It's now only one week until Halloween! Have you made plans yet? If not, fear not for BitchBuzz has a two-part guide to ensure that your Halloween goes off with a scream. Over the next two days our writers will be recommending their must-see spook fests. Today it is the turn of Charlotte Rowland, with her guide to all things ghoulish around the UK.
Scare Attractions and Mazes:
All around the country, drama students are preparing for a rite of passage – being lathered in face paint and fake blood, and paid to petrify people. The UK's theme parks will all be at it.Thorpe Park's Fright Nights, found just outside London in Surrey, are one of the most popular. However, tickets are expensive.
If you are after extreme frights, but only have limited funds, there are dozens of cheaper, seasonal attractions across the country. If you live near a maze, or even lots of fields, you can pretty much guarantee an entrepreneurial farmer will have devised an event to scare you stupid. Shocktober Fest at Tulley's Farm (West Sussex). With a range of scary experiences, including a 'haunted hayride' and "Dr Plague's Trail of Terror" , it promises a memorable night out. For a fairly comprehensive directory of similar events check out Scare Attractions.
Classic Costume Parties:
There are also going to be fancy dress nights in every corner of the country this week. We all know why – dressing up is just too much fun to be left to kids. It is undoubtedly one of the main reasons why Halloween retains it's popularity (and indeed has been trending on Twitter since last Saturday). If you're planning on partying this Halloween, it's time to start picking an outfit and finding a destination.
The people behind the Gloucestershire festival, Winterwell, are at Loft Studios in London on Saturday 27th of October, from 9pm-5am with 'A Journey to Hell'. It promises to be a creative night of live music, interactive games and theatre, and of course a fancy dress theme of “What you might find in hell”. Alternatively, with a more geekily ghoulish vibe, The Lost Souls Halloween Party is taking place at the Sea Life London Aquarium in London on Friday 26th. Yes, a party in a aquarium. It features a scare maze in the rainforest, a bar serving creepy cocktails, a decent DJ and dance-floor, and a chance to see it's fishy inhabitants at night. With tickets from £10 it promises to be excellent value, and you might even meet you're very own Jack Sparrow...
Theatre:
Historic settings are also the perfect place to watch some terrifying theatre this Halloween. In the ruins of the gothic Whitby Abbey on the Yorkshire coast, four actors are staging a recreation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. There are both family and adult-only performances. Meanwhile Suba Das will be recreating the bloody classic by Thomas Middleton - The Revenger's Tragedy - in Hoxton Hall, the UK's oldest surviving music hall.
The Weird and Wonderful:
If nothing else, this is the time of year the weird and wonderful collide. 2012's wacky winner has to be "Eat Your Heart Out" - a display and sale at St Bart's Pathology Museum (from the 26th-28th of October) of perfectly designed anatomical cakes. The event is free, and gruesome, and sometimes just a little bit rude (let's just say, that they've made nearly every body part).
Finally, Do Things Differently:
Halloween doesn't have to be all about blood and screaming. For the Nutcrack Night, at Astley Hall, Lancashire they encourage you to think more of “magic and macabre” this Halloween. An outdoor family event, running from 4pm until 11pm, it features “theatrical performance, wild dancing, light spectaculars and masked mayhem.” Alternatively, you could take a Mexican approach to this time of year, where the emphasis is placed more on remembering the dead than being terrified of them. The Old Vic Tunnels in London will be hosting a four-day festival from 31st of October, to celebrate the Day of the Dead. Offering Mexican street food and cocktails, visual art shows and music, each night there will also be a live performance from the amazing Rodrigo y Gabriela.
There is so much happening in the UK this Halloween, so much that there's plenty more to come in tomorrow's part two of our Halloween Guide. Let us know what you have planned on Twitter or in the comments below.
Image via English Heritage and Eat Your Heart Out Bakery