As a special Halloween treat, today's post gathers writers' responses to the prompt "The Best Costume I Ever Wore..." Read on to discover what these costumes were, when they were worn, and why they are so memorable.
"Best Halloween Costume I Ever Wore was when I first moved to NYC at age 23. I was Jack Kerouac's first wife, Edie, also a Grosse Pointe native, while my roommate Darcy was his second wife, Joan. We didn't know we had to have costumes but we were both wearing black, with tights, and it seemed the easiest. The next night, we went, with my other roommate, as Reservoir Dogs. I think I was Mr. Orange."
--Megan Abbott, author of Bury Me Deep and the upcoming The End of Everything
"The best Halloween costume I ever wore crawled out of the swamp muck on a zydeco summer night, oozed up my leg, my hip, my waist, my chest past my jingle jangle jewelry and stabbed its way into my heart, breathing heavy and crooning "Marry me, darling!"...I remember it fondly, but regret to say we did not live happily ever after."
--Camille Alexa, author of the 2010 Endeavor Award finalist Push of the Sky
"In high school, I dressed up as the Phantom from Andrew Lloyd Weber's production of The Phantom of the Opera. Theatrical without being gay, I'm sure I must have confused many of the girls I was trying to woo at the time. And that white, plastic half-mask made my face sweat and break out. I was truly monstrous under that thing. I look back now and cringe. Actually, I think that was the last Halloween costume I ever wore. The danger of mortification is just too great a threat for me."
--Alden Bell, author of The Reapers Are the Angels
"My most memorable costume I had in middle school. It was a Batman mask. Looked just like the mask in the Tim Burton movie. Boy was it expensive, too. Saved up forever for the damn thing. I didn't have much money left for the rest of the costume. I used a Dracula cape, a black sweater, black tennis shoes, and black tights. the tights were sort of shear--so you could make out the shape of my pasty 7th-grade legs. Not pretty. Looking back on some of the photos, I cringe, but you know what? That year I was happy. I hadn't the slightest clue that the rest of the costume looked tacky (at best). Because why would I? I was Batman. I knew that, and so did the whole world."
--Benjamin Kane Ethridge, author of Black & Orange
"The best costume I ever wore...I love Halloween, and try to do something fun every year. But I'd have to say my best ever would be one of these three, all of which won prizes at parties: Hasidic rabbi, John Wayne Bobbitt (complete with bloody genitalia), or Jesus on the cross."
--J.G. Faherty, author of Carnival of Fear
"The best costume I ever wore was a baby bump with shining red eyes under a Rosemary's Baby-type short pink nightgown. I was three months pregnant at the time, and my husband (who was Travis Bickle) and I threw a big Halloween party. In a way, we were welcoming her to our world, and introducing her early to our friends. Now that she's 17 months old, it should not surprise me that she never scares, loves books, and her favorite game is trying to sneak up on mom. Surprise!"
--Sarah Langan, author of Audrey's Door
"The best Halloween costume I ever wore was one I made when I was twelve. It was the last year I was allowed to Trick or Treat; at 13 you were too "adult" to take part in such childishness in our little town. I was going out with a bang. Now, though I am a horror writer now, realize that I was a mondo-scaredy cat when I was younger. I was fascinated by the idea of frightening movies and books, but they haunted me dreadfully. And so, my Halloween costumes of choice were usually of the horror-less variety. Anyhoo, my costume was medieval lady on a horse. I made a cone hat out of rolled up wallpaper (anyone else remember getting wallpaper books and making cool crafts out of the paper?) with a cheap acetate scarf stapled to the point. I made a horse out of one large box (for the body) and two shoeboxes (for the neck and head). I gave my horse a luxurious yellow mane and tail. I cut a hole in the middle of the big box for me to stand in, and secured the horse to my shoulders with cloth straps that went under my long blue dress. My friend, Marsha, made an equally cool horse and dressed as a medieval dude. I LOVED my horse...when I cantered its head bobbed just right. And Marsha and I won third place in the town-wide costume contest held in the shopping center parking lot."
--Elizabeth Massie, co-author of DD Murphry, Secret Policeman
"When I was in first grade I wanted to be a cavewoman, and what was great about the costume was the ridiculous level of authenticity--my dad was a hunter, so I had a cavewoman outfit made out of an honest-to-goodness rough deer hide. I did, however, have to carry a plastic club, since I couldn't lift a real one."
--Lisa Morton, author of The Samhanach
"When I was about twelve, I got hold of the Famous Monsters Do-It-Yourself Monster Make-Up Handbook, with tips from Dick Smith. I can't remember if there was a full-on werewolf makeup in the book, but that's what I wanted to be. I cobbled together info from the mag with what I'd read about Jack Pierce (creator of Universal's iconic Wolf Man makeup). Then I managed to find a theatrical costume store on a trip to San Francisco with my parents, where I bought fake hair, plastic fangs, brown greasepaint, and spirit gum. I think there might have been some mortician's wax involved, too.
"Anyway, I went to work creating a werewolf makeup for Halloween. It wasn't easy--especially gluing all that hair to my face. If I remember correctly, I gave up on the mortician's wax almost immediately, figuring I'd just have to go with my own nose rather than a lyncathrope's snout. Finally, I topped off the whole rig with my older brother's letterman's jacket as a tip to the Teenage Werewolf. Everyone said how great I looked, but behind that face of gooey horror I realized PDQ that I'd made a mistake. Man. That fake hair itched. The greasepaint ran all over the place as I started to sweat. The spirit gum made my face feel like I'd coated it it with model airplane glue. Pretty quickly, I wished I'd just bought myself a rubber mask. At the end of the night, I was glad to get all that horrible stuff off my face, and my mom lathered me up with cold cream. It didn't do any good. I woke up the next morning with the worst red-face rash you could imagine, and my dreams of being the next Lon Chaney pretty much ended then and there. Suddenly I understood the secret to Chaney's tortured performance as Larry Talbot. forget the horrors of a lyncanthropic curse, the agonies of spirit gum were a thousand times worse."
--Norman Partridge, author of Dark Harvest
"When I was in kindergarten, my mother worked part time as a seamstress and she created a green, full-body suit to transform me into a "little green man" from Mars, complete with hood and bobbing antennas on my head. To this day, I look at those pictures and wonder at the little weirdo."
--Aaron Polson, author of The Bottom Feeders and Other Stories
***
This post has been such fun to put together, I just had to weigh in myself. Probably the best costume I ever wore was when I was in the eighth grade and my mom made me up as a two-headed man. She rigged (I remember ace bandages and safety pins) a foam wig-head atop my shoulder and then covered both that and my own face with identical scary-old-man masks. The costume was testimony to my mom's ingenuity, and to her dedication to making Halloween special for me. (My only regret was that, in those days before the prevalence of digital cameras, the costume was never photographed. Twenty-five years later, though, I can still see it clearly in my mind's eye.)
I want to thank all the contributors to this post, and to wish everyone out there in the Macabre Republic a happy Halloween. Here's hoping that this year's costume proves a memorable one for you!
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