Hosting Halloween: A Nostalgic Party Guide for Grown-Ups

Hosting Halloween Australia style comes with a built-in problem: you are too old to knock on doors for fun-size chocolate, and not quite old enough to have kids to blame for pulling the decorations out of the cupboard. So consider this your permission slip. Halloween lands on a Saturday this year (31st Oct 26), which makes it the best excuse of the season to get your friends in one room and relive the spooky songs, sweets and costumes you grew up with.

The trick is keeping it cool rather than cringe. Think less plastic skeleton from the party aisle, more moody dinner party with a very good playlist. Here is how to build the night, piece by piece.

Decor that looks intentional

The fastest way to make a Halloween party feel grown-up is to drop the rainbow of orange, purple and green and commit to a tight palette: black, deep orange and candlelight. Turn the overheads off, put string lights and candles at every height, and let the shadows do the work. A few carved pumpkins by the door set the tone before anyone has said hello, and they cost almost nothing to make yourself. Put a real candle or tealight inside each one and the whole entrance glows.

Cobwebs are the one cliche worth keeping, as long as you use them sparingly. One dramatic web across a window or doorway looks like a set piece. Webbing draped over every surface looks like a clearance bin. Add a few thrifted candlesticks, a dusty old book or two and a stack of old cassettes left casually on the shelf, and the room tells the nostalgia story without a single banner.

Then give the food one proper home. A single laid-out table, with a dark cloth, a candelabra in the middle and platters at different heights, looks far more generous than snacks scattered around the house, and it gives guests a reason to gather and chat.

The soundtrack for the night

The thing everyone actually remembers from the Halloween parties of their youth is the music, so build the night around a playlist your group can sing along to. Aim for a mix of cosy-spooky and properly moody so nobody feels the need to leave the room.

• The novelty classics: Bobby "Boris" Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers with "Monster Mash" (1962, a US number one) is the ice-breaker nobody can resist. Pair it with Michael Jackson's "Thriller" (from the 1982 album of the same name) for the first group dance of the night.
• The 80s singalongs: Ray Parker Jr. with "Ghostbusters" (1984) and Rockwell with "Somebody's Watching Me" (released at the end of 1983, with an uncredited Michael Jackson on backing vocals) are guaranteed crowd-pleasers.
• Goth and new wave: Bauhaus with "Bela Lugosi's Dead" (1979), Siouxsie and the Banshees with "Spellbound" (1981) and The Cure with "Lullaby" (1989) bring the moody candlelit mood for later in the night.
• Spooky pop and ska: The Specials with "Ghost Town" (1981, a UK number one) is a great slow-burn track once dinner is done.
• The cartoon-spooky closer: "This Is Halloween" from The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993, written by Danny Elfman) is an easy singalong to finish the set on a high.

To build the playlist, start with ten songs everyone will recognise, then add a handful of deeper cuts for the music nerds in the group. Aim for roughly three hours so you never have to touch it again, and turn off shuffle if you want the pacing to work.

Pacing is everything. Start light and sing-along while people arrive and eat, with the novelty hits and 80s favourites. Move into the goth and new wave tracks once the candles are doing their thing and the conversation has found its rhythm. Save the big singalong for the final stretch, when people have had a drink and stopped worrying about how they sound. Treat the volume like the lighting: loud enough to feel like a party, quiet enough to hear your friends laugh.

Halloween canapes for grown-ups

The best Halloween food looks like it took hours and took about twenty minutes. Skip anything fiddly and pick four easy ideas that you can build ahead, serve on the one table and eat standing up with a drink in hand.

• A spooky grazing board: this is the centrepiece, and it is just a normal cheese board dressed for the occasion. Use a dark board, then pile on cheeses, crackers, black grapes, blackberries, figs, black olives and cured meats, and tuck a few dark chocolate squares into the gaps. Add one or two plastic spiders crawling over the edge and it reads as a set piece.

• Ghost pizza: the five-minute upgrade for any pizza, whether it is homemade or from the freezer. Cut ghost shapes out of sliced mozzarella or white cheese, lay them over the top for the last few minutes in the oven, and add two small olive or caper eyes. Cut it into small squares so it works as a canape.

• A skull snack board: the sweet counterpart to the cheese board. Arrange white and pale snacks like popcorn, white chocolate pretzels, marshmallows and meringues into the outline of a skull on a platter, then use two dark chocolates or chocolate-coated nuts for the eyes. It is mostly arranging, not cooking.

• Rattlesnake bites: cocktail frankfurts wrapped in a spiral of thin puff pastry strips, baked until golden and served with a mustard or tomato dipping sauce. A little dab of mustard makes the eyes. They are the easiest hot item on the table and they disappear quickly.

Nostalgic sweets and snacks

Australia never really embraced the American Halloween candy aisle, and that is a gift, because our own lolly bag is far better nostalgia. Fill big bowls with the classics from the corner shop of your childhood: Redskins, Fantales, Jaffas, Cherry Ripes, Wizz Fizz and a pile of snakes. Mix in a few treats that suit the theme, like a bowl of popcorn and a tray of dark chocolate bark for the grown-ups.

Candy corn, pictured above, is the American Halloween staple that most of us have only seen on screen. It makes a fun talking point if you can get hold of some, but treat it as a novelty and keep the Aussie lollies as the main event.

Easy themed drinks

Keep it to two drinks and one big-batch option so you are not stuck behind the bench all night.

• The graveyard float: dark cola over a scoop of vanilla ice cream in a short glass. Add a splash of dark rum for the adults.
• Witch's brew punch: lemonade, lime juice and a little green cordial in a big bowl or jug, with a gin option on the side. Float some frozen grapes instead of ice so it does not water down.
• Midnight spritz: blackberry or blackcurrant syrup, lemon juice and sparkling water over ice. It looks dramatic, it works with or without alcohol, and it takes thirty seconds to make.

Costumes for the 20 and 30-somethings

The best grown-up costumes borrow from the playlist, and most can be built from your wardrobe plus one clever piece. A red jacket and some artful zombie make-up covers the Thriller era. Black lace, heavy eyeliner and a lot of backcombing is all the goth and new wave look needs. A beige jumpsuit makes one very committed person a Ghostbuster, and dark sunglasses with a permanently suspicious look turns you into a walking "Somebody's Watching Me". Nobody needs to spend a fortune, and the group photos will be worth it.

If you want to keep dress-up optional, ask guests to wear one piece only: a hat, a pair of fangs, a cape. Everyone joins in, nobody feels silly.

A simple run of show

Doors at 6pm with the lollies, the first drink and the novelty hits on low. Canapes and the big platter out at 7pm, with the 80s singalongs in full swing. Move into the goth and new wave set at 8pm, then bring up the volume and the group dance from 10pm for whoever is still standing. Halloween on a Saturday means nobody has to be up early, which is exactly the sort of grown-up logic we can get behind.