Janelle Monáe is absolutely drenched in fake blood and standing in the middle of a cemetery.
Previously prom-perfect in a slinky dress, glossy wig and sparkling tiara for a Cinespia screening of the 1976 horror classic “Carrie,” Monáe’s dousing was of her own volition. A gaggle of her friends poured the (fake) blood all over her as she stepped in front of an event camera to introduce the film. As the sold-out crowd cheered, Monáe shuddered, slipping into her best Sissy Spacek as she lamented, “They’re all gonna laugh at me.”
As a self-proclaimed Hallo-Queen, Monáe is hosting several Halloween events in Los Angeles this year, including a horror classic for Cinespia for the third year in a row. She’s been on a mission to become as synonymous with Halloween as Mariah Carey is with Christmas.
“I want to really promote finding your real-life community,” Monáe says during a Zoom call ahead of the festive run. “Even if it’s niche, even if it’s 10 people, make time to gather. Halloween is supposed to be about joy and creativity, and I think that if we can get back to gathering and getting to know each other, we can think more about how the world is treating folks that we’re meeting and we’re coming in contact with.”
Other events include a USC panel celebrating makeup and special effects artists that took place Tuesday and, still to come, a ’70s themed game night at members club SoHo Warehouse on Oct. 24 and her second Wondaween Creature Carnival on Oct. 29. The Wondaween name comes from Monáe’s creative collective, the Wondaland Arts Society, which encompasses Wondaland Pictures, Records, Games and more. She preps for what she calls “Wondaween Season” throughout the year.
Back at Hollywood Forever, she told the audience she likes “Carrie” because it reminds viewers to stand up to bullies and because it celebrates the world’s weirdos.
That’s why she likes Halloween, too. As a kid in Kansas City, she’d plan her costume months in advance, prowling Spencer’s Gifts and Party City with her mom in search of something that spoke to her. Halloween was a chance to embrace her wild imagination, slipping into a character and world she could fully embody, even if it was only for a night.
These days her Halloween costumes are often elaborate and prosthetic-heavy. Made in collaboration with designer and tailor Alex Navarro and stylist Alexandra Mandelkorn and paid for by a mysterious benefactor Monáe has called “a fairy Halloween mother.” Monáe’s previous spooky looks have run the gamut from a Jim Carrey-inspired take on the Grinch to an incredibly detailed version of E.T.
“When I get into costume, I transform,” Monáe says. “Whether I’m a white rabbit or Diva Plavalaguna [from “The Fifth Element”], when I say I was these characters, I’m saying the entire day and night that you interacted with me, I was those characters. And as a world-builder who has been very fortunate to act and create music and build worlds around those, I think Wondaween Season allows all of the Janelles [inside me] to fully be realized.”
Monáe says Wondaween has also allowed her to come together with “like-minded people who believe in the power of transformation … even when the rest of the world may not necessarily see the vision.” Being an artist, she says, is about fully embracing your dreams and stepping into your truth on your own terms, whether you’re doing that through crafting beautifully elaborate makeup or costumes for mega-budget films or by turning yourself into a werewolf once a year for a night on the town.
“Halloween is a chance to allow ourselves to experience the love of seeing people get silly, seeing people tap into a different part of their imaginations and give themselves permission,” Monáe says.
For this year’s Wondaween, a free 21+ costumed fan event, where the theme is Creature Carnival, Monáe says she expects to see people clad in everything from insect garb to Frankenstein. She’s cagey about what she’ll be for the big shindig, though for our photo shoot she showed up as a green-faced, big-eyed, top-hat-wearing kind of swamp zombie. It took about four hours for her to get into the costume. The creature theme was, she says, inspired by a run-in she had this year with a creature that helped guide her physically and spiritually, though she’s elusive about what that creature was or how it showed up in her life. (“That’s for a different chat,” she demurs.)
It doesn’t really matter, either way. When it comes to Halloween costumes, creatures are a time-tested crowd favorite, as well as a fairly open-ended prompt that can be left up to interpretation. Wondaween last year at the Santa Monica Pier had a “Vampire Beach” theme. An online raffle for tickets to this year’s Wondaween at a “super secret location” in the L.A. area opens Thursday.
“There are so many different types of creatures, so I wanted to make sure everybody has an opportunity to do their spin on it,” she says. “The most important thing, though, is just meeting each other. That’s really the main vision for Wondaween: Showing up together in real life, hanging, dancing, making connections and bringing each other joy.”
As for Halloween night, she’s hosting a private party called Creature Camp; no raffled invites for that one. But she’ll have candy ready for trick-or-treaters in honor of sweet memories she has of spending time with her aunt on Halloween walking around the neighborhood or mall. Her favorite candy? Swedish fish, Kit Kats, Skittles, Twizzlers and Starburst, the pink ones.
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