Halloween 2014

Your Halloween 2014 Agenda

Halloween isn’t something you can opt out of: it’s coming for you, even if you stay at home…

Which is why your best option is to go out.

And our top choices for where you should go are – drumroll, please – the following:

The Rocky Horror Picture Show Halloween Rooftop Party

In a combined celebration of the Rocky Horror Picture Shows 40th anniversary and All Hallows Eve, West End Film Club are throwing two highly antici-p-p-pated RHPS screenings at Century Club, followed by a party on the rooftop to round out Halloween.

So much better than staying in with your old videotape version.

Which time has probably warped anyway.

Details: Friday 31st October, 8:00pm & 10:45pm | Century Club, Shaftesbury Ave, W1D 6LQ | £11

Backyard Cinema: Zombie Apocalypse

Behold a paragraph devoid of charm, wit or humour which makes up for its deficiencies by being 100% factually correct:

Starting on Halloween and running for eight consecutive nights thereafter, Backyard Cinema Club are throwing a ghoulish collection of interactive horror movie marathons; where after navigating zombie infested quarantine stations you can perch up in the ‘survival zone’ for street food offerings, creepy cocktails and an ‘End of the World’ after party.

Details: 31st Oct – 7th Nov | A secret East London location | £30

Citydash: Halloween Special

A real-world game of speed, stealth and strategy in which you have 80 minutes to reach as many checkpoints as possible.

Only, the checkpoints are guarded by ‘zombies’, ‘ghouls’, ‘evil clowns’ and ‘banshees’, and so require you to plot, sneak, crack clues and work with sabotage other teams in what is essentially a giant Shoreditch-wide game of Capture The Flag.

Halloween Style.

Details: Friday 31st October, 7pm | Shoreditch | £21

Indeedy Bingo Halloween Spooktacular

Running a bingo night is more than just a job.

It’s a calling.

Fortunately, Indeedy Inc. know it’s theirs, and so are back with a spooktacular night of Macabre musical bingo, where table dancing, inflatable bananas, creepy cocktails, prizes and 2am moonlight dancing are a match ‘made in heaven’ – ‘67’.

Details: Friday 31st October, 9pm – 2am | Shoreditch Town Hall, EC1 | Early bird £15, £20 on the door

Pop Up Screens Fright Fest

Never take a blind date to a silent film.

Considering that you have both obviously never met, and considering it’s a date, you’d be much better off cuddling up to one of Pop-Up Screens’ Halloween Fright Fest interactive movie nights, complete with hot chocolate, pop corn and a selection of sweet treats.

Details: Thursday 30th Oct – Sun 2nd Nov | 20th Century Theatre, Notting Hill, W11 2QA | £20

Bounce Ping Pong | Zombie Apocalypse Bunker

Jesus has been rocking ‘the zombie’ for 2014 years.

Such a trendsetter.

So ‘zombie-trendy’ in fact, that he may even show his face at Bounce Holborn, who as it happens are throwing an underground zombie apocalypse UV bunker party AND offering free ping pong from 11pm, UV face painters, floor cruising Games Gurus, and DJ Pete Pong’s Classic Halloween anthems until 3am.

Details: Friday 31st October, 8pm-3am | Bounce, 121 Holborn, EC1N 2TD | Free

The Booking Office’s Gothic Gathering

“I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees” – Emiliano Zapata

Pfft.

“I’d rather die at an all out Day of The Dead celebration on a dance floor with DJ Philly and cocktails like ‘The Walking Dead’ in a Victorian Gothic dining hall” – Albert Einstein

Listen to Al, he’s a smart guy.

Details: Friday 31st October, 8pm | St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, NW1 2AR | Free

A Grimm Halloween Party

Remember all those Brothers Grimm folktales of your childhood?

Well it’s finally time to face your fears and confront them…

…in an enchanted ballroom full of overgrown creepers, macabre live performances, Bourne & Hollingsworth cocktails, bands, DJ’s, rooms themed around said folktales and a voodoo lair hosted by A Curious Invitation.

Stay strong.

Details: Sat 1st November, 8pm – 2am | The Grand Hall, Euston Rd, WC1H 9JE | £25

The Dark Circus Party

We have an Eskimo fetish, but sadly most people aren’t that Inuit.

Speaking of fetiches, Bourne & Hollingsworth have one for Halloween, and so have fittingly teamed up with Torture Garden (Europe’s largest fetish club) for one night of spine chilling sensory stimulation, cocktails and Circus Burlesque.

Things could get weird.

You’ve been warned.

Details: Saturday 25th October, 9pm – 3am | Bloomsbury Ballroom, WC1B 4DA | £25

The House of Mask Halloween Special 

Behold: a party that absolutely no one knows anything completely factual about.

Except that it’s in a secret East London location marked only by a neon skull, will probably serve Cubanisto rum-flavoured beer, and likely incorporates interactive theatre, street food, live art and an illustrious DJ headline act.

Details: Friday 31st October, 9:30pm | A secret East London location | Free but bookings essential

The Mansion London: Halloween Ball

Event impresarios The Mansion London recently decided that two dance floors, a psychic reading station, African bongos, a jazz saxophonist, face painters and a selection of caged Vampires might make for a good Halloween Ball.

It was a good decision.

Details: Saturday 1st November, 9pm – 3am | A secret location | £16.50

The Haunted Hollywood Ball

And, SLEEP.

Imagine partying with your favourite hollywood horror characters and dead celebrities in a former art deco cinema with multiple Hollywood-Halloween themed rooms.

Imagine getting your mug shot taken in an LAPD line-up photo and relaxing on the casting couch next to Marilyn Monroe and the Bride of Frankenstein.

Imagine listening to chap hop MC Professor Elemental and New Orleans jazz band The Volcanoes while aerial acrobats dive and twist overhead until the late hours of the morning.

And you’re back in 3, 2, 1….

Details: Saturday 25th October, 9pm-4am | Scala, King’s Cross | Early bird £19.99, standard £29.99

Hot Tub Halloween

Yin and Yang.

Bare feet and warm sand.

Movies and hot tubs.

Some things were just made for each other. Like you, your friends, and watching classic halloween inspired movies like Lost Boys, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Shaun of the Dead and Beetle Juice in steaming hot-tubs at the former Shoreditch Underground station.

Details: 27th Oct – 2nd Nov | The Former Shoreditch Underground Station, Pedley Street, E1 6SE | £35 per person, private hot tubs are available – prices vary.

The Halloween Raveyard

In the late nineteenth century, London’s graveyards were overcrowded and bodies were beginning to pile up. The Vaults – 30,000 square feet of abandoned, underground Victorian brick office space –were used as a grizzly morgue facility for London’s rotting corpses.

Perfect place for a giant party, then.

So for three nights, The Halloween Raveyard at The Vaults will house guided dissection labs, cabaret and cocktails, live music, coffin testing and a zombie disco dance hall.

Details: Thursday 30th Oct and Saturday 1st Nov, 8pm-2am | The Vaults, SE1 7NN | £10 pre-sale, £15 on the door

Cakeageddon

We’ve done a poem.

Miss Cakehead’s decided to bake for you,

The Hoxton Hotel is this years ven-ue. 

She’ll be making cakes that are oh so obscene,

Especially for you, this halloween.

So go along, and see the… Ok, poems are hard.

Details: 30th Oct – 1st Nov | The Den at The Hoxton, Shoreditch

Winterwell Halloween

The end is nigh.

Literally. Because London’s underground festival deities Winterwell are throwing their last ever event. To see out the eight-year reign, they’ve decided to invite back all the very best artists (including the undisclosed headliner), and encourage the superlative dress up themes of years gone by, except ‘dead’.

Details: Saturday 1st November, 9pm – 4am | Loft Studios, Kensal Rise, NW10 6QU | £25

Satan’s Rout – The Halloween Ball

Rout: a large evening party or reception.

Satans Rout: a large evening party or reception complete with musical, trapeze and cabaret performers; a sketching salon by Art Macabre; a coffin testing station complete with professional mourners and most importantly, a drinking hole paying homage to Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Titty Bar’ in ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’.

Details: Friday 31st October, 9pm – 4am | Coronet Theatre, New Kent Road, SE1 6TJ | £25

BGWMC’s Haunted House Party

The Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club haven’t got one good thing planned for their Haunted House party this Halloween.

They have three:

1)  A secret Sinema playing banned nasty video trailers.

2) Funfair games like apple bobbing, ring-a-limb and brain eating contests. And,

3) Disco DJs and guilty pleasure ‘90s tunes over three seperate dancefloors. Which means someone’s probably playing Thriller, and you can do the Monster Mash.

Details: Friday 31st October, 8pm – 2am | BGWMC, Pollard Row, E2 6NB | £8 – £15

Who Ya Gonna Call?

Two words:

Ghostbusters. Tribute.

Forty two words:

Katy, Tom and Jon from Superfan Theater bring ‘Who Ya Gonna Call?’, their Edinburgh Fringe Festival sell-out ‘Ghostbusters’ tribute, to The Albany this Halloween. Following the hour-long performance adaptation, there will be a screening of the original film itself, popcorn and cocktails.

Details: Friday 31st October, 7:30pm | The Albany, Douglas Way, SE8 4AG | £12

(Image: Last ‘Gothic Gathering’ at The Booking Office)

Enjoy interesting pop up experiences? Check out The Nudge’s guide to the best London pop-ups.