Mental Floss

HALLOWEEN

Amazon

11 Spooky Skull Products for Halloween

Get in the Halloween spirit.

amazon / rebecca o'connell

12 Pop Culture Costumes You Can Put Together Yourself

Skip the Halloween store!

6 of the Best Topical Halloween Costumes for 1915

If you happen to get sucked into a wormhole and sent to 1915 this weekend, your lion-killing dentist outfit won’t make much sense.

NYPL Gallery

13 Retro Halloween Party Activites for Your Spooky Shindig

Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Rachel True, and Neve Campbell in The Craft (1996).

12 Bewitching Facts About The Craft

In 1996, 'The Craft'—a movie about a group of teenage witches starring Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell, and Rachel True—hit theaters and completely changed the subgenre.

Jeffrey Strean, Cleveland Museum of Art

10 Supposedly Haunted Museums

Ghosts congregate in these museums for reasons mere mortals can only guess.

Public Domain

16 Ways to Summon Ghosts, Victorian-Style

According to a 19th century book, ghosts are optical illusions—and you can see a "spirit" in your very own living room by following these instructions.

There's more to witches than pointy hats and broomsticks.

10 Weird Facts About Witches

The practice of witchcraft is deeply rooted in history, and has—excuse the joke—conjured up some very interesting myths.

YouTube

5 Transforming Costume Ideas to Take Your Halloween to the Next Level

Why wear one costume when you can wear two?

"The Witch Trial" by William Powell Frith. Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain

Town Weighing Retrial for ‘Witch’ Executed in 1716

Nearly three centuries after her death, Maria Bertoletti Toldini may get a second chance for justice.

Pumpkins carved with the faces of Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz.

11 Expert Tips for Carving a Better Jack O'Lantern

Forget two triangles and a toothy grin; this Halloween, take your jack o'lanterns to the next level.

Halloween Express

The 26 Most Popular Halloween Costumes by State

See what the most popular Halloween costume is in your area.

ISTOCK

Become an Expert Witch-Finder at Cornell University

The library’s extensive Witchcraft Collection is open to the public and available online.

iStock.com/quavondo

9 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of Haunted Houses

We interviewed professionals working at haunted houses to find out more about how these places work and why we love them like we do.

Rachael K via Instructables

11 Clever and Creative Halloween Costumes

THe 2015 roundup of just pure awesome Halloween costumes.

Bettmann/CORBIS

Schlock Jocks: 12 of TV’s Coolest Horror Hosts

These invaders of the wee hour weekend airwaves guided young viewers through cinematic fare from 'Dracula' to 'Robot Monster.'

Watch 100 Years of Halloween Costumes Captured in 3 Minutes

See how the fashion of Halloween has changed over the years.

Neil Conway via Wikimedia Commons // CC-BY-SA 2.0

Caramel Apples Linked to Deadly Listeria Infection

But don't give up on them just yet.

iStock

8 Halloween Costumes That Have Been Banned By Schools

These costumes were considered to be offensive or just too scary.

kels.vmn, Instagram

12 Pun Costumes for Halloween

A few of the best visual pun Halloween costumes.

Auction.com

You Could Own This Idyllic (But Haunted) Ghost Town

Johnsonville is still on the market!

getty images

11 Fun Historical Newspaper Clippings About Halloween

Halloweens of yesteryear were filled with treats, but many more tricks—or at least that's how it seems from contemporary newspaper clippings.

drinkpipe

9 Impressive Halloween Costumes from 2014

Robert Englund as A Nightmare on Elm Street's Freddy Krueger.

15 Facts About A Nightmare on Elm Street

'A Nightmare on Elm Street,' Wes Craven's 1984 horror classic that introduced Freddy Krueger to the world, was partly based on a true story.