Best AC Content: Halloween Special Effects and Halloween Decorations

Halloween rocks, but if you really want to get in the mood, you've got to spend some time on your Halloween decorations to create some great Halloween special effects. And Halloween doesn't have to create a fortune, in fact, the creepy haunted house I ever designed used only glow-in-the-dark paint, a roll of black plastic like the kind in garbage bags, a strobe light, and a hunk of dry ice.

Halloween Special Effects #1

Movie-Quality Makeup

Here are a few tips about how inexpensive items can have big impact, as well as ways to enhance an actor's usual make-up looks with a few additions. These tips for making low-budget movies will easily translate to creating your own unique Halloween special effects and makeup.

Halloween Special Effects #2

Gross Party Food

Whether you use peeled grapes to simulate eyeballs or cold spaghetti to represent brains, the possibilities of food as a creep factor are endless. Here are some tips for gross-looking party snacks that taste much more delicious than they look.

Halloween Special Effects #3

The Butchered Body

There is nothing creepier than a dead body, and if you follow the suggestions outline in this article, you'll up the ante by providing a dead body that's not so dead afterall. Creepy! Make your own fake blood with corn starch and red food colorings, and you'll send the weakest members of your group screaming into the night.

Halloween Special Effects #4

The Creaking Door and Spooky Footsteps

This is an easy Halloween special effect to create at home, and it works particularly well in a darkened room during a haunted house party. Find a creaky door. You might need to use a door at a friend's house if yours have been touched up with WD-40 lately. Record the sound of the door opening slowly. Then add to the recording the sounds of thudding footsteps slowly but surely creeping across the room. A sound to bring shivers for sure.

Halloween Special Effects #5

Liquid Latex

The possibilities of Liquid Latex for creating Halloween special effects is endless, but one suggestion that I think is really great / gross is to mix the liquid latex with rice crispies to created a mottled, acne-ridden appearance on someone's face. Gross! But Cool!

Halloween Special Effects #6

The Boiling Cauldron

Shakespeare said it best:

"Double, double toil and trouble; / Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake, / In the caldron boil and bake;

Eye of newt, and toe of frog, / Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,

Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting, / Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,-

For a charm of powerful trouble, / Like a hell-broth boil and bubble."

You don't need the eye of newt or tongue of dog, just a plastic cauldron, some dry ice, and a strobe light to create your own spooky witch's brew as a great Halloween decoration.

Halloween Special Effects #7

The Front Yard Cemetery

Turn your Front Yard into a Cemetery by making your own tombstones out of recycled cardboard and spray paint. A great way to scare off those treak-or-treaters, eh?

Halloween Special Effects #8

The Shivering Mummy

Want to go a step beyond the graveyard look and create a true Halloween spectacle in your front yard? Here's an article that lists the best spooky Halloween decorations available to purchase online. The Shivering Mummy sounds pretty creepy to me.

Halloween Special Effects #9

DIY Halloween Sounds Effects

What's the use to going to a lot of trouble with your Halloween decorations if the house sounds like Disneyland with a bunch of happy birds chirping and a little girl singing a cheerful singsong? Record your own creepy sounds to create a ghoulish Halloween environment. Keep the little girl though, it'll be even creepier in the middle of the night, wouldn't you say?

Halloween Special Effects #10

The Importance of Lighting

Again, what's the use of Halloween decorations if all the lights will be on and all the tricks can be seen? No, this article discusses the importance of lighting to create the right Halloween mood in your house, and it's a must read for that and for the creepy food tips.