# Scaring the crap out of Trick-or-Treaters **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 26, 2005, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scaring-the-crap-out-of-trick-or-treaters/323514 "2005-09-26T16:39:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scaring-the-crap-out-of-trick-or-treaters/323514/21 "2005-09-26T18:07:42Z")
Well, I just answer the door wearing nothing but a pair of cowboy boots and a silver lame g-string. They always look pretty scared to me. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scaring-the-crap-out-of-trick-or-treaters/323514/22 "2005-09-26T18:12:48Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > Well, I just answer the door wearing nothing but a pair of cowboy boots and a silver lame g-string. So, to frighten kids in daylight, we must expose places where the sun don’t shine… ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Carnage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/max_carnage/32/12775_2.png) [@Max\_Carnage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Carnage)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scaring-the-crap-out-of-trick-or-treaters/323514/23 "2005-09-26T18:26:41Z")
Mine was a very simple harmless gag, yet still pretty funny to me. I taped up a bunch of black thread from the porch overhang and dimmed the lights. Nearly impossible to see, the threads felt like spiderwebs when trick-or-treaters walked through them and flailed like mad to get them off. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scaring-the-crap-out-of-trick-or-treaters/323514/24 "2005-09-26T18:35:11Z")
> [@Elza B](#): > > "Oh, sorry. Our town does trick-or-treating on a weekend day, from 3-5 in the afternoon so the kids won’t get scared. Then what’s the point of the costumes and the going door-to-door? Might as well just mail the kids the damn candy. :rolleyes: It’s _supposed_ to be scary. Otherwise, why bother? When Ivygirl was about 6 we were trick or treating in my MIL’s neighborhood. She dropped her bucket, and as luck would have it, there was a frog on the sidewalk, so Ivylad scooped it up with her spilled candy and put in her bucket. You haven’t heard a scream until you’ve heard a six-year-old dressed in a Jasmine-from-Aladdin costume reach into her bucket and touch a live frog. ---
**Author:** ![JerH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bb73d2/32.png) [@JerH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JerH)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scaring-the-crap-out-of-trick-or-treaters/323514/25 "2005-09-26T18:50:25Z")
Drop a dummy from the roof onto the ground behind them, just as they ring the bell. ---
**Author:** ![DirkGntly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d9b06d/32.png) [@DirkGntly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DirkGntly)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scaring-the-crap-out-of-trick-or-treaters/323514/26 "2005-09-26T19:07:17Z")
This year, I’m going to hide out behind the brick half-wall at my house, in dark pants, white shirt and ski mask pulled over my head. I’m going to take the chain off of my chainsaw, leaving just the bar…and after the kids get their candy, I’m going to crank the chainsaw and run after them with it running wide open… ---
**Author:** ![Rufus\_Xavier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@Rufus\_Xavier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rufus_Xavier)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scaring-the-crap-out-of-trick-or-treaters/323514/27 "2005-09-26T19:11:53Z")
In my aunt’s old neighborhood, there were a couple of people who wore full-on clown suits and rubber evil clown masks with huge mouthfuls of giant, supersharp teeth. They spent all Halloween evening outside, on the lawn or the sidewalk. They had a couple of strobe lights pointed at the house, and loud, discordant carnival-type music coming from inside. Sometimes they stood motionless until someone walked by, sometimes one of them would do something to hold your interest while the other one slowly sneaked up behind you and made a sudden loud noise. In any case, this was, by far, the scariest house (except for the full-scale Hollywood-quality haunted house two blocks away) in the neighborhood, and many children (and adults) crossed the street rather than come near that one. Brilliant. Terror in plain sight. I will never forget it. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scaring-the-crap-out-of-trick-or-treaters/323514/28 "2005-09-26T19:17:47Z")
> [@DirkGntly](#): > > This year, I’m going to hide out behind the brick half-wall at my house, in dark pants, white shirt and ski mask pulled over my head. I’m going to take the chain off of my chainsaw, leaving just the bar…and after the kids get their candy, I’m going to crank the chainsaw and run after them with it running wide open… So…ahhh…let us all know how that goes over, **Dirk**. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![DirkGntly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d9b06d/32.png) [@DirkGntly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DirkGntly)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scaring-the-crap-out-of-trick-or-treaters/323514/29 "2005-09-26T19:25:22Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > So…ahhh…let us all know how that goes over, **Dirk**. 😃 I’m thinking it will go well…I have a chainsaw that cranks on the first try every time after priming, so I think it will work fine… ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scaring-the-crap-out-of-trick-or-treaters/323514/30 "2005-09-26T19:27:21Z")
> [@DirkGntly](#): > > I’m thinking it will go well…I have a chainsaw that cranks on the first try every time after priming, so I think it will work fine… Good on ya! As that’s a prank that would probably make _me_ crap my pants, I suggest keeping some smellling salts handy for your victims. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![lachesis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@lachesis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lachesis)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scaring-the-crap-out-of-trick-or-treaters/323514/31 "2005-09-26T19:45:55Z")
i’m a Halloween fanatic. literally TONS of props in my basement – heck, i’m about to start a part-time gig at the SPIRIT Halloween store tonight, just for the employee discount (and to have early access to all the toys). 😃 😃 😃 Best. Moments. Ever. (home version) one year i hired a teenage neighbor to play vampire. gave him cape, fangs, set up one of those cardboard coffins on the front lawn next to the driveway, lined it with a nice blanket. his schtick was to lie there in the closed coffin until he heard 'treaters coming up the driveway (they invariably chatter and comment on all the decorations). then he’d do the pop-up routine and scare them mightily. he told me at the end of the evening, one group was “got” so bad (good?), one of the ADULT chaparones in the group confessed to wetting herself. (high fives all around) my PERSONAL favorite – i’m always in costume if at all possible all day on Halloween. one year the outfit was regular street clothing, but i’d done special make-up. one half of my face was regular every-day make-up; the other side was a skull, as anatomically correct as i could map out. so… a group of three 'tweener-type boys comes onto the porch, dressed as commandos. i can see (through the windows alongside the door) one boy ring the doorbell and sneak off to the side. i open the door to the two still in front. he jumps from the side, right in front of me. looks UP. actually SEES me. and immediately JUMPS RIGHT BACK away from the door. good times. then there’s the time i did a life-size dragon mask, peeking around the corner at kids on the porch. i’d pull back just as they looked over towards me. the expressions were priceless on some of them, wondering if they’d ACTUALLY SEEN what they thought they just saw. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scaring-the-crap-out-of-trick-or-treaters/323514/32 "2005-09-26T20:45:39Z")
I’ve done the motionless scarecrow trick a couple of times. I’ve also done mini-haunted houses at a friend’s apartment. I’d answer the door in a bloody tux/waiter’s outfit with a single horn sticking out of my forehead, like some weird rhino man and offer to take them to the candy. We’d run a circuitous route through the dark apartment and have a few people dressed up and waiting to rise off the couch like zombies. The grand finale was my friend dressed as Michael Myers coming out of a closet. We also had a great spooky soundtrack running. I think it was more fun for the adults, the one kid that went through was mostly horrified. Back in the 70’s one house in my town had an “operating table” (an old bathtub with a sheet of plywood over it) set up with a “patient” on the table and a Mad Doctor in the yard on the way up to the house. The patient would lie on the table moaning with a bloody sheet over him while the Mad Doctor would scare the kids with a “MUhhahh hahah haha!” wielding a bloody knife, wearing a crazy wig, and a facemask. He would slowly pull back the sheet revealing a pile of a couple of pounds of raw beef liver on the patients stomach and pick it up and squish it and dangle it. Scary stuff. They always had some scary haunted house scene set up. Kids had to be brave to make it to their front porch. It was terrifying but fun…nowadays people have taken all the scary fun out of Halloween and sterilized it. Halloween should have scares like this. It’s a helluva lot of fun for everybody. ---
**Author:** ![Elza\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Elza\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elza_B)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scaring-the-crap-out-of-trick-or-treaters/323514/33 "2005-09-26T21:39:24Z")
> [@ivylass](#): > > Then what’s the point of the costumes and the going door-to-door? Might as well just mail the kids the damn candy. :rolleyes: > > It’s _supposed_ to be scary. Otherwise, why bother? Yeah, no shit. Our little town is pretty sanitized. Drives me nuts. (I freakin’ HATE Ohio…). When my kids and nieces and nephews hit an appropriate age, I’m going to scare the living daylights out of them on Halloween. I’m going to keep some of the suggestions from this thread just for that day :D. We’ll go to a different town if we have to just so that they can trick-or-treat on the right day. Getting the crap scared out of yourself on Halloween is part of being a kid! E. ---
**Author:** ![Mint\_Julep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bc79bd/32.png) [@Mint\_Julep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mint_Julep)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scaring-the-crap-out-of-trick-or-treaters/323514/34 "2005-09-26T21:50:35Z")
This thread is getting me so excited for Halloween 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scaring-the-crap-out-of-trick-or-treaters/323514/35 "2005-09-26T22:29:39Z")
One of my favorite childhood scares had a neighbor decorate his house and put a scarecrow on the front porch. Then on trick-or-treat night he dressed as a scarecrow, waited for the kids to approach and jumped up and yelled. Scared the crap out of us all. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scaring-the-crap-out-of-trick-or-treaters/323514/36 "2005-09-26T23:40:20Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > Well, the last time I tried it, a forty-something woman with girl maybe 7 years old rang the doorbell. I had a bit of a hard time seeing the people I was about to pounce on, my head being stuck in a big plastic pumpkin with pinholes for eyes and all, so I really didn’t know quite what I was getting into until the prank was fully executed. Both the woman and the girl shrieked and convulsed like they’d been tasered, and the girl burst into wailing tears. The woman screamed something like “Jesus fucking Christ!”, and then tore me a gaping new asshole as I yanked off my mask and tried to explain it was all a funny, funny joke, Hah hah! She said I was sick, an idiot, a pervert, among some other unmentionable things, and stormed off, claiming she was going to call the police and report me. I never heard from the police, but needless to say the porch ambush stunt ended immediately. I’ve never had a adult be that big an asshole, and if I ever do, believe me, I will double my efforts to scare the piss out of the kids. That’s what Halloween is all about. My usual schtick is to dress up in my Incarnation of Death outfit. Big hooded robe, skull face, skeleton hands, staff with a glowing scythe on the end, etc. I’ll sit on a stool in front of the house with the candy bowl in my lap, then rise up and gronk at the kiddies. SWMBO refuses to have anything to do with it; she claims that the next generation of axe murderers in Houston will come from our neighborhood because of the way I traumatize the kids on Halloween. When I get tired of sitting, I’ll stalk around the neighborhood with a bag of candy, sort of trick-or-treat in reverse. ---
**Author:** ![Kitchen\_Wench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f08c70/32.png) [@Kitchen\_Wench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kitchen_Wench)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2005, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scaring-the-crap-out-of-trick-or-treaters/323514/37 "2005-09-27T00:12:36Z")
> [@DirkGntly](#): > > This year, I’m going to hide out behind the brick half-wall at my house, in dark pants, white shirt and ski mask pulled over my head. I’m going to take the chain off of my chainsaw, leaving just the bar…and after the kids get their candy, I’m going to crank the chainsaw and run after them with it running wide open… Oh yeah, the ol’ chainsaw gag. When I was 10 or 11, some dude chased me and some friends through the neighborhood like that. I was never so scared in my life! I came home crying and hyperventilating. Looking back, it was a good gag. No lasting damage, but I never went trick or treating again. Hey, I was getting too old for that stuff. \*\* Dirk\*\*, I would suggest not trying this stunt with wee kids, obviously. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2005, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scaring-the-crap-out-of-trick-or-treaters/323514/38 "2005-09-27T00:26:39Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > I’ve never had a adult be that big an asshole, and if I ever do, believe me, I will double my efforts to scare the piss out of the kids. That’s what Halloween is all about. Y’know…y’know…you’re right, goddammit! But I’m telling you, this lady was like Godzilla Mom. This was me vs. Maternal Instinct, and bowing my head and saying “Yes ma’am, sorry ma’am” was all I could muster in the face of such wrath. I did git some of them kids gooood, though! ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2005, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scaring-the-crap-out-of-trick-or-treaters/323514/39 "2005-09-27T01:14:17Z")
Can you make a costume where you are holding a giant bowl of candy. One arm that is holding the candy is fake. Your real arm is sticking up through the bottom of the bowl. Kids reach in to get candy and you grab their hand. Hilarty Ensues! ---
**Author:** ![Corporate\_Hippie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/65b543/32.png) [@Corporate\_Hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corporate_Hippie)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2005, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scaring-the-crap-out-of-trick-or-treaters/323514/40 "2005-09-27T01:25:45Z")
Some great ideas in here so far! Here are some possible ideas I just came up with: 1. Answer the door with a big candy bowl held high so little kids couldn’t see the contents at first. Act natural and then lower the bowl to their eye level. The bowl is actually filled with live crawling insects (maybe those big cockroaches or some millipedes if you can find them.) I don’t know where you’d get these, a pet store maybe? Anyway, if you got a bowl with steep sides and maybe greased the walls with Vaseline the bugs wouldn’t crawl out too easily. A bowl full of big bugs is always creepy! 2. This one required a house with shutters and that is well-lit on the outside, and a stereo with Halloween sound effects. Get a bunch of fishing line and attach some to all the open shutters on the front of the house that all run back to a single cord. Leave all the outside lights on, and a big bowl of candy on the front porch in front of the open front door. When kids approach, jerk all the fishing lines (slamming the shutters) and slam the front door (I guess you could hide behind it waiting), then immediately turn off all the exterior lights (maybe you could flip the circuit breaker for this) leaving the kids in the dark. Then play a scary sound effect of a high-pitched scream or something jarring. Depending on the house, this may take several people to coordinate and get the properly timed sequence (SLAM! Dark! SHRIEEEK!), but I bet it’d be pretty freaky. I’ve never tried either of these before, like I said, they just came to me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scaring-the-crap-out-of-trick-or-treaters/323514.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scaring-the-crap-out-of-trick-or-treaters/323514.md?page=3)