League Post: Halloween Costume Ideas

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It's funny, I pre-wrote a handful of posts for this month so I wouldn't have to scramble to keep up with posting every day. Here we are on the 3rd and I haven't used any of those posts yet! This week's League challenge fits in with the Countdown to Halloween theme...

Remember when Halloween was a big deal? I mean, a BIG deal? What was the most legendary costume you ever wore? What would you dress up as this year?

I wish I could remember more of my Halloween costumes from years past, or better yet have photos of them. Here are a few I do recall...

One year I went as Groucho Marx. I couldn't have been much older than 8. I don't remember if I even knew who the Marx Brothers were or if I just really liked the Groucho glasses. I had a long dark coat and a big plastic cigar to round out the costume.

There's a few second fragment of a memory of going Trick or Treating as Batman.  I remember being out with my older female cousins who took me around the neighborhood where my dad lived.

Not me, but that's the exact Batman costume I had

Ben Cooper got a lot of business from my childhood.
I'm pretty sure I had Spider-Man one year...

Still not me, just showing the costume

And a couple of Star Wars ones, of course!

Yeah, I was such a Star Wars geek, I had C-3P0. I seem to recall the original Star Wars costumes were selling like crazy. Maybe that explains why I ended up with 3P0. Then again, I do remember wearing it around the house pretending to be 3P0 so maybe I'm just a big dork!

Yes, I've been a Fett fanboy since I got my mailaway figure before Empire Strikes Back came out!

While I was in my senior year in high school, my stepdad (USMC) was reassigned from MA to NC. After I graduated, I moved down there with them. At 17, moving away from your home and all your friends is a horrible thing. The height of internet then was BBS message boards and even then you had to actually call the message board which was long distance.

That Halloween, my parents got me a Freddy Krueger costume because I was really into the movies. My friends came down for Halloween and we definitely raised some hell in the neighborhood. All the older kids in the area knew each other but no one knew who we were.

We ended up moving back the following year and thanks to one of those same friends, I started working a local haunted house as Freddy and had a blast. Then, one of my high school pals gave me the coolest thing in the world...

He hand crafted a glove for my costume! This was at least a decade before metal gloves were commercially available. I painted it up with some model paint to make it a little more screen accurate. This gave me an incredible shock factor when working the line waiting to get into the haunted house. Teens would think they were cool and grab for the glove, only to realize it was metal and not plastic. There was a big drainpipe on the front of the house which was great to scrape the blades on.

In the late '90s I found my current Halloween costume: The Creep. Freddy was passed on to my stepdad and he still wears it every year when we go to Salem. The mask is 24 years old and has been repaired here and there. He's become somewhat notorious for wearing it. If you're ever in Salem on Halloween, head over to Liberty St and you'll find him there taking photos with people.

He modded the chest of souls by adding lights to the eyes which he has hooked to a switch in his hand.

Here's a couple better shots of me. The eyes are LEDs that blink very fast, not like the fade in/out lights in the store bought version. I put this together years before that was a thing! Also, note my hands in the photos. They are my ace in the hole for the costume. When walking around, I keep the hands under my cloak and wait for the right moment to bring them out to up the creep factor.

I frequently get mistaken for many things on Halloween: Darth Vader, a jawa, a dementor, ring wraith, and Death/Grim Reaper.

I would love to update The Creep with a look similar to Adam Savage's ComicCon ring wraith but have no clue about costuming. I think my eyes and hands with this look would rock!

Here's what other League bloggers are saying

Jamie at Whatever I Think Of puts the Seven Deadly Sins in one creative costume

Have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight? Dan has!

Hobgoblin also rocked the Spider suit.