Summer is officially dead and buried and I'm dancing (so sexily) on its grave. Autumn is ideal because I can spend my Saturdays watching 18 episodes of Diners, Drive Ins and Dives without that ever-present fear of my mum shouting up the stairs, "It's a beautiful day outside! Get out of bed!" Because it's not a beautiful day and I can stay in bed. I can get Uber rides at a 1.8-inflated fare now, completely guilt free, because the sky looks a bit ominous. I can un-ironically drink Pumpkin Spice Lattes now. I don't care. Autumn rules.
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But there is one blotch on the foggy, autumnal horizon: Halloween, Halloween, Hallo-fucking-ween.As a child, All Hallows' Eve had you traipsing around in the freezing cold, awkwardly cold calling your weird neighbours just to get a few old sweets they found at the back of their cupboard. And that was when Halloween was good. This year you'll inevitably find yourself at a shit Halloween party, stood on a sticky kitchen floor, in a ridiculous costume, beneath some glaring strip lights, trying not to eat a load of Haribo, while someone plays "The Time Warp" on repeat. Come through from your spectral realm, ghosts, and save us from this hell with a ritualistic slaughter.Anyway, here is your comprehensive guide to everyone you'll see at this year's Halloween party:
TV COSTUME GUY
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There will be at least two guys dressed as Heisenberg this year, and they'll bump into each other at 15 minute intervals throughout the night and shout: "I am not in danger, I am the danger!" at the tops of their voices, before conversation instantly dries up and they shuffle away to try to instigate games of beer pong. Do not say their name, no matter how much candy meth they offer you.At every party there's the mandatory few girls who didn't get the Mean Girls memo from 2004 and are subsequently dressed as a sexy cat, sexy devil or some kind of erotic fairy. Everyone at the party hates them, yes, but they're the only people who ever end up having any post-party sex, so swings and roundabouts.Becky, Becky and Lindzi-with-hearts-instead-of-dots-on-the-I's have kept up a WhatsApp group thread for the past three weeks to discuss their costumes in minute detail. You'll find them in the living room, mainly, bickering over the iPod and sloshing around to Little Mix's Black Magic. They speak exclusively in a lingua franca of compliments about each other's costumes, bodies and eyebrow makeup. One of them will pretend to bite the other's neck for an awkward amount of time while the fairy struggles to open the camera app on her phone. They keep going quiet for 20-minute periods while they consider which Instagram filter is the perfect combination of spooky and hot.
MEAN GIRLS
POST-PRETTY MEAN GIRLS
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ALICE IN WONDERLAND
ZEITGEIST GUYs
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Thing is, he isn't alone – and soon a loose tribe of them assemble in the garden. Donald Trump is fucking David Cameron's pig's head, Katie Hopkins is pinching a fag off Netflix and Chill. The aubergine emoji is trying to break into the shed. And you think, slowly at first – quietly, but then it gets louder – you think: maybe we don't need every single human who is alive right now. Maybe we could stand to lose a few people, to death.
THE NO COSTUME DICKHEAD
THE TOO MUCH COSTUME DICKHEAD
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But as the evening progresses you see her in the queue for the loo, staring enviously at the sexy cat, and you can't fathom how she'll manage to piss. At the end of the night she'll attempt to get into an Uber, alone, frustratedly yanking at her ginormous costume. Her energy depleted, her sugar rush over. A decade of silence later, you receive a hand calligraphed invite to her wedding. How did she find you? How does she know where you live?
HORROR FLIRTS
THE SUPERHERO
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But are you really any better? Black jumper and jeans with stick-on bones attached, is it? Skeleton, are you? Legitimately ploughing into Halloween candy, are you? Drunk on a neon green cocktail that's basically Corky's watered down with limeade, are we? Night bus home with someone dressed as a Hobbit, is it? Fake blood under your fingernails three days later? Nobody escapes Halloween alive. It is naff and it is tired and all the horror long ago gave way to insipid jokes about pig fucking.But it is an excuse to get drunk and dress like a dickhead, so at least there's that. At least there's that.@phoebewalsh17 / @SptSamMore stuff from VICE:I Tried to Relive My Youth and All I Got Was SadElisa Lam Drowned in a Water Tank Three Years Ago, but the Obsession with Her Death Lives On'The Rape Of Dina' by Gabriel Krauze