Last-Minute Halloween Guide (Best Online Resources)

Hand-sewn costumes, homemade popcorn balls, and bobbing for apples are all so last millennium. It's time to get with the high-tech late Aughts, our fair readers, especially since Halloween is upon us. If you still haven't settled on a costume, or done anything ghoul-related, then take a look at our high-tech DIY guide to all things crafty and creepy, and get your spook on this Halloween.

Do you still have no idea what you want to be for Halloween? Download the Halloween Costume Generator iPhone app for $1.99 from the App Store. After you enter your gender, what kind of party you're attending, and other details about yourself, the app will find the perfect costume for you. If you'd rather be something literally from the Apple store, you're not alone. Saturday, you can expect to see iPod and iPhone costumes everywhere, including the adorable earbud couple's costume.

The more one of these costumes functions like its inspiration, the better it is. Reko Rivera and Bobby Hartman (pictured above) took this idea all the way, spending $2,000 to rig up LCD screens and car batteries in order to display the info from their actual iPhones. Of course, you don't have to go that far. Hiding a cheap speaker inside your earbud costume, so that you can play music on demand, will still mightily impress your techie friends.

More of a gamer? Video game character costumes are as easy to recognize as they are to create. Our favorite offerings this year are based on the classics: Mario Brothers and Zelda. YouTube costumes are also on the rise, and so too are informative sites that provide step-by-step instructions on how to turn yourself into viral video favorites (e.g., the "Keyboard Cat," "Oolong the Pancake Bunny," the dancing banana from "Peanut Butter Jelly Time," and that cute cat in a lime hat).

If you're addicted to social networking sites, you could go as your Facebook page, or your Twitter feed. We recommend getting outside your comfort zone, though. DIY site Instructables has a contest for the best costume construction tutorial. They haven't picked a winner yet, but we have a few favorites of our own, including an octopus hoodie and a Ghostbuster costume, complete with instructions on how to make a proton pack!

Going for a costume that's more relevant? Threadbanger has video tutorials on how to create Lady Gaga's outfit from the MTV Video Music Awards, as well as how to fashion other celeb costumes -- all guaranteed to make you the scariest, most recognizable partier at any fright-fest. Unless Balloon Boy shows up, that is...



MASKS AND MAKEUP


Decorating your face is one thing that the Internet makes a lot easier. Indymogul.com has a tutorial on how to make your own rubber jack-o-lantern mask with glowing red eyes, but the pattern can be altered to make pretty much any scary mask, complete with movie quality special effects. Threadbanger has its own classic masquerade mask tutorial, which is cheaper and easier, but still surprisingly polished looking. Have no time and don't want to spend a dime? Superpunch has a wide variety of downloadable, printable masks – everything from classic 'Star Wars' characters, to Sarah Palin, to a 3-D skeletal hand that looks like it's about to rip your face off.

If you don't want to deal with paper or plastic, there are plenty of online tips from makeup gurus' on how to paint your face like a pro. Your old butterfly wings from last year can have a second life as fairy wings with the help of makeup maven Lauren Luke's "Angel Fairy Eyes" make-up tutorial video. But how about something more freaky? We were totally geeked out by this video tutorial, helping you to look like you're unzipping your face. Tim Burton's 'Alice and Wonderland' movie isn't even out yet, but costumes inspired by it are showing up on a lot of hot lists, and we suspect it has something to do with makeup artist Goldie Starling's awesome videos on how to turn yourself into pretty much any of its characters.



VIRTUAL TRICKS AND TREATS



Zombify your Facebook profile picture, or add fangs, horns, vampire eyes, fake wounds, and other ghoulish effects to any photo with picnik.com's free seasonal app site. You can also carve jack-o-lanterns and post them to your profile using the site's HalloweenBuilder. You can also send picture postcards decorated with cobwebs, bats, virtual costumes, and other spooky stuff from your iPhone, using the Halloween Postage App.

Also, don't forget, the first interactive Twitter séance will take place on October 30th between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. Eastern time. Follow @tweance (British psychic Jayne Wallace), and tweet her any questions that you want answered by your favorite dead celebs. Scary!



MUSIC FOR YOUR HALLOWEEN PARTY





Whether you're having a party, or you just want a creepy soundtrack to scare the trick-or-treaters away from your front door, there's plenty of help for making ghoulish iTunes playlists. MTV's 'The Scariest Albums of All Time' playlist is packed with dark favorites like The Cure, Korn, and Nine Inch Nails, though we can't for the life of us figure out what they find scary about Beyoncé, even as Sasha Fierce. Flavorpill's 'Halloween Mixtape: Our Spookiest Playlist Ever' and the user-submitted San Francisco Yelp! 'Best Songs for a Halloween Playlist' offer less dark, more fun-lovin', and plenty eclectic jams. (There's everything from Alice Cooper's 'No More Mr. Nice Guy' and Echo and the Bunnymen's cover of 'People Are Strange,' to Ghetto Boys' 'Mind Playing Tricks on Me' and the Charlie Daniels Band's 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia.') We were also surprisingly taken with this Halloween Skate playlist. Of course, you could always just play the Misfits discography end-on-end and pat yourself on the back for a night well scored.



PROPS AND HAUNTED HOUSES





Looking for the perfect conversation centerpiece? We can't think of anything better than an animatronic zombie head that drinks the blood oozing out of its spinning eye socket. These pre-fab alien animatronic jaws are pretty cool, too. If you prefer to create your own animatronic oozing props, DIY site Instructables has a whole slew of easy slideshows that show you how to do it, plus a whole page on high-tech pumpkin carving techniques. (Imagine pumpkins that sing, flash strobe lights at passersby, look like Pac Man, get animated, or even "carve themselves" with the help of squirrels and some peanut butter.) If precision is your thing, then check out zombiepumkins.com, which has a whole slew of downloadable stencils.

Planning on creating your own full-scale, high-tech haunted house? CBS's video coverage of the phenomenon highlights plenty of scary pranks that you are more than welcome to reenact -- at your own risk.

Finally, if all this fright makes you work up an appetite, we thought we'd include our favorite new take on an old standby. The only gadget you'll need to make this recipe for shrunken apple heads bobbing in hot cider is a hot stove. Martha sure is scarier since she got out of the slammer. We approve.

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