From the dark and yet slapstick scene in Death Becomes Her where Goldie Hawn (Helen Sharp) gets shot by a double-barrelled shotgun and emerges with a basketball-sized hole gaping through her stomach to Elsa Lanchester as the Bride of Frankenstein,
From the dark and yet slapstick scene in Death Becomes Her where Goldie Hawn (Helen Sharp) gets shot by a double-barrelled shotgun and emerges with a basketball-sized hole gaping through her stomach to Elsa Lanchester as the Bride of Frankenstein complete with iconic Marcel wave and Nefertiti-inspired updo in the eponymously titled film – the AnOther team are getting inspired for the upcoming annual fright night: Halloween.
Falling on a Monday this year’s October 31 celebrations will be more of a four-night extravaganza kicking off tonight. Historically one of our oldest celebrated festivals, its origins can be traced back to a pre-medieval Europe and the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. With trick-or-treating and dressing up the customary celebration, its roots in fact date back to the late medieval practice of souling, when the poor would go door to door on Hallowmas (November 1), receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls' Day (November 2). Today Halloween is our biggest festival after Christmas and Easter, with the UK spending an estimated £280m celebrating all things gory, ghoulish, spooky and scary.
Here, we share our favourite Halloween-inspired looks...
AnOther editor Nancy Waters:
"Goldie Hawn as Helen Sharp in Death Becomes Her. It would be quite a challenge to make the hole through my stomach look believable but that didn't seem to bother the makers of the film, the special effects are brilliantly dodgy but when I first watched it as a little girl I thought it was terrifying!"
Another Man editor Ben Cobb:
"Brazil's demonic filmmaker Jose Mojica Marins aka 'Coffin Joe'. A top hat and cape – it's a suave undertaker look. But those creepy and impossibly impractical nails are the last word in macabre chic."
AnOther fashion director Cathy Edwards:
"Soledad Miranda from the film Vampiros Lesbos. I chose it because no one does a sexy stabbing scene quite like Soledad. Gorgeous and terrifying, the perfect combination."
AnOther contributing fashion editor Karen Langley:
"It has to be The Exorcist from the 1973 American horror film."
AnOther contributing fashion editor Katie Shillingford:
"I love the Martian Girl in Mars Attacks! I love her giant hairdo that covers over her huge brain head! She's so womanly and sexy and sort of slithers in because she doesn't have legs. She'd be a perfect costume for Halloween because she's horrifying looking but very sexy and glamorous at the same time!"
AnOther Website commissioning editor Laura Bradley:
"It's a tough choice between Alex in Clockwork Orange and the Bride of Frankenstein. I love Alex's exaggerated eye and all-white look, created by costume designer Milena Canonero which is loosely based on the description in the original 1962 novel by Anthony Burgess. And I have a gang I could dress as my droogs. But I have to go with Elsa Lanchester's title role in the 1935 horror classic The Bride of Frankenstein. I love her conical hairdo with its white lightning-trace streaks on each side. To keep it modern, I'd have to rock a thick brow."
AnOther digital marketing manager Melanie Crete:
"Tom Ford's Noir de Noir Perfume. Like any other French girl I am not really good at dressing up so I have decided that this year my Halloween look will be brought to life with a smell. Noir de Noir is definitely the darkest sent with richly woven Saffron, Black Rose and Black Truffle, with hints of floralcy."
AnOther fashion editor Agata Belcen:
"For me it's Ruth Gordon as Minnie Castevet in Rosemary's Baby, dolled up to excess like an ageing prostitute. She's so well cast and costumed as a creepy matriarch desperate for a blooming receptacle to incubate satan's baby."
AnOther contributing editor Francesca Gavin:
"It would be impossible to beat the costumes actor Blake Mawson and gallerist Javier Peres wore at last years Bikers from Mars party at Peres Projects Berlin... Artist Jeremy Shaw DJed as an evil pope. I was just grime at the end of the night..."
AnOther photographic director Christina Hardy:
"The Spooky Skeleton dance from this old Disney video! I am going to be a skeleton this year."
AnOther editorial assistant Lucia Davies:
"I absolutely love Wednesday Addams played by Christina Ricci in The Addams family. Her deadpan wit, unashamedly morbid interests and severe character are great – all embodied in an angelic looking little girl. I also think it is the only Halloween look which you could get away with wearing Miu Miu’s A/W11 peter pan collared dresses. Apparently I also look like her – whether that’s a good thing I don’t know…"
Another Man fashion editor Joel Bough:
"Tubbs Tattsyrup, played by Steve Pemberton, is the quintessential 'local' British shopkeeper from League of Gentlemen with her husband Edward... except there isn't anything quintessential about eating 'hair sandwiches' and murdering your customers. After all it's a local shop for local people, there's nothing for you here! A definite nod to the 70s horror movie, The Wicker Man and majorly creepy even when she's showing you her precious things."
Picture editor Zoe Maughan:
"The Nightmare Before Christmas: I love this beautiful animation, the time taken to create it, and the characters which are loved by young and old."
AnOther intern Tish Wrigley:
"One of the worst 'compliments' I've ever been given...'OMG, you look exactly like Mischa Barton...you know, when she's the hollow-eyed kid under the bed in the Sixth Sense.” It's a look I continue to rock pretty much every day of the year, but at Halloween I just don't wear bronzer. And of course I spend parties loitering under the bed."
Another Man fashion assistant Elizabeth Fraser Bell:
"Maleficent from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty is truly terrifying with subtle undertones of sexuality. However my actual Halloween outfit will be Mowgli from Jungle Book because I don't really need to dress up for that – I already look like him."
AnOther fashion co-ordinator Mhairi Graham:
"Nastassja Kinski as Irena Gallier in the 1982 remake of Cat People. An original 1980s pin-up, she captures the perfect blend of horror and beauty: a teenage waif possessed by feline, primal tendencies, whose kiss comes with a hidden claw. Eroticism and terror collide in a haunting fight of love, death, skin and blood."
Another Man fashion assistant Nell Kalonji:
"I won't put my favourite look up as it would involve putting a picture of a certain fashion editor up who showed her very own interpretation of Carrie Bradshaw...Second choice would be Stephen King's It clown in the 1990 horror film. I don't think i have ever been more scared than watching thatfilm – the scene when his head appears in the gutter. I have not been to a circus or any place where there could potentially be a clown, since!"
Another Man fashion assistant Emma Wyman:
"The Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz was my go-to Halloween costume between the ages of six and nine – I used to scare all of the other kids on the playground with my green make up and fake witch nose!"
Text by Lucia Davies
