8 Tips for Hosting an All Day Halloween Movie Marathon!

For the past 3 or 4 years, my partner and I have always held a movie marathon on the Saturday of Halloween weekend. Neither of us are really big on going out on Halloween (I refuse to stand in line for a bar EVER) so it kind of all started as a place for our friends to go if they didn’t have other plans/didn’t want to go to the bar. Also, I LOVE horror movies more than anything so I’m happy to watch horror literally all day. This year I was away for work Halloween weekend so we held the marathon early and I think because it was early I went a *little* bit over the top with food and decorations and just everything. But it was an AMAZING time. So here are a few tips from me if next year you want to host your own movie marathon for Halloween!

1. Come up with a schedule beforehand! In past years when there was less of us we have just sort of opened up Netflix and argued over what to watch. This *can* be fun but you are going to end up with friends who are disappointed or maybe even uncomfortable with what you are watching. I think that it’s much better off when you come up with a schedule beforehand and post it in a group chat or Facebook event for everyone to see. That way people can come over when you are playing the movies they want to see! Also, try to stick to the schedule! Even if everyone is yabbering between films stick it on anyway! People will naturally start to pay attention once the movie starts. Here is the schedule we used this year!

2. Pick your movies carefully! Start with less horrifying stuff and ramp up the scare factor over the course of the night. You can see from our schedule that we start with literal kids stuff and then we slowly add a little bit of scare at a time until we get into the proper horror after dinner. Some people just don’t like being scared! Don’t pressure them into watching something they don’t want to watch. Also, Think about the difference between horror that might scare your friends in a fun way and content that might make people feel sick or be triggering for them. I think it’s best to avoid content with sexual assault or at least be upfront with what potentially triggering content the movies might explore. I don’t necessarily choose the movies I want to watch the most, I pick the movies that I think will be the most fun to watch in a group! 

3. People are going to be there all day so make sure there is LOTS of food! Not just chips and pop (although that’s important too) but actual food! In our case, we placed an order for pizza ahead of time. We ordered TWO party size pizzas (so like 4 XL pizzas) one with meat and one without but I honestly think we still could have used more pizza! It was a good thing we had so much other food! We had tons of candy and cookies but my absolute favourite snack was the autumn mix that I made (inspired by this post on Classy Girls Wear Pearls) pictured below. It’s a mix of candy corn, chex, pretzels, peanut butter cups, reeces pieces and a bunch of other stuff! If you think you don’t like candy corn try it in a handful with some chex and chocolate and see if you feel differently! I made WAY too much autumn mix for the party but that just meant I got to munch on it every night for like a week afterwards. I was also glad that before people arrived I made a big bowl of guacamole with peppers and tomatoes in it. I broke it out around 8 pm and I was SO happy to eat something with vegetables in it! If we do this again next year I’m making a veggie tray for sure!

4. Think about seating before people start to arrive. We knew even with all the seating in the living room and our other chairs (11 seats!) we still potentially had more people coming than we had seats so we made sure that there were also a lot of pillows for people to sit on. We also had to move our chairs around a bit before people arrived so that we could fit everyone in a spot where they could also see the TV. 

5. Provide some (but not all) of the non-alcoholic and alcoholic drinks. We made shots and a punch and we also bought lots of pop and put cute Halloween labels on the bottles. I didn’t get pictures of the punch but I love to have a premade festive punch at all my parties. This year we did an orange punch (it has to be orange to work with the pumpkin punch bowl!) made of orange pop, sparkling wine, sourpuss, lemonade, and orange vodka! Also, make sure you make LOTS of ice beforehand both for your punch and for people’s drinks! We got the “shot” shots at the dollar store and we washed them out and filled them with a mix of sourpuss and juice beforehand. We also premade some of the shot mix in a cup in the fridge so that when all the shots were empty they were easy to fill back up.

 

6. Have a firm ending time! As much as you love your friends trust me when I say that after 12 hours of people being in your house you are going to need some alone time! Also, think about what time public transit ends and try to get the end of the marathon to correspond with that! It sucked when there were a few ppl who *just* missed being able to take the subway at the end of the party and had to grab cabs instead.      

7. Wear Comfy Clothes and encourage your guests to do the same! Sure people are coming over so you want to look nice. I get it! I work from home 90% of the time so I take EVERY excuse I have to dress up nicely. But you are going to be lying around watching movies for 12 hours. If you don’t want to turn it into a full-on PJ party I recommend wearing stretchy pants and layers. I wore comfy leggings and a tank top (from Forever 21) with a stretchy skirt (from H&M) with an and oversized men’s Halloween sweater (from Blizzard Bay).

 

8. Last but not least, think carefully about the number of people you invite. We have a big TV and a big living room but we don’t have any external speakers. With the number of ppl we had our TV was just not loud enough even if everyone could see it we couldn’t all hear it. I watch everything with closed captions on even when I’m home alone so I kinda wish that I had of checked to see if there were captions on all the DVDs and Bluerays beforehand! All but one had captioning but it was very annoying to watch the one that didn’t! Think about how many people you can have in your living room and still enjoy watching movies. I think it’s okay when ppl have to pile in on pillows but no one wants to stand or strain to hear while watching a movie!

I hope these tips are useful for you and I hope the photos were inspiring for your own Halloween events! I’ve had an awesome Halloween season and I’m pumped to have a few more nights of horror movies and TV (I LOVED the Haunting on Hill House because I’m a sucker for all things cheesy) before we start celebrating the Christmas season in just a few days!

-Emma ❤