Halloween: Thriller Night

Halloween is supposed to give you the creeps. It's all about having a thrilling night with friends and neighbours. That's why people try to get trick-or-treaters to come to their door, enticing them with spooky decorations. These days, carving a jack-o'-lantern out of a pumpkin is not quite enough. Mary McCarthy, writer of Creative Halloween, turns her Victorian mansion into a gothic haunted house by covering the windows with paper and painting figures on them, and lighting them from inside in yellow or green. The children know her well, because she hands out full-size candy bars. As a result, about 300 trick-or-treaters drop by. Now, that's a lot, even by US standards!

If you don't think people will come, you can always host a Halloween party instead. Your party decorations can include grisly graveyard details, like corpses, gravestones and monsters, decorated with cobwebs from a spray can. And then, you simply must dress up. Combine a store-bought costume or mask and accessories with other clothes and make-up. Going as someone who made the news this past year is popular, but zombies, vampires, gothic witches and monsters are perennial favourites. Mary McCarthy recommends having a costume contest for the scariest, funniest and most original costumes, and for the best couple and group. The trophy she awards the winners is a skeleton holding its skull.

The 80s are back, and so is Michael Jackson. He'll be making the zombies dance at Halloween parties everywhere, because he knew: "And though you fight to stay alive, / Your body starts to shiver, / For no mere mortal can resist / The evil of the thriller!" ("Thriller" lyrics )

This week, our vocabulary exercise is all about chills and thrills. Brush up on creatures of the night and see how well you understand the lyrics to Michael Jackson's "Thriller".

Anne Hodgson