Thread: Theme Ideas List

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Sorry if this is posted somewhere else on this site but i searched for a few hours and couldn't find it. There are lots of threads requesting help on a specific theme and a few regarding the advantages/disadvantages of having a theme. I was hoping we could start a thread for all of the people (like me ) who need ideas for themes.

I'll start...here are a few themes i've seen commonly (in person or here in the forums):

- Pirates
- Graveyards
- Vampires
- Mad Scientist
- Egyptian/Mummy
- Western
- Zombies/Undead
- Some themed to specific movies: hills have eyes, SAW, Harry Potter, BeetleJuice, Psycho, Shining, Friday the 13th, etc.

Anyone have more ideas for general themes? It would be great to have one thread to refer to for general ideas Thanks!

Hollywood/Classic Hollywood has been popular lately. Besides all of their wonderful "standards" (Dracula, Wolfman, Mummy, Frankenstein's Monster, etc), you also have the option of adding red carpet & stancions out front and making it a Hollywood Premier.

But wait, there's more. You can also try your hand at these:

My favorite Halloween themes are the ones that go outside the box a bit. Like, instead of plain "Classic Hollywood", something like "Massacre at the Oscars." But I like my Halloween themes gory! The more zombies the better.

-Karen

We just did Old Hollywood and LOVED it,
This year is Wicked Wonderland

other ideas:

Old west "ghost town"
Seven Deadly Sins
Heaven & Hell/Saints & Sinners
Super Heroes & Villains
Fractured Fairy Tales and/or Nursery Rhymes
Funeral Party
Murder Mystery/Clue
Vampire Twists - i.e. True Blood/Fangtasia, 1800's, etc
Bloody Bayou/Haunted Swamp
Peter Pan/Neverland
Mazes/Optical Illusions
Phobias

I'll ask the same thing I've asked the past 2 years - any good ideas for a TEEN party theme?? LOL

I have boys, now 14 and 11, and all them and their friends want to do is throw/kick/hit any sports ball they can find! I swear, one year, I banned balls from the party and they picked apart my skeleton out of my graveyard and used it to play football, soccer and baseball with!!

So, finally last year, I had a Haunted Sports themed party. I had actual contests - free throws, soccer goals and football passing - with 3 prizes for best in each game. That went pretty good and kept them from killing each other....mostly.

This year I have no idea what to do!! I want something different, but keeping in mind how these boys are, I do not know. Now my oldest is where he wants to invite girls, but at a pool party last week, these guys STILL acted like idiots around the pool, while the girls sat to the side in chairs watching the boys. My husband was like, what is wrong with these boys, they are completely ignoring the girls! LOL and some of these girls are adorable!!

Anyway, this is the 5th year party and I want to really make it special. Year 3 we did the haunted hayride and my oldest called it lame. I'd like to do it again, but REALLY get scary this time. This darn teens see so much on tv, nothing scares them anymore!! (I even had one boy pulled off the trailer by a zombie and dragged into the woods!! he was in on it of course!!) I'd love to pick a theme like you guys are talking, but these boys dont give two nickles about themes, decorations, food - I go all out for usually no reason! LOL But I love it!

A few more theme ideas:
Serial Killers or a specific cereal killer
Crime Scene/CSI
Mad Scientist
Famous Couples
Magic
Tudors - whether you love period costumes or the bloodiness of the regime, lopping off heads, and torrid romances
The Crusades
Cemetary
Merlin/King Arthur
Witches
Psychics/Fortune Tellers
Creepy Carnival
Mardi Gras
80's (or any decade with highly identifiable dress, music, etc.)
Or mix them together like that Bacardi commercial and have each room/area a different generation, people dress from different eras too

How about a "MASH" Party ? If you go to Barre Army Navy Store there are options from infants to adults including costumes, and Netting. The great thing is they can wear the clothing all year round!

Here are a few I have used or seen for my teens...

Twilight
Alice in Wonderland - Did it and it was Awesome!
Nightmare before Xmas
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Massacre
Horror Movie Tribute
CSI Neverland - Also a fun one....someone stole Tink's shadow.
Aladdin - Arabian Nights
High School Massacre - HSM meets I know what you did last summer.

Great Thread!!

While all of these ideas are very imaginative, i always feel that even if I have a theme, it should be kept in the realm of "classic" or creepy Halloween.

Just my opinion but Superheroes, Knights etc wouldn't feel like Halloween to me. New Orleans Voodoo, Vampire Masquerade, Zombie graveyard, Haunted house, Evil Carnival are more my cup of tea.

We book a hall every year and one time the hall's lighting and decor reminded us of the ballroom at the Overlook Hotel from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. We just rolled with that theme and it was easier than you might think. We dressed it up with a 20's theme but with cob webs everywhere. We made an old looking sign as you came in that said "The Overlook - where elegance shines - est. 1921" with a bloody axe sticking out of it. We had an undead bellhop and a ledger for guests to sign in. We also had a web covered typewriter and xeroxed tons of sheets that said "all work and no play make jack a dull boy" over and over in dozens of patterns and scattered them around.

I guess my point is that if you take just a few important details from a movie or genre, and accentuate them, it will really make it stand out.

Keep up the good work!

We're doing "Dia de los Muertos" (Mexican Day of the Dead) for our theme this year, as I am infatuated with its imagery and culture and have wanted to throw a day of the dead party for 2 years now. I am so excited to be doing this theme, you have no idea! My guests are almost as excited as me!

For next year I am toying with the idea of a 1950's rockabilly/psychobilly themed party - with old B movies playing, rockabilly/psychobilly music, 50's costumes (horrorfied of course) and call it something like "Horror at the Hop"..