If you’re planning an early winter wedding, why not combine your wedding celebrations with the spookiest night of the year and conjure up a Halloween hen party?
Read on for our complete guide to Halloween hen party ideas, including fun activities, ghoulish games, costumes, decorations, devilish drinks, spooky snacks and so much more.
The Best Halloween Hen Party Activities
The Betrayers: Are you big fans of the hit TV show The Traitors? Then it’s your turn to see how you’d do in the castle. Your group will be assigned secret roles, either faithful or betrayers, before this game of deception begins. Will you be able to catch the double-crossers before it’s too late?
Murder Mystery: Someone’s been murdered and it’s up to your hens to work out whodunit. No pressure then! Talented actors bring the story to life while you’re introduced to suspicious characters, secret motives and clues that’ll have everyone pointing fingers across the room. You’ll need to listen carefully because the person sitting next to you could be hiding something rather nasty.
Potion and Cocktail Making: Forget boring old cocktails. This is potion making, hen party style. You’ll learn how to mix cocktails while giving them a suitably spooky Halloween makeover. Expect creepy colours, dramatic presentation and drinks with names that sound like they belong in a witch’s cupboard.
Thriller Dance Class: Fancy becoming the undead backing dancers from Michael Jackson’s Thriller? Get the girls together for a dance class and learn those iconic moves properly. You’ll be taught the routine step by step, so don’t panic if your dance experience normally involves a dance floor and several glasses of wine. By the end, you’ll be zombie walking, throwing your arms around and trying to nail the famous moves.
Halloween Karaoke: Grab the microphone and get ready to belt out creepy classics, Halloween favourites and songs that are guaranteed to have the whole group joining in. Think Thriller, Ghostbusters, Monster Mash and anything else that gives you an excuse to sing far too loudly. You don’t need a good voice. In fact, questionable singing might make it even more entertaining!
Squid Game Challenge: Think your hens could survive Squid Game? Time to put them to the test. You’ll take on games inspired by the show, including Red Light Green Light, Dalgona, Marbles, Tug of War and the infamous Bridge Game. A professional host keeps everything moving, coordinates the games and eliminates players as you go (don’t worry, no one will get hurt!).
Halloween Paint and Sip: Get the girls together and paint something truly terrifying with a paint and prosecco session. You’ll enjoy a glass of fizz as you paint a canvas each. You could paint an Autumn scene, something from your favourite horror movie or just get ghoulish!
Escape Rooms: Escape rooms often have themed rooms involving being stuck in jail or running from something untoward, so pitting your brains against the clock to get out alive will always keep a Halloween hen party on its toes.
Emo Bottomless Brunch: It’s Halloween with a side of emo! Grab your mates for unlimited drinks, emo rock music from a DJ and a brunch dish of your choice. It’s basically an excuse to dress up, drink cocktails and scream along to the songs you used to play on repeat. Get your eyeliner on, choose your most dramatic outfit and prepare to unleash your inner emo.
Ghost Tours: Guided ghost tours are the perfect activity for a Halloween hen party. Graveyard walks or tours of local underground vaults are a fantastic way to spook everyone before you hit the town. Take on the Gravedigger Ghost tour in Dublin, where you’ll explore the city’s haunted locations and gruesome stories.
Zombie Apocalypse Experience: Which one of your hens would survive the zombie apocalypse? There’s only one way to find out. You’ll get to try an assault rifle, axe throwing, crossbow and archery as you battle it out to see who’s got what it takes to become the group’s top zombie slayer. There’s a range of weapons, so everyone can find out whether they’re surprisingly good with an axe or should probably leave the zombie fighting to someone else.
The Dungeons: If your hens like their Halloween with a healthy dose of screaming, The Dungeons should be on the list. You can visit The Dungeons during your hen do in London, York, Edinburgh and Blackpool, where you’ll be thrown into dark historical stories featuring creepy characters, gruesome tales and plenty of theatrical scares. It’s an unforgettable experience!
Tulleys Shocktoberfest: If you want to go big on Halloween, head to Tulleys Shocktoberfest near Crawley in West Sussex for Europe’s biggest scream park. If you’re having a hen party in Brighton, it’s well worth the 45-minute drive! You’ll find haunted attractions, creepy characters, live entertainment, food, bars and music, so there’s loads going on once you’ve recovered from screaming your way through the haunts. There are different attractions to tackle, including The Cellar, House Of Hades, Doom Town, Creepy Cottage and Haunted Hayride.
Scary Movie Night: If you’re hiring a cottage or staying at home, we love the idea of getting dressed up in our best skeleton onesies and having a marathon scary movie-athon. This is always made better with some creepy cocktails and the option of hiding behind whoever is closest to you when the lights go out and the music starts.
Campfire Tales: Everyone has a scary story to tell, or at least knows someone who’s had something unexplainable happen to them. Why not gather around the campfire (or on the floor around some candles) and frighten the life out of your friends? If you’re short on personal tales, hit up Reddit and check out the forums on unexplained stories. We promise you’ll be freaked out.
Halloween Hen Party Decorations
Supermarkets push Halloween items earlier and earlier so, if you visit your local any time after the end of summer, you’ll notice everything you require is already stocked. There’s such a massive selection of black and orange plastic and paper decorations that it’s satisfyingly easy and budget-friendly to kit out your home, self-catering accommodation, or hotel room in Halloween swag.
Start with the basics such as fake cobwebs, plastic spiders, hanging ghosts, skulls and plenty of black, red and orange balloons. Then add some Halloween bunting around the room and a few battery-powered candles for that suitably spooky glow. They’re much safer than real candles when you’ve got a group of hens, cocktails and questionable dancing going on.
Don’t forget the table either. Black tablecloths, Halloween plates, creepy napkins, pumpkins and plastic skulls can make even a takeaway pizza look like part of the Halloween hen do theme.
A balloon arch can make a great backdrop for photos, especially if you add some fake bats, creepy eyes or a big Bride To Be sign. You could also put together a little Halloween photo corner with witch hats, vampire capes, fake moustaches and silly glasses.
If you’re looking for customisable décor for a Halloween hen party, you can order items from Etsy, Amazon, eBay, and many other suppliers across the UK and Ireland.
Halloween Hen Party Food
You don’t have to be Nigella Lawson to produce something tasty for a Halloween hen party. In fact, you can mostly purchase pre-made spooky cupcakes, cookies, and sweet snacks at your local supermarket, if you’re short on time or skills.
If you do fancy whipping up something yourself, food colouring is your best friend, as if the ability to make creepy shapes out of icing. Green icing can turn cupcakes into little monsters, red icing makes excellent fake blood and black icing can give almost anything a suitably sinister finish. Lychees and eggs can make excellent eyeballs and sheets of pastry can easily be cut into ghostly shapes or rolled into snakes.
Pumpkins are perfect for a Halloween spread too. Whip up pumpkin hummus, make mini pumpkin pizzas or bake a pumpkin cheesecake for something sweet. You could even add tiny icing spiders to the top.
Halloween Cocktail Ideas
If you can’t concoct something that looks vile for a Halloween hen party, then when can you? There are lots of ghoulish recipes online, but these are our favourites:
Black Widow: Mix 35ml vodka with 20ml blackberry liqueur, 20ml lemon juice and 10ml sugar syrup. Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Add a few blackberries on a cocktail stick and you’ve got a dark, fruity little number that looks suitably sinister.
Witch’s Brew: Add 35ml vodka, 20ml blue curaçao, 20ml lemon juice and 10ml sugar syrup to a shaker with ice. Shake well, pour into a glass and top with lemonade. The bright colour makes it look like something you’d find bubbling away in a witch’s cauldron.
Bloody Mary: Perfect for hens who like their Halloween cocktails with a bit of a kick. Mix 50ml vodka with 100ml tomato juice, a squeeze of lemon, a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco, then season with salt and pepper. Serve over ice and garnish with celery. Add a little edible red gel around the rim if you want to make it look extra gruesome.
Poison Apple: Mix 40ml vodka, 20ml sour apple liqueur and 15ml lemon juice with ice. Shake it up and strain into a glass, then top with lemonade. Pop in a slice of green apple and you’ve got a cocktail that looks sweet and innocent while being anything but.
Black Magic Martini: Combine 40ml vodka, 20ml blackberry liqueur and 20ml cranberry juice with ice. Shake well and strain into a chilled martini glass. A few fresh blackberries on top will give it a dark, witchy finish.
Zombie: This one is for the hens who aren’t messing about. Mix 25ml white rum, 25ml dark rum, 20ml orange liqueur, 25ml lime juice and 50ml pineapple juice with ice. Shake, pour into a tall glass and top with a little grenadine for a blood red finish. One warning though: these can be dangerously easy to drink, so pace yourselves!
Witch’s Heart: Pour 40ml apple whisky liqueur into a cocktail shaker with ice and add 20ml lemon juice. Shake and strain into a glass, then slowly add a splash of grenadine so it sinks through the drink like a creepy little blood cloud. It looks seriously impressive without needing loads of faffing.
Eyeball Punch: Pour apple juice, lemonade and cranberry juice into a big punch bowl, then add your choice of vodka or white rum. Throw in frozen grapes, lychees stuffed with blueberries and slices of orange. The lychees make brilliant little eyeballs floating around the bowl, although you might want to warn everyone before they start fishing them out with their straws.
Bloody Orange Fizz: Mix 40ml gin with 50ml blood orange juice and 15ml lemon juice. Shake with ice, pour into a glass and top with Prosecco. Add a slice of blood orange and you’ve got a gorgeous deep red cocktail that looks the part without requiring a degree in witchcraft.
Vampire’s Bite: Combine 35ml vodka, 20ml cherry liqueur and 50ml cranberry juice with ice. Shake and strain into a glass, then add a splash of lemonade. Finish with a cherry and a few drops of grenadine running down the inside of the glass. Messy? Yes. Delicious? Also yes.
Grasshoppers: A mix of créme de menthe, créme de cacao, and single cream and are a fabulously slimy green colour.
Vampire’s Kiss: Made by mixing a boatload of champagne or prosecco, with raspberry liqueur and vodka.
Spooky Punch: Take whatever you have on hand and brew your very own masterpiece. Chuck in your favourite spirits, wines, beers, or whatever and mix with tons of cherry juice to give it that blood-red colour. Garnish with some lychee slices to look like floating eyeballs. Delish!
The Best Halloween Games
Apple Bobbing: While the evening is young and there haven’t been too many cocktails downed, may we suggest bobbing for apples? All you need is a plastic sheet or a few bin bags to cover the floor, a plastic dishwashing basin, some water, something to protect your clothing/an old t-shirt, and lots of apples.
Halloween Hen Party Heads Up: This game involves nothing more than a stack of post-it notes and some imagination. Split the group into pairs and take turns to write a Halloween-related word on a post-it before sticking it to your partner’s forehead. That person then must correctly guess the word from the clues provided to get the point.
Apple Chucking: This game requires a bit of outdoor or indoor space, a bucket, and some apples. The aim of the game is to see how many apples each player can get in the bucket in a set time.Â
Pin the Spider on the Web: Exactly like pin the tail on the donkey, but with a spider’s web and a spider. You can easily create your own web with some paper or card and get a rubber spider anywhere that sells Halloween decorations. All you need after that is a blindfold and you’re good to go.
Ouija Board: If you’re looking for a hardcore way to get your creep on, then there are a few more scary ways to do it than with a Ouija board. Order one online or make your own. Just don’t blame us when you unleash all the demons.
Halloween Charades: Get your hens into teams and write down loads of spooky films, characters, songs and Halloween words on scraps of paper. One person picks a slip and has to act it out without speaking while her team tries to guess what she’s doing. Add a timer to make things more frantic and you’ll soon have everyone flapping around the room like a possessed bat.
Mummy Wrap: Split into teams and give each group a few rolls of toilet paper. Choose one hen to be the mummy, then set a timer and see which team can wrap her from head to toe first. Obviously, the finished mummies need a grand unveiling, so get your cameras ready. Bonus points for the best mummy pose.
Halloween Scavenger Hunt: Hide spooky treats and little Halloween surprises around your accommodation before the hens arrive. Give everyone a list of things they need to find, from plastic spiders and fake fangs to tiny pumpkins and creepy eyeballs. You can make the clues as easy or fiendish as you like, then award a prize to whoever finds everything first.
Halloween Pictionary: Grab some paper, pens and a bowl of spooky suggestions, then split into teams. Each player picks a word and has to draw it while her teammates race to guess it. No talking, no miming and absolutely no judging the artistic ability on display. Expect some very questionable pumpkins.
Guess The Halloween Film: Write down the names of famous horror and Halloween films and pop them into a bowl. Take turns choosing one and giving clues without saying the title or any character names. You could also play a few seconds of the soundtrack and see who can name the film first.
Donut Eating Challenge: Hang ring doughnuts from string and challenge your hens to eat them without using their hands. It’s messy, ridiculous and far harder than it sounds after a few drinks. Give everyone a time limit and see who can finish theirs first. Just keep the napkins handy.
Halloween Bingo: Make your own bingo cards using spooky words, Halloween characters, costumes and hen party moments. You could include things such as “someone screams”, “someone loses a shoe” or “the bride mentions the wedding”. Read them out one by one and see who gets a full house first.
Guess The Creepy Sound: Put together a playlist of strange and spooky noises and play them to the group one at a time. Think creaking doors, wolves howling, witches cackling, thunder, screams and footsteps. Give everyone a sheet to write down their guesses, then see who’s got the sharpest ears.
Halloween Dare Jar: Write a load of silly Halloween dares on scraps of paper and pop them into a jar. Each hen takes a turn picking one and has to complete whatever she gets. Keep the dares funny rather than terrifying, with ideas such as doing a dramatic witch impression, singing a spooky song or telling the scariest story she can think of.
Monster Dance Off: Put on a Halloween playlist and split the group into pairs or teams. Give everyone a few minutes to come up with their own ridiculous monster dance before holding a very serious competition. Award prizes for the funniest, scariest and most questionable routine. The bride gets final judging rights, obviously.
What to Pack for a Halloween Hen Do
If you choose to head off to Parts Unknown (or one of our top hen party destinations) for your shindig, you’ll need a few essentials with you to enable you to make the most of the Halloween hen party:
- Choice of costumes
- Decorations to brighten up your venue
- Cocktail-making equipment, shakers, plastic cups, spooky drink umbrellas, etc
- Games to keep everyone entertained
- Firestick/DVDs
- Speaker to play a spooky playlist
- Make-up, fake blood and LOTS of black eyeliner
- Power bank to charge your phone
- Fake tattoos, vampire teeth and creepy accessories
- Snacks (themed if possible)
Halloween Hen Party Ultimate Playlist
Nothing gets a party started quite like the right soundtrack. For a Halloween hen party, it’s got to be in keeping with the theme and there’s no end to the tunes you can add to your playlist. We suggest:
- Bobby Pickett – Monster Mash
- Michael Jackson – Thriller
- Ray Parker Jnr – Ghostbusters Theme
- Backstreet Boys – Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)
- AC/DC – Highway to Hell
- Lady Gaga – The Dead Dance
- Demi Lovato – Dancing with the Devil
- Trent Reznor – Halloween Theme
- K Dickson and M Stein – Theme from Stranger Things
- Stevie Wonder – Superstition
- Rockwell – Somebody’s Watching Me
- Vic Mizzy – The Addams Family Theme
- The Nightmare Before Christmas – This Is Halloween
- Selena Gomez ft Marshmello – Wolves
- Cliff Richard – Devil Woman
- Tenacious D – Tribute
- The Specials – Ghost Town
- INXS – The Devil Inside
- The Eagles – Hotel California
- Rihanna – Disturbia
- Billie Eilish – Bury a Friend
- The Rolling Stones – Sympathy for the Devil
- Taylor Swift – Haunted
- Phoebe Bridgers – Halloween
- The Eagles – Witchy Woman
- Talking Heads – Psycho Killer
- Creedence Clearwater Revival – Bad Moon Risin’
- Shakira – Shewolf
- The Cranberries – Zombie
- Little Mix – Black Magic
- Katy Perry – Dark Horse
- Nina Simone – I Put a Spell on You
- Billie Eilish – Bad Guy
- The Rolling Stones – Paint It Black
- Kate Bush – Running Up That Hill
- Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads Will Roll
- Britney Spears – Toxic
- Kesha – Cannibal
- Rick James – Super Freak
- Twenty One Pilots – Heathens
- Ariana Grande – Dangerous Woman
- Nelly Furtado – Maneater
- Iggy Azaleo ft Rita Ora – Black Widow
- Ava Max – Sweet but Psycho
- Sophie Ellis Bextor – Murder on the Dancefloor
- Ella Henderson – Ghost
- Steve Miller Band – Abracadabra
- Lady Gaga – Monster
- Imagine Dragons – Demons
- Olivia Rodrigo – Vampire
Are You Ready to Throw Your Own Halloween Hen Party?
Halloween hen parties are the ultimate way to combine your pre-wedding bash with the best night of the year. As an adult, you don’t get that much chance to dress up and scare the bejesus out of your mates as often as you’d probably like, so make the most of it and have a ball! Check out more hen party inspiration with our huge range of hen party activities, accommodation, ideas and more.
