Future Islands used to be the soundtrack for a broken but manic heart, perfect for days when unrequited love made you downright rowdy. On the eve of Halloween Sunday night, the band veered away from their danceable, lovelorn tunes to play material that was chilling and delightfully dark. more ›

Chicago dream-pop outfit Roommate, whose 2011 album Guilty Rainbow recalls positively both Air and Beach House, have released a new video for opening cut "My Bad," for which there is also a remix. more ›

We browsed YouTube, MUBI, the National Archives and other online resources and put together a list of horror films that are free, streaming legally and guaranteed to put a fright into your Halloween. more ›

Hit up these restaurants for some yummy fall treats and parties this weekend. more ›

Tomorrow night's Terror in the Aisles was on our calendar already, but is now a must-see with the addition of An American Werewolf In London and an appearance by its star, David Naughton. more ›

A great costume is hard to come by. Some people brainstorm for months, others throw it together last-minute. Even if you do find that perfect alternate persona this year, you know what would make it even better? If food were involved. Here are a few costume ideas that let you celebrate food this Halloween even if you're too old for trick-or-treating: more ›

They're giving away 1,000 free cupcakes in River North. It will be a frosting-fueled stampede! more ›

$5 gets you into the midnight screening as well as a pre-movie lecture, a selection of grindhouse and cult movie trailers, a post-screening discussion, and a packet of information about that evening's film. more ›

Happy Halloween, everyone! Combining an inspiration by our recent Halloween soundtrack, our love of clay animation and horror punk, here's a little treat we dug up from the crypt:
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Not sure if you've heard, but there's some sort of holiday tomorrow involving costumes, spooky decorations, and what we enjoy most, carved and lit pumpkins known around the land as jack-o'-lanterns. Here are some of our favorite tributes to from Chicago Halloweens of years past. more ›

Halloween is kind of a big deal to us. We've already told you what kind of candy we're fond of, our favorite movies for the holiday and showed you costumes we wore as children. That said, Halloween has bred some great music and plenty of us have various cuts we break out every year to celebrate the day. Some of us have long lines of reasoning why we choose to put these on our stereos each year, others really just like an excuse to jam to a few darker tunes for a few days. Here's what we'll be listening to this weekend: more ›

"Hi, forget everything you've ever learned about how to carve a jack-o'-lantern..." more ›

If you've been crawling the site the month of October past few days you may have noticed that the Chicagoist crew is pretty enthusiastic for all things Halloween. We've run down our favorite horror flicks, spooky eats and beloved treats from years past, so today we bring you a gallery of Chicagoisters' costumes from years past. more ›

The wind is howling and the witches are running for Senate: Halloween 2010 is upon us. If your cinematic chills can't be satisfied with just renting a horror movie, such as the ones we love, then you have more than a few opportunities to get out and get scared by something on the silver screen this weekend. Here is our guide to all the scary movies in theatrical exhibition during this weekend of Haloween 2010. more ›

Today's diversion is a cautionary tale. Although the Chicagoist office manager wears sweaters and winter gear, she does not get into costume on Halloween. Dressing up your pet is just wrong. Especially if you're wearing a matching costume. That's straight up Motherboy behavior more ›

Movies have been on the brains of the staff here this week, whether it's been our list of favorite scary movies or Rob's enthusiastic reasons why you should check out the Chaplin retrospective at the Music Box (which, as an owner of the complete Chaplin collection on DVD, I agree with Rob completely). So what happens when a critic with the renown of Roger Ebert is asked to compile a list? more ›

There are so many Halloween events going on that we couldn’t fit them all in one post! Here are some more exciting events, including food, drink and pumpkin carving. more ›

Our inbox has been flooded with Halloween events, dinners, experiences and special cocktails. If you're looking to spook up your dining this weekend, check out some of these events. more ›

Growing up I was never at a loss for Brach's candies. Aunts, uncles and cousins on my mother's side of the family put themselves through school or started careers working at the former Brach's plant on the West side, and bulk candy from the plant was always a perk. One of my mother's jobs was working the midnight shift at the old Leaf candy plant on Cicero and Division. As an adult, I don't have an affinity for confections like candy corn, star brites, Brach's caramels or Whoppers, which were made by Leaf. more ›

Screw that silly custom of dressing up and going door to door for candy--we're grown up enough to go to Walgreens and buy our own candy, thank you very much. For us, Halloween is all about scary movie marathons at home. And unbidden, we'd like to share some of our very own scary movie memories with you. more ›

It's time to catch up with comedy events around town so you can plan your laughing schedule accordingly. more ›

The last time we checked The Unhuman seemed close to completion. The budget, funded by 22 investors via Kickstarter, was a whopping $500. But despite having the money in place, like many filmmakers before them the Guess Brothers of Muncie ran behind schedule while shooting their opus. One of the main roles was recast, and there were rewrites and reshoots. However, necessity (and a low budget) are the mothers of invention, and after inserting some last-minute effects shots and final editorial fine-tuning, The Unhuman will be ready in time for Halloween. more ›

Hard as it is to believe, we're officially into October now and thus it's time to start planning our Halloween costumes. One shop has a pretty hair-raising suggestion that might or might not be all the rage this holiday: Blago. That's right, our former governor's visage may be a popular - and no less scary - option this holiday for the politically savvy party-goer. Fantasy Costumes had the masks made after apparently fielding tons of requests. The store's assistant manager Cathy Bunger told the Sun-Times, "We kept getting calls and calls and calls, and nobody had it; so we made something up." Of course, at a steep cost of $49, it'd better come with a Senate seat attached. But don't worry: Blago doesn't get a cut of any of the profits. more ›

If you or someone close to you is undead, if you are a connoisseur of all things zombie, or if you just have been wondering what to do with all these extra brains that you can't possibly eat all by yourself, Saturday is potentially a very big day for you. That's when not one but TWO celebrations of all-things-zombie will be vying for your attention. more ›

Every year the boundaries for acceptable Halloween costumes are tested. Every year those boundaries are most certainly crossed, if only for a few of us at Chicagoist that insist on wearing the Ninja Turtles costume we've worn since we were eight. Halloween in some ways has become a social experiment, measuring the capacity for tolerance by exploring what really is in fact taboo by today's standards. For some, we found out where the line was drawn after photos of two local individuals dressed as "blackface" for Halloween surfaced on the Internet a few days ago. The two who dressed in blackface are believed to be students at Northwestern University and, as a result, there has been considerable public outcry in Evanston. The university even publicly addressed the photos, calling the costumes insensitive and in poor judgment, although not in violation of any university rules. more ›

Yesterday we wandered around East Lakeview to see what kinds of post-Halloween detritus we could find. In addition to lots of stray feathers and empty bottles and cans that once contained alcoholic or energy beverages, we also spotted the following items. We're sure that every one of them has a quirky story behind it; feel free to get creative and make some up in the comments section. more ›

Last week, we celebrated Halloween by looking at some costumes of Halloweens past. Now, as we move on past the spookiest of holidays, we look back at a few of this year's costumes seen around town. more ›

This seems like a no-brainer for today, especially given the film from which this clip comes. Last night at Jewel, as Chicagoist staff members made a last-minute candy run (for ourselves; screw the kids), Christmas decorations were up in the next aisle over. more ›

Happy Halloween! Have you been wondering how your favorite politicians, Chicagoist editors and, um, Richard Marxes are going to dress this year? Eyewitness News Chicagoist has the scoop! more ›

It's a slow day around the Chicagoist Office and the weather has us down. So a few of the braver souls decided to dig up some old Halloween costumes from childhood and share them with the world. Behold the glory of it all. more ›