Halloween Party Ideas for Teens

Hosting a Halloween party is a great way to celebrate the spooky season and create a memorable experience for party guests of all ages. Incorporating fun Halloween games into the festivities is a must. Whether you're hosting a party for little kids, teens, or adults, there are plenty of Halloween activities and great teen Halloween party ideas to keep everyone entertained.

Halloween can be a difficult holiday for today's older kids. They might be too old for trick or treating, but too young to go out on their own. One way to ensure a safe and fun celebration is to host a Halloween party, with the help of parents, neighbors, and teens.

Host A Halloween Party Theme That They Love

This is probably one of the most daunting tasks for a parent to consider. However, hosting a well-chaperoned and well-planned Halloween costume party can ensure that teens are safe. Ask neighbors to participate, especially if they have kids of the same age. Most importantly, involve teens in planning and decorating process.

When planning a party for teens, set limits. Decide how many guests are allowed (and, depending on the circumstances, who is allowed.) Along with a costume contest, other activities may include a Scavenger Hunt, and the Frankenstein Game. A late night horror movie is sure to scare and thrill!

While most kids look forward to Halloween, it can be especially exciting for teens who are planning to attend or throw their first Halloween party. Teens aren't interested in the apple-bobbing and painting pumpkins of children's parties. They want cool parties that will impress their friends and give them a good scare. If you are helping your teen plan a Halloween party, the right props, a few Halloween party games, food and activities will make it epic for your teen and his friends.

Creepy Food

Serve edible snacks that look totally gross. The food needs to look super creepy and realistic to impress teens. Serve them crunchy cockroaches, inserting one walnut each, slathered with cream cheese, into pitted dates. Place the stuffed dates on a plate with several fake roaches to enhance the look. To make hot dog tape worms, slice hot dogs into long, thin strips and put in a pot of boiling water until they start to curl. Remove from the water and drench them in ketchup to make them look like bloody worms. You can also purchase a brain mold and mix pineapple chunks and gelatin in it to create a brain snack.

IMAGE CREDIT: UNSPLASH

Surprise Elements

Set up your house to look like a haunted house with tombstones in the front yard, cobwebs everywhere and vintage-looking candelabras. Use electric candles to be on the safe side. Plan to have spooky surprises throughout the party space that will pop out and freak out the teens unexpectedly. Pick up those motion detecting spooky figurines from Halloween stores that make a scary noise or movement when someone walks by. Set up black lighting or strobe lighting in the hallways and have a motion detector monster figure in the bathroom that screams when someone gets near the toilet.

Halloween Games And Other Great Ideas

For a creepy food game, put food items in different bowls and give them each a creepy name, such as eyeballs for peeled large grapes. A bowl of gelatin could be coagulated blood, cooked fettuccine noodles could be intestines, and a balloon filled with warm pudding could be a heart. Turn out the lights and let each person stick their hand in the bowls. The teens must try to figure out what the real item in each bowl is. Another idea is to put certain food items in a blender, such as a fast-food burger, combine with water, and have the teens try to see if they can figure out what they are tasting. You can do pureed chicken fingers, french fries, hot dogs and any food item you would never think to put in a blender. You can also give each mixture names that will gross the teens out.

Scavenger Hunt Hide and Seek

For a fun and interactive game, consider hosting a Halloween scavenger hunt. Create a list of Halloween-themed items or clues that participants need to find around the party venue or even in the neighborhood. Provide little kids with mini pumpkins as they search for the items, and for added excitement, hide gummy worms or other treats along the way.

If possible, involve the neighbors in a Scavenger Hunt game. If not, keep the game limited to one house. Divide teens into groups or pairs. Give each team a list of items to find. These items may include Halloween-themed items such as broomsticks, pumpkins, acorns and candy. The first team to find the item can win a prize, such as a jack o' lantern full of their favorite candy.

Make sure the list is long enough to hold their interest. Before the party, hide the items both indoors and outdoors (weather permitting). The Scavenger Hunt list should also include clues and puzzles for each team to solve before moving onto the next step.

Play the Frankenstein Game

The Frankenstein Game is also known as the "Mad Scientist" game that has blindfolded participants touch the body parts used to make Frankenstein. It's necessary to prepare with food that won't be eaten or used again. Warning: This game has a high "ick" factor!

Set out separate containers with food items such as grapes, cooked pasta, tomato sauce dried fruit, and corn silk. Blindfold the teen, and instruct them to touch each dish. See if they can guess which Frankenstein body part is in each dish. The grapes, for example, can be Frankenstein's eyeballs. A bowl of warm, cooked pasta can be his brains or intestines. Tomato sauce can be blood. Be sure that there is enough soap and water for after the game!

Murder Mystery Game

Murder mystery games are a popular choice for Halloween parties. Assign guests specific characters and roles to play as they work together to solve a spooky mystery. Encourage everyone to dress up in their best Halloween costumes to add an extra level of fun to the game.

Fear Factor

Another great fun game that brings out the Halloween spirit is "Fear Factor." Prepare a series of challenges or tasks that guests must complete to earn points. These challenges can range from eating gross or unusual food items (using safe and edible ingredients) to blindfolded activities or even touching slimy objects. The team or individual who accumulates the most points wins the fun Halloween party game.

Halloween Charades

Halloween charades is a classic game that can be adapted to fit the Halloween bash theme. Create a list of Halloween-related words, phrases, or movie titles and have players act them out without using any words. This game is always a hit and can be enjoyed by guests of all ages.

Pumpkin Decorating Contest

To add a twist to the traditional pumpkin carving, have a pumpkin decorating contest. Provide guests with mini pumpkins, paint, and other decorative materials. Let their creativity shine and their confidence grow as they transform the pumpkins into unique and spooky designs. Award prizes for the best Halloween-themed creations.

image credit: unsplash

Gross Food Game

For those who enjoy a bit of a scare, consider setting up a "gross food" game. Prepare a selection of food items that have a creepy appearance or unusual texture. Blindfolded participants must guess what they are eating. This game is sure to create some hilarious reactions and make for memorable moments.

The Perfect Halloween Costume Ideas For The Next Halloween Party

No teen Halloween party would be complete without a costume contest of spooky characters. Depending on the amount of teens that will be attending the party, you could have different categories that everyone can vote for, such as best animal costume, best pop culture costume, scariest costume, most original costume and best costume overall. Encourage the teens to campaign for themselves throughout the night by staying in character as much as possible. 

Horror And Scary Movies Marathon For Large Groups

Many teens need nothing more than a trip to the video store to put together the best Halloween party their friends will love. While any assortment of horror movies will keep teens entertained, films that fit a theme work best when developing a cohesive party theme. Chose a movie with plenty of sequels, such as the "Scream" or "Saw" film franchises, or introduce teens to an older era of films, such as the horror B-movies from the 1950s or Wes Craven films of the 1980s. Encourage kids to come in a costume inspired by the movie theme to add an extra level of excitement to the party.

Harmless Prank Party With A Halloween Twist

For decades, the phrase "trick-or-treat" was more literal than it is today, with kids playing jokes on the houses that didn't hand out candy. For teens who regularly pull practical jokes on one another, a prank party that honors the age-old tradition is in order. Encourage all invited guests to research some of the best old pranks from decades gone by, or to invent a few of their own. Establish a few guidelines for the pranksters to follow, such as banning all jokes that cause harm or damage property. Check with homeowners ahead of time if the teens feel the need to pull a few outdoor pranks, such as toilet-papering someone's house -- and remind the teens that they are responsible for any cleanup needed the next day.

Haunted Houses Road Trip Party For A Great Time

It's no secret that many teens enjoy being terrified on Halloween and a road trip party to a handful of haunted houses will definitely get the job done. However, tickets for professionally run haunted houses can get expensive and are likely to be extremely busy on Halloween night. Rather than waste a lot of needless time and money, encourage teens to create their own haunted house road trip in the style of a progressive dinner party. Ask each teen guest to create a micro-haunted house experience in their own living room. Each guest should also fix a small, spooky snack. On Halloween night, send the kids from house to house, staging the final experience at the host's house. Once their road trip is over, let the teens decide whose haunted house was best over pizza and soda.

IMAGE CREDIT: UNSPLASH

Halloween Candy-Making Party

Part of what makes Halloween a favorite with kids is all the candy, but most teens find the trick-or-treating fun activity too childish. Rather than simply serving sweets as a party treat, throw a candy-making party for teens who like to experiment in the kitchen. Invest in a candy thermometer, creepy candy molds an assortment of ingredients to increase the number of candy types the teens can try their hand at creating. Also have plenty of candy recipes on hand for the teens to choose from, such as saltwater taffy, old-fashioned hard candy and chocolates.

Halloween may be all about cute costumes and trick-or-treating for younger kids, but teens can handle some horror on the creepy holiday. Socially, older teenagers are spending more time with friends who share the same interest, so involve your own teen in the spooky party planning to ensure a theme that will keep the kids engaged -- and out of trouble -- all night.