Written by Kate Baron

Humanoids and creatures, mortals and immortals, trick bearers and treat eaters… Come as you aren’t! It’s the most wonderful time of fear, for the spoooooky season is here.

Indulge us, reader, and let us attempt to read your mind as it may be right now. Don’t worry; we only dress like mind flayers, not become them! Now, relax… Hmm, yes, we see… Ah, you’ve been invited to a Halloween party, but it’s the last minute, and you still haven’t decided what to go as?

Well, you’re in luck, thrall—we mean, reader—because we’ve whipped up some quick and inexpensive Halloween costume ideas, perfect for a Jack-o’-All-Trades like you!

1. Zombie

Zombies are undead beings who seem to be some of the top stars of apocalypses and therefore, dozens of iterations of them in popular media.

To be a zombie, simply pull an all-nighter the night before the Halloween party. For better results, if you have a paper whose due date is dangerously close, leave it to cram on that night. For braver results, you can even skip the bath and pull up at the party in last night’s sleep clothes. If the other partygoers call you nasty, clap back at them by saying it’s peak zombie authenticity. With your all-natural eyebags, feet dragging across the floor, voice groaning for “Cooooffeeeee”… it would be so easy you won’t have to fake anything.

“All of Us Are Dead” indeed, dropping dead at the accuracy of your costume. It would be like seeing “The Walking Dead” in the flesh—and that’s a compliment, we swear!

2. Clown

Clowns are a sight to see at circuses or carnivals, bringing smiles to children with their jokes and tricks. It’s a different story during such a time as Halloween, however, when their eerily painted smiles and maniacal laughs can be the stuff of nightmares rather than dreams.

Do you want to be a clown but don’t have their signature makeup or colorful costume? Then simply send a message to your ex before the Halloween party. You can say you forgive them for screwing you over, beg for them to get back together… It’s entirely up to you, depending on how much of the clown spirit you really want to embody. Everyone knows you’ve been contemplating it lately, so now’s the perfect time to give in to that urge!

Once you meet your friends at the Halloween party and tell them what you did, you would definitely get the horrified reactions you’re hoping for. You would go above and beyond with your costume, as you would not just be a clown—you would be the entire circus.

3. Your past self

The fear of your past self may or may not be as common as the fear of clowns, but it exists nonetheless. Shoutout to the burnt out gifted kids out there! If you know, you know.

To be your past self, simply rummage through your closet and put together an outfit from some of the clothes you’ve almost but not quite outgrown yet. You can also take inspiration from an era of your childhood or teenhood. If you thought you would never want to use those galaxy pants, swag caps, and lensless glasses you had from the 2010s again, well, think again.

Then, in the silence of your trip back home from the Halloween party, let the realization sink in that no matter how historically accurate your costume might be, no matter how much you try to relive it, you may never truly be your past self again. And that, friends, is perhaps the real bone-chilling fear.

4. Ghost

Ghosts can be seen—or perhaps more aptly, unseen—almost anywhere. Your ka-talking stage, that one groupmate, the money in your wallet, our government when the country is in crisis… Formless yet versatile, ghosts may be closer to you than you think.

Probably the easiest to do on this list, to be a ghost, simply, well… be a ghost. Don’t go to the Halloween party. If you really want to commit to the bit, you don’t even have to make up an excuse or inform anybody that you won’t be going. “Make it look like you were never there”? Amateurs; you were never there. At all. Neat party trick, isn’t it?

Hopefully, this list helps you tick one less fear off of your list, because there’s nothing scarier than being underdressed at a Halloween party, right? Have a harrowing Halloween, Jack-o’-All-Trades of OrCom!