A Recipe for the Perfect Halloween Party

Halloween: It is, perhaps, the scariest, most delicious night of the year. Who would want to spend it alone when scaring the daylights out of friends and family is so darn enjoyable? So, if you're in the mood for party planning, stick with us. Think of us as your fairy jack-o-lantern, your ultimate go-to for all things festive.

Your first step is set-up, the portion of party planning that invites you to use the best, most creative part of your brain. This checklist is sure to get you started:

• Send invitations consisting of nothing more than a bloody handprint, address, and time.
• Position your Elite Outdoor Movies inflatable movie screen near the gathering area, all set to play a scary movie.
• Fill bowls with fresh apples, candy, and popcorn.
• Store cold drinks in a cooler and place it near snacks.
• Turn off all lights in the house, allowing flickering candles to lead guest to the backyard.

Now, imagine this: you’ve brought in hay bales and built a maze in your own backyard. There’s a new fright around every corner, like a zombie with melting skin or cattle rustler hung by the neck. In the very center of your maze are blankets, each with its own bowl of delicious Halloween-worthy treats. Your anxious guests stumble to the area, surprised (and impressed) by the way you have managed to set the stage. You invite them to take a seat on one of the blankets, waiting until much later to tell them that you purchased the blankets from an old asylum in a nearby town. The outdoor inflatable movie screen is dark for now. You’ll know when the time is right to shock the group with a terrifying movie.

Just as your guests settle in, you begin to tell them a story.

I’m going to share with you a tale, passed down to me by my grandfather. It's the story of a group of six friends who decided to visit a five-story haunted house in  my grandfather’s hometown.

You can imagine the group’s surprise as they are greeted by an old, bent woman in the gravel driveway of the haunted house. The old woman promises to pay anyone who can make it all the way through the home $25.

“Easy,” the friends laugh, as they head off toward the entryway. Those laughs fade shortly after entering the house as it dawns on the small group that each room is scarier than the last. It is in the last room of the first floor that one of the boys is pulled out a window by unseen hands, and on the second floor that a girl disappears into a dumbwaiter, her terrified screams trailing after her.

By the time the crew reaches the fourth floor they look around, shocked to realize that only two remain. With no memory of what happened to their other friends, they can only assume that they vanished somewhere between the third and fourth floors of the home. With petrified glances toward one another, the pair turn to flee back down the stairs and out of the house. However, the stairs they climbed moments earlier have vanished.

To this day, there is no record of what happened to the six young friends with more courage than intellect.

Oh, sure. Your friends may snicker, assuring themselves that it is nothing more than an urban legend, but still, you have set the mood. Now is the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the huge inflatable movie screen. By the time you are 10 minutes into the 1978 classic “Halloween” the group is jumping at every sound, nervously looking over their shoulders.

And that is how you know that you have planned the perfect Halloween party. All it took was a little creativity, delicious snacks, a creepy story, and the Elite Outdoor Movies inflatable movie screen.