How students are getting spooky this Halloween while still staying COVID-19 safe – The Elm Skip to content Saturday, September 24, 2022 Responsive Menu About Get Involved Subscribe The Elm The Student Newspaper of Washington College since 1930 Search Search Home News Opinion Columns Letters Sports Lifestyle Student Life Advertising Meet the Press Home 2020 October How students are getting spooky this Halloween while still staying COVID-19 safe Student Life How students are getting spooky this Halloween while still staying COVID-19 safe October 22, 2020 Katy Shenk By Emma Russell Student Life Editor This year, Halloween falls on a Saturday and with a full moon in place it was going to create the perfect spooky atmosphere. Unfortunately due to COVID-19 people are unable to go to parties, go trick-or-treating, or even just spend the holiday with their friends on campus. This hasn’t stopped the Washington College students from trying to make the best out of this spooky time of the year. Sophomore Regina Del Pilar is planning to host a Skype call with some of her friends from campus to watch the film “Coraline.” “I’m gonna force my friends to watch it, and I think Halloween is the best time to do that,” Del Pilar said. “Coraline” is a famous stop-motion animation movie about a young girl who when she moves into a new home, finds a secret door that leads her to the Other World, a world that mirrors her own. Despite the colorful surroundings and the seemingly nice Other Mother, Coraline discovers the horrors lurking there and must escape back into her world. “I’m a really big fan of stop-motion animation,” Del Pilar said. “That one scene in Coraline where the garden comes alive, I just think that’s really beautiful and such a complex thing to do, since it takes so much time in stop motion.” “If I was dressing up for Halloween I was going dress up as Coraline,” she said. Freshman Matt Brader said, “For Halloween I’m planning to be my neighborhood’s worst nightmare, a gay.” “I really wanna get one of those Halloween witch dresses and then I really wanna have some sort of rainbow crop top underneath,” said Brader. “I wanna wear my pride flag as a cape and just walk around.” Brader’s neighborhood does not have many kids so his plan is to make little goodie bags full of candy for the trick or treaters, a smart way for children to still enjoy Halloween while still being COVID-19 safe. “I’ll just watch from the entrance of our house in my witch costume,” Brader said. “I might also try to get a Halloween costume for my dog and do a fun photo shoot with him if he actually listens to me,” Brader said. Brader has a 10-year-old dog named Max who for Halloween will be dressing up as a circus ringleader and assisting Brader on the spooky night. Senior Jake DiPaola reminisced about his past Halloweens and said, “every Halloween since we [his high school friends] didn’t really go trick or treating anymore, we got our enjoyment out of making people poop their pants out of fear.” “Now we have a system that’s very low budget but high scare potential,” DiPaola said. The pathway leading to DiPaola’s front door, where somebody would be sitting with candy to hand out has a wall of bushes to the right of it with his lawn on the left. “We had somebody dressed up, whole body covered… and a mask of a scary clown with their hood pulled over so it’s really hard to tell if it’s a real person or a scarecrow laying flat on their back on the lawn,” he said. “You see the person on the lawn, their job was to do nothing, they didn’t jump out and scare anyone. They were just there for the fear and anticipation. So while people walked down the pathway, looking to their left at the scary clown, we had somebody dressed in all black on their right, hiding in the bushes. So while their attention was drawn to the clown somebody behind them would jump out.” “The final knockout after the one-two punch that we had was as they left, and they were all joking around that’s when the clown man popped up. Yeah it was a fun complex little scare team,” DiPaola said. Such scare tactics aren’t as viable now due to social distancing guidelines so instead the “scare team” had to find something else to keep them busy. “On Oct 30 our plans are to watch ‘The Mandalorian’ which is gonna be great. We’re probably gonna make some soft pretzels and chips, and watch a couple of episodes,” he said. “The Mandalorian” is a “Star Wars” spin-off TV show that is available to stream on Disney+. The first season is out and available to watch now, and the second season premiers on Oct 30. DiPaola and his boyfriend are also planning to dress up for Halloween. They plan to dress up as the main protagonists of the roleplaying game Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and 2. “We’re gonna craft [the main protagonists sword] out of Styrofoam and wood, maybe paint it and shove some glow sticks inside of it and call it a day,” said Dipaola. Even though Halloween is looking a little different this year due to COVID-19 there are still ways students can have fun with their friends this spooky season. Featured Photo caption: Matt Brader’s dog Max dressed up as a circus ringleader for Halloween. Photo Courtesy of Matt Brader. Tags: candy, Costumes, COVID-19, Halloween, holidays, spooky season, television, the elm, trick or treating, washington college Post navigation Washington College’s Musician’s Union change to a different key due to virtual circumstances Looking for some social media inspiration? 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