The time has come, finally, when the first of my friends has come about owning her own house. (Or renting, whatever.) What is so special about this momentous achievement? Is it that she finally has freedom over her lawn decorations? Is it that she has a solid foundation and an actual basement where the rest of us apartment-dwellers just have cheap thin walls and noisy neighbors? No and no. It is that she has space, my friend, and freedom. The freedom to use her whole house, basement, lawn, and all, to throw one kick-ass haunted house Halloween party. This is convenient, mostly because in order to have a haunted house party, the first step is, obviously, to have access to a house.

And so my friend has enlisted me, the least arts-and-crafts-challenged of the bunch (and we're a pretty challenged bunch) to help her get the place ready in time. So I bravely step up to the task and offer her (and you!) the following ideas:

1.) Sangria filled jack-o-lantern punch bowl There is nothing about this idea that is bad.

Step 1: Buy an abnormally large pumpkin from the parking lot of a local super-savers store. Haggle with the mullet-sporting 'salesman' to lower the price. You will need to save all the money you can for strobe lights (see below).

Step 2: Draw a face on pumpkin that will be easy to carve out. A lot of people make the mistake of putting the freaking Lincoln Memorial on there, and then they overextend themselves and get angry when the obvious result of their efforts is complete, miserable failure. Draw two cones for eyes and a hole for a mouth. Trust me, if you end up putting strong enough liquor in there, no one will care about your toddler-like skills.

Step 3: With a child-proof carving knife (no one wants a finger in their drink), carve off the top of the pumpkin and proceed to scoop it out with a large spoon.

Step 4 (optional) : Take a 30-minute break for pumpkinseed baking! Two 32-ounce cans of Morton's salt necessary.

Step 5: fit a large jug of some kind into the center of the pumpkin where a candle would ordinarily go. Fill said jug with liquor of any kind (I recommend Sangria, because it just sounds festive. “Sangria” ).

2.) Um, strobe lights? Yes, strobe lights!

Yes, this may stretch the budget a little. But the overall effect will be worth it. And shelling out the extra money for some strobes really beats the hell out of having one of your friends stand in a corner and flick a flashlight on and off really fast for four hours. Strobe lights make ordinary homes seem more frightening, almost as if they are being struck by mini bolts of lightning 4,327 times in an hour. Regular wallpaper looks menacing and creepy under the blinks of a strobe light. Movements of people seem disjointed and somehow off-putting. Plus you'll feel drunk a lot quicker.

3.) Let loose small animals that look menacing to partygoers but aren't actually menacing

That'll freak people out.

Hint: invite squirrels, give them Sangria mix, and see what happens.

4.) It's simple but it's true- candy gets you far

I think I belong to that small bracket of Americans who actually enjoy candy corn… mmm…delicious, waxy candy corn. Aside from this questionably sweet confection, however, there are many other sugary options available for a kick-ass Halloween party. And bonus- if you throw your party two days after Halloween, just for fun, all that candy will very likely be 50 percent off. Which means you can buy 50 percent more of it.

Now that we're turning into adults and parties are starting to require more than just four walls and a keg, I've seen some hosts begin to lay out classier sorts of foodstuffs for their guests. This can range from the basic (chips and toquitos) to the extreme (anything involving cream cheese rolled in anything). It is my belief, however, that on Halloween, candy and liquor should be the only options available to partygoers. Lots and lots of sugar + lots and lots of alcohol = lots and lots of buzzed up, drunken costumed folk. Also, maybe, there should be some Cheez-its.

5.) Costumes optional? You might as well say fun is optional.

Send away anyone wearing lame-ass jeans and a hoodie who claims to be going as “themselves,” or “a guy,” or “a figment of your imagination.” This isn't just any party. You didn't invest in strobe lights just so that some random guy/girl could walk in and be all normal-looking and freak out your drunken squirrels with their bright Wal-Mart tennis shoes. No one needs people like that on Halloween.

6.) It's a-maze-ing

Yes, yes that was a pun. But try to look beyond that for a moment, because I truly think a maze is something that can liven up almost any social function, from surprise parties to bat mitzvahs. And they're really very easy to accomplish, too, with some black sheet-tarp (or black plastic garbage bags, if you're extraordinarily cheap), a couple of rolls of duct tape, and some extremely tall people to help attach the previously listed items to the ceiling. Just close your eyes now and imagine all of the drunken people dressed as slutty nurses and slutty witches and slutty conjoined twins and slutty…um…whores, wandering around your house in confusion, trying to find the bathroom. Or their clothes. PRICELESS.

7.) Glow in the dark stuff

Neon markers!!

Not only can you write signs, such as “Abandon all hope ye who enter here, but first help yourself to some peanuts!” on all of the hanging garbage bags that will be covering your walls, but you can pass the markers out to all of your friends and have them add their own inspiring words throughout the night. Better keep up a fresh supply of Sangria, though, or those words could turn kind of nasty.

So I have basically supplied the necessary guidelines to have a kick-ass Halloween party. If you follow this advice, and your party is still lame, then there must be something fundamentally lame about you. Because these are foolproof. Don't, under any circumstances, however, substitute wild ferrets for squirrels at your party. Trust me.

Write Comment
Name:	Guest
Title:
Comment:
Code:*

Powered by AkoComment 2.0!