Last-Minute Group Costumes for Halloween

So you’ve booked one of our horror-themed escape games for Halloween, and you’ve just realized it provides the most excellent opportunity to do a group costume. Unfortunately, you no longer have time to papier-mâché, sew, and blacksmith Game of Thrones costumes.

Never fear! We’ve got you covered with some ideas for easy group costumes that you can throw together with very little preparation.

Photo: Eva Rinaldi (cc-by-sa-2.0)

Ghostbusters

With the new Kristen Wiig reboot coming out soon, this costume is both classic and timely. You’ll need grey or beige coveralls, black backpacks, and some reflective tape for the new cast’s striped outfits or some paper for the old ones’ arm badge.

Cast of Orange Is the New Black

Coveralls win again here. Either orange or beige will do you. Each style your hair like your favourite character—or don’t and just claim you’re an extra.

Photo: Kelly (cc-by-sa-2.0)

Minions

Got a large group? Great, you can all be minions! Blue denim overalls, a yellow shirt, and a yellow toque get you most of the way there. Then, for the eyes, put glasses on your head or get inventive with craft paper.

Cast of Arrested Development / Seinfeld / Friends / Cheers 

aka People Dressed Normally

The trick to these group costumes is that the strength is in the numbers. You don’t make a whole lot of sense on your own, so united you must stand. The most effort is figuring out whose personal wardrobe best matches each character.

Photo: Jeff Christiansen (cc-by-sa-2.0)

Peter Pan and the Lost Boys

One person needs to wear a pointed paper hat and all green clothes (yes, tights required), and the rest can just look scraggly and dirty, if you’re going for the Hook look. This is also an opportunity to have a Play-Doh food fight like you’ve always wanted. Or, if you want to go Disney, the Lost Boys should wear animal onesies.

Photo: Arbitraily0 (cc-by-sa-3.0)

Ghostface and Victims

One person needs to commit to wearing the ghost mask and black cloak of the classic Scream killers, but everyone else gets away with wearing regular clothes—plus a large amount of fake blood. Extra ideal if you still have all of your ’90s clothes and a clunky cordless phone to carry around.

If you haven’t yet booked your Halloween spot at Krakit’s Vancouver escape room, you can nab a slot here.

The Stock Characters of Horror—And Escape Games

We all know (and love) the stock characters that show up in almost every scary film. They’re what make the horror universe go round. 

When you’re plunged into Krakit’s horror-themed escape games, you might just find yourself taking on one of these personas—it’s hard not to, really. The question is: Which character will you become when put under pressure at our Vancouver escape room?

The Jumpy One

The first one to know something creepy is going on—yet no one ever believes them. Maybe you’ll figure out the first clue in our Saw Escape Room, but no one will listen. Luckily, you can just wait until the end to brag about your intuition, instead of being the first one picked off.

The Backstabber

The person in the group who does not have everyone’s best interest at heart. They’ll push you down so they can get away from the zombie hoard. Let’s hope no one on your escape game team gives into these tendencies …

The Know-It-All

The one who is so sure they’ve got it in the bag, only to find out they have no idea. Their demise in horror films is often met with cheers. Remember: It’s not always the classically “smart one” who gets escape game clues first. It takes all sorts to solve Krakit’s puzzles.

The Clever Fool

The pal who’s a solid good time, but who isn’t really much help when it comes to getting work done—like dodging a savage serial killer, for example. Or, at least that’s what everyone thinks. More often than not, The Clever Fool offers up an unexpected epiphany that saves the day—or cracks the code.

The Final One

They’re the one at the centre of the story, the person featured on the film poster. Yet without the efforts of everyone else in the group—yes, even The Know-It-All—they’d never make it out alive. Happily, everyone at Krakit Escape Game makes it out alive, so everyone gets to be The Final One.

Looking to star in your horror flick this Halloween? Book one of our horror-themed escape rooms online here—before it’s too late!

Why Is Halloween So Scary?

Canadian actress Mary Pickford lights a jack o’lantern

We love giving a scare at our horror-themed escape rooms, so it should come as no surprise that we’re big fans of Halloween. But why is it an international scarefest?

The origins of Halloween are somewhat foggy. Though often thought of as a North American holiday, its origins come from across the Atlantic, in Ireland and Scotland.

Most people agree that Halloween is a melding together of the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, which marks summer’s end, and of All Saints’ Day, a day celebrating Christian saints, which itself might have origins in the ancient Roman feast of the Lemuria—a rite to banish vengeful ghosts from your home.

Though they come from separate cultures, Samhain and All Saints’ Day have two important things in common: they both take place October 31/November 1, and they both mark a time of year when there’s a particularly strong connection between the dead and the living. Coincidence? Probably not. Let’s face it: the dead hang about at the end of October, which is something we just need to deal with.

When you’ve got some potentially vengeful spirits hanging about, what do you do? You disguise yourself so they don’t recognize you, of course.

Another practice brought to North America by Celtic Irish immigrants is mummering, or guising. Mummering, as any good Newfoundlander knows, is dressing up in a disguise—any old burlap sack used as a mask will do—then knocking on your neighbours’ doors and asking for food and booze. Though Newfoundlanders mummer at Christmastime, kids in Kingston, Ontario, began mummering on Halloween at least as early as 1911.

Now, we’ve got ourselves some ancient rituals, combined with lengthening autumn nights, a thin veil between the human and spirit worlds, and disguised people knocking on your door asking for treats and threatening tricks. Creepy enough yet?

We’d say so. But that scariness is far from a bad thing. Being afraid makes us feel more present and alive, and rituals that force us to confront ghosts and demons (whether they’re just costumed children or not) is a good way to do just that.

Halloween, the day when the human and spirit worlds are closest, just happens to be the most appropriate day to scare the bejeezus out of ourselves.

Book yourself a good Halloween fright at one of Krakit’s three horror-themed escape games here.

The Three Most Ingenious Traps from the Saw Franchise

There’s a new room at our Vancouver escape game, which takes all the panic and urgency of the Saw films and gives you 45 minutes to escape a life-or-death trap. Think you could think straight under such intense conditions and make it out alive?

In celebration of Krakit’s new Saw Room, we’ve crowned some of the series’ best traps below. (Spoilers ahead!)

Best motivation for teamwork: The Sewer in Saw V

The five people trapped in a sewer in Saw V must pass not one, but four, tests. Each of the tests requires teamwork to escape alive—but unfortunately this group isn’t the best at putting their heads together (har har har). They have to dodge group decapitation, search through glass-filled jars for keys, drain their own blood, and climb into a coffin. No big deal, right? They all could’ve survived if they just worked together but, uh, they don’t.

Most likely to happen in the real world: The Bathroom Trap in Saw I

The scenario that originally captivated audiences is still one of Saw’s most powerful: Adam Stanheight and Dr. Lawrence Gordon are faced with cutting off a foot to escape death. This trap is extra simple compared to the traps later on, yet it’s still one of the most shudder-worthy—because it’s something we can viscerally imagine doing ourselves. Being forced to cut off one of your limbs to survive could actually happen—as Aron Lee Ralston, the inspiration behind the film 127 Hours, knows very well.

Worst game of “Would You Rather”: The Angel Trap aka The Rib Spreader from Saw III

Allison Kerry, a detective who has had the bad luck to have been working on the Jigsaw case, awakes in in a metal contraption hanging from the ceiling. There’s a jar of acid next to her, with a key inside. Billy the Puppet tells her she either has to unlock the contraption by reaching into the jar of acid, with her bare hand, before the key dissolves, or the metal straightjacket will pull off all her ribs. Unlucky for her, this game of “Would You Rather” makes her sample both options.