Carbon Costume

In Alice, Sweet Alice, a person in a translucent mask and yellow raincoat kills Karen Spages (Brooke Shields) on her day of First Communion. All eyes turn to her older sister Alice (Paula Sheppard), who has a jealous streak and has the same yellow coat.

In The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Leatherface is a chainsaw-wielding, psychopathic murder who has a taste for human flesh. He and his inbred family hunt down victims and turn them into practical items like housebuilding materials and meat for BBQ and chili. Probably the scariest thing about Leatherface is that the fact that he was inspired by real life killer Ed Gein, who wore a mask of human skin.

In the Scream series, Sidney Prescott is the target of Ghostface, a masked murderer who torments her by killing the people around her. The Scream series revived the horror genre in the 90’s by incorporating humor and by its acknowledgment of horror movie cliches.

In the Halloween slasher films, Michael Myers is a masked killer on the loose, stalking his next teenage victim. Don’t get him confused with Jason Voorhees or Mike Myers, he takes great offense when that happens.

Freddy Krueger may know when you’re sleeping and when you’re awake but he’s no Santa Claus. With biting wit, he manipulates his victim’s dreams making everyone afraid to fall asleep. While Freddy’s powers are not easy to obtain, you can get his look with little effort. The hardest part is the make-up and if you really want to be authentic you can put burn holes in your clothes. That’s really the only way you’ll get away with wearing a Christmas sweater all year.

In Saw, John Kramer is a civil engineer dying from an inoperable brain tumor who decides to help others appreciate the value of life. Instead of giving them a pep talk however, he builds complex torture devices that they can only escape through self-sacrifice. Typical engineer.

In the Friday the 13th series, Jason Voorhees is a killer on the loose, mostly in camp sites but sometimes in outer space. That iconic hockey mask is worn to hide his disfigured face. Just don’t confuse him with Michael Myers, he really hates when that happens.

In Child’s Play, a serial killer dubbed the Lakeshore Strangler is cornered, shot, and left bleeding to death. Fortunately he knows some voodoo, and transfers his soul into a Good Guy doll. In his pint-sized overalls, he carries on with his killing spree. It’s more terrifying than it sounds, honest.