How to look good/bad in all the best places this Halloween...
Old people are always whining on about Halloween. “Waaaah!” they scream. “These young whippersnappers are always egging our house, asking for funsize Mars bars.” Well whatever, coffin dodgers. Halloween is amazing. You get to eat candy on an industrial scale and you can dress up.
The problem is, what as? Everyone goes as themselves covered in fake blood or thinks a sheet with eye holes cut out has somehow become ironic. Snooze. And, once you've got your costume sorted, where the hell do you go? Beyond the age of about 10, trick or treating stops being fun and just becomes people slamming doors in your face. If you wanted that to happen you'd have become a Jehova's Witness, right?
Fear not fun fans, Spoonfed is here to hold your hands in the darkness this Halloween, lighting the way with a glowing gourd towards the hottest parties and events the capital has on offer (and also giving you a scooby doo at what to wear to them).
Alice Cooper's Halloween Night Of Fear
Aside from Ozzy Osbourne or Marilyn Manson, I can think of no one else in the world who would be more appropriate to spend Halloween with. For Alice Cooper every day is Halloween. Even when he recorded those adverts for Sky with Ronnie Corbett, him and the Corbester probably celebrated a great day's shooting by slaughtering lambs or something. Expect all his usual horror schlock including pretending to be guillotined and simulating sex with mannequins. For his last UK tour, he created the personality of 'Spider', a serial killer who wanted to make an arachnid from the amputated legs of virginal young women.
What to wear?
Boys: Theatrical gothic is the way to go. You can't go wrong as a vampire (but an old school cape and fangs vampire, not one of those pasty whiners from Twilight) If you can convince a snake to come along and act as your scarf for the night, so much the better. Of course, eyeliner is a must. The good news is that there's no need to borrow your girlfriend's as for the last few years Superdrug have stocked a range of guyliner and manscara.
Girls: Three words – zombie school girl. This is an easy look (short skirt and shirt, a tie if you're feeling especially plucky) and also means you can reference Alice's hit song 'School's Out For Summer'. Plus you can wear knee high socks and plimsolls and be bang on trend.
Midnight a Go-Go Halloween
The 80s was a golden era for Halloween. Not only did slasher movies reach their zenith with the likes of Hellraiser, Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th, it was also an age that saw musicians start to seriously mine the imagery of horror, from the proto-goth of Sisters of Mercy, to the shock/vamp of The Cramps and the teen-movie-gone-wrong of Michael Jackson's 'Thriller'. Midnight a Go-Go knows this, that's why their celebrating with a night of synth-pop and short cropped leather jackets at the Waiting Room.
What to wear?
Girls: This could be a bit out there, but we reckon you should go as Ashes to Ashes David Bowie. He's pretty androgenous right. Failing that, you should probably go as mid-80s Tina Turner, that's honestly the scariest thing we can think of.
Boys: You've gotta do Jackson right? Time to dig out that curly wig from when you dressed like a scouser and team it up with a black t-shirt, red trousers and a red jacket. Eeee-Heee!
Bugged out and Trailer Trash Present: House of Horrors
Two stalwarts of the London underground party scene join forces tonight for a Halloween special. Featuring the dueling beards of Andrew Weatherall and Ivan Smagghe as well as Chicago house revivalists Waze and Oddyssey, this awesome-looking take over of Netil House promises techno, house, a working ghost train and Transexual Transyvania Room.
What to wear?
Boys/girls: While the whole 'dead B-Boy thing looks temping, we're guessing with a Transexual Transyvania Room, going as a vampire is probably your best bet. But remember, when dressing like an evil blood-sucker of the night, keep it classy. No one wants to neck a person in a bikini splattered in fake blood, but if some dude comes up with a cape and slicked back hair, then now we're talking. So basically think Boris Karloff rather than Buffy.
A more left-field option is to get a few mates together and go as the Scooby Gang. It'll take a bit more work, and there will be arguments over who is going as Fred and Daphne, but imagine the laughs you'll get when a whole dance-floor of vampires, zombies, warewolves and people in bedsheets decide to chase you round the place. Amazing.
The Polyphonic Spree present The Rocky Horror Picture Show
If you ever want to see a Halloween Party done properly, the watch the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Sexy, cool and just a little bit wrong, it's the blue-print for every decent soiree ever. While no one can get Tim Curry to don a pair of fishnets now-a-days, kooky US psych act The Polyphonic Spree are doing a version of it at The Forum this Halloween in their own indomitable style. We reckon it should be halfway between the Carpenters and the Misfits.
What to wear?
Yeah, OK, you could go for the whole Dr Frank-N-Furter domanatrix/vamp guy thing, but everybody does that. Our favourite character is the biker guy played by Meat Loaf, who crashes the party like some crazed, saxophone weilding version of D-Day in Animal House. It's also one of the few costumes that people with a bigger figure can pull off.
Happy Halloween folks!
Photos come cortesy of Liz West, Paul Stevenson, Erik Abderhalden and Mollypop. Scooby Doo comes courtesy of the Cartoon Network and Meat Loaf comes from 20th Century Fox.
Please check out all our Halloween events in London. There's absoultely loads.
Add an event