7 Iconic Movie-Themed Halloween Party Ideas That Will WOW Your Guests

With Halloween looming rapidly, it’s time to start organising all your Halloween party ideas, so you’ll be ready for the big day. One of the best strategies is to base the theme of your party around scary movies because that will give you lots of inspiration for your party. So let’s focus on pulling together the basics of a scary and bone-chilling Halloween party, based on scary movies.

This classic 1973 movie is still scary even today! To pull this movie theme together, you need to set it in a spare bedroom with chains on the bed and a Ouija board so that you can communicate with Regan’s imaginary friend Captain Howdy. The room needs to be really dark and cold when the devil comes to your party, so don’t forget to turn the A/C on high, and use a big bowl of green pea soup to look like the slime Regan vomits when she’s possessed! As far as scary Halloween party ideas go – The Exorcist is right at the top of the list!

Another classic scary movie, this 1968 movie was eventually selected for preservation by the US Library of Congress in the National Film Registry. One of the original Zombie movies where the dead come back to life and eat the living, Night of the Living Dead is a great theme for your Halloween party. For your decorations make some RIP headstones and crucifixes from cardboard and spray them black, place them around the house, but particularly in the bathroom. This is because you are going to use a glow in the dark pen to write “They’re coming to get you Barbara” on the bathroom mirror and remove the bulb so that guests can see the writing when they go to the bathroom! Your party food has to include a big dish of brains! It just can’t be a real Zombie party without something that’s disgustingly gory!

Released in 1980, Friday the 13^th was the movie that made everyone nervous about camping out in the woods! Stalked by a vicious killer who slashes, shoots, stabs and beheads his victims, evading this merciless killer is a frightening reality. Your Friday the 13th Halloween decorations must include a campsite in the garden with a big Halloween spider web to make it even scarier! You also need a machete covered in blood, Jason Hockey horror face masks (the crazy killer wore a hockey mask) and write “Friday the 13^th” in dripping blood on a sheet hung between two trees, and a headless corpse would be ideal! These Friday the 13th Halloween decorations will make your party the most memorable blood-curdling party ever!

This 1984 movie concerns a group of friends stumble into a nest of maniacs living in the country and have to fight to stay alive and evade the maddest of them all – Leatherface who kills with a chainsaw. This is another scary Halloween movie where the ideal setting is outside in the garden, but you must have a bloody chainsaw as one of your props! Add in a plastic skeleton, a few meat hooks, bales of hay, Bloody Marys served in jam jars, and not forgetting your Halloween party food - medium-rare steaks, roast beef rolls, burgers, lots of tomato sauce and any foods that they eat in Texas, chilli, chicken fried steak and BBQ anything come to mind!

Released in 1991, Silence of the Lambs is one of the most psychologically terrifying movies! Based on Dr Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant forensic psychiatrist who also kills and eats people, this is an awesomely scary theme for your Halloween party. All of the food and drinks you serve needs to be red and resemble body parts, brains or guts! Rack of lamb, pastrami, brains, chicken livers, chunky stews, sweetbreads and liver can all give a special ambience to your menu! Decorations can include a plastic skeleton covered with a Halloween spider web crawling with spiders and butterflies; don’t forget the straitjackets and you have to play the movie over and over and over…

This 1999 movie was a huge talking point at the time of its release, simply because it was so scary! It’s all about video footage telling the live tale of three film students who are investigating the Blair Witch, a legendary killer. They go to a country town to interview the inhabitants, but get lost in the woods and are hunted by something unknown! The setting for your Blair Witch Halloween party needs to be outside in the dark and you need lots of torches! You also need to paint the red Blair Witch Icon on a white sheet and hang it up between two trees, hang creepy twig figures from branches, nail ‘missing’ posters to the trees, set up a tent with camping gear and a fire pit, and don’t forget the headless disembowelled bodies covered in blood and gore!

If you need any more inspiration for scary Halloween party themes this year, check out CostumeBox for more party ideas!