Spooky season has arrived, and with it enough demented parties and darling pumpkins to fill a haunted mansion. Here’s a look at events to check out in the New York area through Halloween, no matter what your taste for the macabre.
The Streets Come Alive
Manhattan’s 51st annual Village Halloween Parade takes place on Halloween night starting at 7 p.m., and this year the grand marshal is the Tony Award-winning actor Andre DeShields. (Spectrum News NY1 will broadcast the parade at 8 p.m.) The route starts at Canal Street and Sixth Avenue and heads north on Sixth Avenue to 15th Street.
The parade will have a special “cat lady” section for participants who want to show off their most ferocious feline looks. The parade’s after party, including a costume contest with a $5,000 prize, will be held at Webster Hell — sorry, Hall.
Can’t wait for Halloween? The annual family-friendly Bronx Halloween Parade is on Oct. 26 at noon.
Party, People
Peacocks with dance moves are in for a busy month. Options include a Gay Zombie Prom — “glam gore” encouraged — at House of Yes in Bushwick (Oct. 24); a Reggaeton Halloween at the Brooklyn Monarch in Williamsburg (Oct. 25); and Daft Disko Halloween, a night of French dance music at Drom in the East Village (Oct. 26).
Jump scare lovers won’t have room to breathe either. Rockefeller Center is home to Jimmy Fallon’s Tonightmares (through Oct. 31), a new 10-room immersive maze featuring werewolves and other characters based on “The Tonight Show” host’s creepy dreams. The Manhattan club Circo is home to Haunted Hollywood (through Nov. 1), where drag queens will bring characters from “Carrie” and other classic scary movies to life in a variety show. Through Halloween, Schmitt’s Farm Haunt in Melville, N.Y., on Long Island, offers a haunted corn trail and a special clown takeover night.
For the Kiddos
New this year at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx is an outdoor trail featuring over 8,300 square feet of light installations based on the beloved 1993 children’s film “Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas” (Through Nov. 30).
The nonprofit group Mano a Mano: Mexican Culture Without Borders sponsors events through Nov. 2 to mark Day of the Dead with music and art. On Oct. 19, the Hispanic Society Museum & Library in Manhattan will be the place for music and a pop-up Mexican crafts shop.
Kids ages 8 and older can join a Village Ghost Tour from Historic Richmond Town, also known as the Staten Island Historical Society, through Oct. 26. The one-hour walking tours include visits to local historic sites guided by storytellers who interpret the lives, and deaths, of Staten Islanders.
The Queens County Farm Museum, a 47-acre historic site and New York City landmark in Floral Park, N.Y., is hosting a family-friendly Halloween on the Farm afternoon on Oct. 27. A $20 ticket includes trick-or-treating, a three-acre cornfield maze, hayrides and a spooky barn.
Screams on the Screen
The most niche-tastic film series of the month is at Anthology Film Archives: Kill Yr Landlords (Oct. 2-14) is a ripped-from-the-headlines lineup of films that “celebrate the residents who don’t just rent strike, but strike back,” as the program puts it. A highlight is “Death Promise,” Robert Warmflash’s 1977 grindhouse thriller about tenants who use martial arts to pick off New York City’s greediest property owners.
The Metrograph Theater has another oddball series: Don’t Go in the Sewers (Oct. 11-19), about the terrors that lurk beneath manhole covers. Films include “Alligator” (1980), a cautionary tale about flushing baby alligators down toilets, and “The Host” (2006), a nutty creature feature from South Korea.
On Oct. 25, the Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra will accompany “The Phantom of the Opera” — the silent and still-very-creepy 1925 version, starring Lon Chaney Sr. — live at St. Ann and the Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn Heights. There are two performances, one at 8 p.m. and, for adventurous night owls, one at 11 p.m. Costumes are encouraged.
“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” celebrates its 49th anniversary with a Halloween night screening at the King’s Theater in Brooklyn, featuring Barry Bostwick, who played the wide-eyed Brad Majors in the original film. There will be a costume contest and, of course, a shadow cast doing the Time Warp.
The Stage Is Set
A geologist named Roach is the leading character in Riley Elton McCarthy’s new queer horror play “i’m going to eat you alive” at Culture Lab LIC in Queens (Oct. 3-27). According to the script, the play features blood rituals and “not being very nice to some well maintained national landmarks.”
The group behind the show “Drunk Shakespeare” puts a Halloween twist on Bram Stoker’s classic bloodsucking novel in “Drunk Dracula,” (Oct. 9-Nov. 3), a 90-minute comedy about “Transylvania’s thirstiest bachelor,” as the news release explains, at the Ruby Theater in Manhattan. The $500 Royal Experience for Two comes with a bottle of champagne, two cocktails and V.I.P. seating on a hand-carved throne.
Drag meets Donizetti in Heartbeat Opera’s “Slaylem: The Witch Trials” (Oct. 10-12), at Judson Memorial Church in the East Village. Created by Nico Krell, Garrett Bell and Jacob Ashworth, the piece uses music by several composers to tell a bawdy story about what happens when “bible thumpers and booty bumpers rendezvous in secret gothic gaiety,” according to a news release. Each show will have a selection of pay-what-you-wish tickets. Drag or Puritan-inspired attire is encouraged.
Get Out (or Stay In)
For a day trip, about an hour’s drive out of Manhattan sits the quaint Hudson Valley town of Sleepy Hollow, where the character Ichabod Crane got spooked by the Headless Horseman. The Sleepy Hollow Cemetery offers day and evening walking tours, including a “Murder and Mayhem” tour by lantern. Time your visit to the Sleepy Hollow International Film Festival (Oct. 10-13), and on Oct. 12, you can catch the lurid 1980 thriller “Maniac” followed by a Q. and A. with the director, William Lustig.
If braving the streets sounds like a nightmare, stay home and stuff your face while watching Amazon Prime Video’s “Killer Cakes,” a new baking competition premiering Oct. 8 in which contestants and special-effects artists team up to make twisted treats.
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