Turn your home into a Halloween haunt

Illustration by Steph Bravo

Halloween is a few weeks away. Get into the hair-rising mood with these tips.

Think of a theme.

You have decided to go all out this Halloween and want to turn your house into one frightful wonderland. Before you make a mad run to the department store and buy every Halloween prop on the shelf, stop! You don’t want your place to be tacky mishmash of witches, Jack-o’-lanterns, skeletons and disembodied body parts. Pick a theme. You can be a haunted house (the most usual theme), an abandoned graveyard or a run-down perya. You can even get your motif from movies: Poltergeist, Friday the 13th, Carrie, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Ring or Shake, Rattle & Roll.

Be earth-friendly.

Recycle old things lying around the house instead of buying new props. Stuff an old shirt and pair of pants, get a discarded hat and hoist your dummy up your gate. Don’t forget to give your Halloween dummy a menacing face and some character. Get a toy knife and stick it on his chest and smear some fake blood on him.

Go local.

The Philippines has a wide array of mythical creatures. Make cutouts of our local monsters: aswang, kapre, tiyanak, nuno sa punso and manananggal. Put them up around your place. Hang garlands of garlic around your house to make your Pinoy-themed Halloween even more authentic—and as a safety measure.

Simple but scary.

You want to join in the fun turning your home into a horror house but you barely have time even to clean up. Sometimes it takes minimum effort to make a maximum impact. Turn your front door or pedestrian gate into a coffin or a tombstone. All you need is black cartolina or construction paper or electric tape, make the shape of an old-school coffin on your door and, voila, you’ve got a foreboding entrance to your house. Place red electronic candles and dried up flowers beside it for a gloomier feel.