Safety wooden stake – $15 on sale!

8.    Theme: Extreme gore. Killer prop: Realistic corpse. If you have some over-the-top bloody Halloween corpses, add one extremely realistic corpse to the bunch and wait until a concerned guest approaches you to let you know someone may have died of fright.

Anatomical male Joe with hair – $900

13.    Theme: Dinosaur park. Killer prop: Dinosaur skulls. To really wow the neighborhood, rent replica dinosaur skulls and bones. For some unforgettable fun, bury some dinosaur bones in sand for the kids to find dinosaurs in their own backyard.

50 piece dinosaur skull rental for 1 week – $2,200

Read the rest of the release with all 13 Halloween party decor ideas! If you have any friends that work in the media, please pass this on.

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hillraiser, originally uploaded by Boju.

The scariest day of 2008 will come five days AFTER Halloween, will we be electing the political team of an inexperienced newbie and a grumpy old man or ….wait I guess that’s both choices. If you’re feeling patriotic this Halloween, instead of just going for a rubber mask and a suit, why not do something truly monstrous with the candidates? Allow me to offer the following suggestions-

7. Hellraiser fetish robe + Hillary Clinton mask=
HELLARY or HILLRAISER
(see image above)

6. JOHN EDWARDSCISSORHANDS

“How about a $30,000 Haircut?”

5. PALIN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE
The dumbest VP ever made.

“You know the difference between a Republican VP and a brain eating zombie resurrected by people from outer space? Lipstick.”

4. BARACKULA
A mysterious creature who lure his victims with an unearthly charm.

“Fear you can believe in!”

3. McCAINENSTEIN
A living maverick stitched together from the corpses of previous Republican campaigns

“I can only lift my arms this high!”

2. The Creature from the Barack Lagoon

He doesn’t look like other men, because he’s a fish-man, and he’ll play the species card.

1. THE TEXAS McCAINSAW MASSACRE
His bloody saw isn’t just for cutting taxes…you’re next!

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zz ingrid pitt the house that dripped blood, originally uploaded by Boju.

Everyone knows Freddy and Jason, Frank and Drac, but ask anyone who the greatest female monsters are, and they’ll likely draw a blank (or maybe the Bride of Frankenstein and Elvira). Which is too bad, because female monster are amongst the scariest and hottest creations around, and they make kick ass Halloween costumes for women who want to mix scary with their sexy.

I’ve compiled a list of the top 40 lady monster costumes of all time. 40 because I don’t mess around with puny top ten lists when the topic is this important. Pictured above is the beautiful Ingrid Pit as a vampiress in The House that Dripped Blood. She didn’t make the cut for top 40 because her costume appears to be a 99 cent cape and 25 cent fangs and this list is for the best costumes.

40. Gozer from Ghostbusters

Costume: New Wave Eye Make up + Butch Lesbian Hair cut + Body Stocking + cotton batting.
Coolness Factor: “When Someone asks you ‘are you a god’ you say YES!”

39. Terminatrix from Terminator 3

Costume: Leather jacket + perfect hair + cyborg makeup or prosthetics.
Coolness Factor: Doing the robot on the dance floor. Kicking The Governators ass.

38. Baby Jane from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane

Costume: Tattered baby doll clothes, bad whore make up, puffy facial appliances.
Coolness factor: Acting infantile, harassing the handicapped.

37. Morticia Addams from the Addams Family AKA Vampira AKA Elvira

Costume: Long black hair, tight black dress, pale skin, cleavage.
Coolness Factor: It’s 3 costumes in one!

36. Bloody Mary from Urban Legends 3

Costume: Half skull make up or appliance.
Coolness Factor: You’ll appear whenever someone orders 3 bloody mary’s at the bar.

35. Columbia from the Rocky Horror Picture Show

Costume: New wave make up, flapper hair cut, yellow top hat and tails, madonna corset and hot pants. Everything bedazzled to hell.
Coolness factor: People will be yelling lines at you all night.

34. Sadie Frost from Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula

Costume: Fangs, white face, doilies piled on top of doilies.
Coolness factor: being the weirder than thou love object of 3 men and a vampire.

33. The White Witch from Narnia

Costume: 2 swords, a full length chainmail dress, fur shoulder pads, a gold eagle for a hat.
Coolness factor: Offering people turkish delights.

32. Luna from Mark of the Vampire

Costume: Long black hair, white robe with sleeves down to the floor.
Coolness factor: Those sleeves!

31. The Nurse from Kill Bill

Costume: Nurses outfit with matching eye patch. Syringe.
Coolness factor: Can you whistle that creepy theme music?

30. Ilsa from Ilsa She Wolf of the SS

Costume: Puffy directors pants + riding crop + Nazi uniform + cleavage.
Coolness factor: Offensive to everyone

29. Macarena Gomez in Dagon

Costume: golden princess dress with a crown that looks like a golden sea shell covered in spikes.
Coolness factor: doing the macarena

28. Angela from Night of the Demons 3

Costume: Blue fright wig, facial prosthetics, werewolf teeth, fishnet gloves.
Coolness factor: Ordering martini’s with 2 eyeballs instead of olives.

27. GoGo from Kill Bill

Costume: Japanese schoolgirl outfit, big freaking ball-chain mace.
Coolness factor: being the ultimate object of geek fetishes for japanese school girls and huge weapons.

26. The Snake Vampire Woman in Lair of the White Worm

Costume: Blue body paint, huge fangs, chain mail yarmulke.
Coolness factor: Doing the cobra dance in and out of baskets.

25. Lilly Munster from The Munsters

Costume: Goth make up, white streaked hair, the vampires house dress.
Coolness factor: doing something original with the Elvira idea.

24. Alice from Alice Sweet Alice

Costume: One of those creepy transparent masks, yellow raincoat with cinched hood, knife.
Coolness factor: being inherently the creepiest person in the room even if know one knows the context. Especially if no one knows the context.

23. Dracula’s Daughter from Dracula’s Daughter:

Costume: The Morticia dress with a cape and gold trim.
Coolness factor: Calling Dracula Daddy.

22. Voodoo Lady from Pirates of the Carribean

Costume: Victorian dress, fx contact lenses, bones and flotsam tied up to every inch of you. Dreadlocks.
Coolness factor: Ordering Malibu Rum in the same cheesy accent as the commercials. Cursing people.

21. Varla from Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

Costume: Pants suit, cleavage, switchblade, motorcycle.
Coolness Factor: Getting into bar fights, chosing “What’s new Pussycat” for Karaoke but adding “KIll! Kill!” to the chorus.

20.Japanese Ghosts from The RIng, The Grudge, etc, etc,

Costume: Long black hair, baby doll dress, corpse make up.
Coolness factor: Standing in front of TV’s, sneaking up on people and making faces at them. Handing out video tapes to trick or treaters and saying “you gotta watch this, it’s so good you’ll die”

19. Prom Queen Carrie from Carrie

Costume: Prom dress, blood. Bug eyes and telekinesis helps.
Coolness factor: Appropriate outfit for slow dancing, revenge, and covering your dirty pillows.

18. The Evil Queen AKA Elisabeth Bathory from The Brothers Grimm

Costume: red queen dress with spikey fan collar, huge gold horn things.
Coolness factor: Bathing in blood will keep you young. Hunting virgens.

17. Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty

Costume: Black and purple robes with jagged flame like edges. Horned headress. Staff and crow.
Coolness factor: Being the scariest thing ever shown in a Disney Cartoon.

16. The Borg Queen from Star Trek

Costume: Black body suit with tubes and gizmos everywhere. Bald head, corpse make up and tubes stuck to head.
Coolness factor: using the royal “We” when referring to yourself.

15. Mystique from X Men

Costume: Yellow eyes, red hair, blue scaly skin, nudity.
Coolness factor: If you’re feeling modest you can transmogrify into some pants.

14. Mother from Dead Alive

Costume: See Baby Jane but add open wounds that ooze blood and goo.
Coolness Factor: Eating dogs and shouting “Where’s my Pudding!”

13 Creature from Darkness Falls

Costume: Freddy Krueger face + zombie body + vintage dress.
Coolness factor: Being as gory as possible and still being in a dress.

12. Cherry from Planet Terror/ Grindhouse

Costume: Tube Top, daisy dukes, machine gun leg (don’t ask me how)
Coolness factor: Puns galore! Fully loaded, legs that can kill, etc.

11. The She Creature from She Creature

Costume: Gargoyle face + The Thing rock suit from Fantastic Four + Boobs made of rock.
Coolness factor: A rack of rock!

10. Regine from Fright Night

Costume: Some kind of vampire bat creature with pointy nipples. When doing this costume it helps if you know Rick Baker or someone like him.
Coolness factor: Seeing if men notice your hideous face first or if they still stare at your hideous chest.

9.Amanda from Saw

Costume: regular clothes, with some kind of bear trap on your head. A severed pigs head would make a great prop.
Coolness factor: setting up death traps for your friends.

8. Vampirella

Costume: A cape collar attached to 2 red bandages strategically concealing your nudity. Nudity.
Coolness factor: Vampirella holds the record for wearing the smallest costume for the longest time, since the 60’s! If she wasn’t a Vampire she’d be a grandmother in a red bikini.

7. Sil from Species

Costume: some kind of sexy alien exoskeleton.
Coolness factor: If you can make this costume you are too amazing for everyone.

6. Julie from Return of the Living Dead 3

Costume: shredded 80’s punk clothes, spikes sticking out of everything. Brains to munch on.
Coolness factor: being the punkest zombie chick ever.

5. Bride of Frankenstein

Costume: White robes, bee hive with stripe.
Coolness factor: The most celebrated of all lady monsters.

4. Robot Maria from Metropolis

Costume: Art Deco 1930’s German Expressionist Female Robot. I’m sure the corner costume store can help.
Coolness factor: Being a champion of Women-Robot’s rights.

3. The Tooth Fairy from The Tooth Fairy

Costume: Have yourself rotoscoped out of the Halloween party and replaced by a CG eyeless corpsy fairy with huge leathery wings.
Coolness factor: Offering people a dime for their teeth.

2.Angelique from Hellraiser

Costume: Latex fetish dress. Calvarium cut in head. Corpse make up. Support rods hooked into shoulders and head. Blood. Hooks in flesh. Hellraiser cube.
Coolness factor: The pinnacle of scary sexy with some fetishy weirdness thrown in to boot. Also a great sexy costume that doesn’t require a mile of cleavage.

1. Regan from the Exorcist

Costume: A girls night gown. Blood, puss, and corpse make up.

Regan gets top billing for having a supremely scary and iconic costume. It can be done simply with blood and corpse make up, or you can go all out and get fx contact lenses and where your clothes backwards so it appears your head is spun 180. She’s also incredibly fun if you get in character, vomiting on priests, shaking the bed, using your “Satan voice” to tell friends “Your Mother sucks c*cks in Hell!” and your friends can dare you into dumb stunts with “The power of Christ compels you!”

Honorable Mention

Bride of Chucky
Dracula’s Brides – In Francis Coppola’s Dracula, in Van Helsing, in Bat form in Van Helsing
Queen of the Damned
Porcupine Lass from Nightbreed
The Unnamable
Barbara Steele in Black Sunday
Nancy in The Craft
Ingrid Pit in The House that Dripped Blood
Zombie Form Regine from Fright Night
Alessa from Silent Hill
High Tension
Miho in Sin City
Cruella De Vil from 101 Dalmations
Ms. Lovett from Sweeny Todd
Xenia Onatopp from James Bond
Sally From Nightmare Before Christmas

There’s a real problem with the over the counter Halloween CD’s available out there. Check them out. I love “The Humpty Dance” as much as the next skinny weird looking dude, but it’s just not spooky.

I’ve been collecting Horror and Halloween themed records for years (and I’m working on putting together a radio show, watch this blog for announcements!). My collection reaches back into the early days of Appalachian Goth and Voodoo Blues in the 20’s and 30’s to the novelty record boom of the 50’s and 60’s, horror metal and prog rock ghost stories of the 70’s, right up into the current psychobilly revival of today. I’ve compiled the below list as just a sample, 25 tracks I consider an essential Halloween party soundtrack.

You might notice there is no “Monster Mash” on this list. That’s only because everyone knows that one already. I love the Monster Mash, i own Bobby “Boris” Picketts original LP, I’ve licked the grooves and I can swear it tastes like candy corn and glow stick goo. I named my grade school bike gang “the Crypt Kickers” after his band, and I’ve played it backwards for our midnight “orange mass” on Halloween. So no blasphemous Mash bashing allowed!

25 Essential Halloween Hits

1.“This is Halloween” – Danny Elfman or Marilyn Manson

2. “Dragula” – Rob Zombie

3. “Dead Man’s Party” – Oingo Boingo

4. “Day of the Dead” – The Misfits

5. “The Human Fly” – The Cramps

6. “Coolest Little Monster” – John Zacherie

John Zacherie was a Horror movie host, like a male Elvira, in the fifties, this song is a little like the 12 days of christmas, but with much better gifts like “a hat pin of bat skin” and “your own noose for home use”
7. “Bloody Hammer” – Roky Erickson