Spooky Halloween Art
/
It’s almost Halloween, so in honour of the spooookiest holiday, I’ve put together this list of my favourite creepy art, music, dance, and theatre. Personally, I’m not big on Halloween (aside from the candy, OBVIOUSLY), but what I do love is art that goes bump in the night. Happy Halloween, everyone!
Study after Velázquez’s Portrait of Innocent X
Francis Bacon, 1953
This painting is often used as an example in texts about colour theory (yellow and purple are on opposite sides of the colour wheel, which is why they pop so intensely when paired together), but MY GOODNESS it gives me the heebie jeebies. Partially because I detest yellow and purple together, but primarily because of DAT FACE.
The Nightmare
Henry Fuseli, 1781
GAH. Have you ever had the nightmare where you wake up and someone is in your room? No? Just me? Well thank God I’ve never had a dream about a frickin’ gargoyle sitting on my stomach and a dang DEMON HORSE in my room. My goooodness.
Study of the Heads of Torture Victims
Theodore Gericault, 1818
WHAT’S IN THE BOX!? WHAT’S IN THE BOX?!! Oh, it’s this painting. P.s., Gericault did a series of these, all about severed body parts. Great. That’s just great. I didn’t need to sleep ever again. It’s fine.
Skull of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette
Vincent Van Gogh, 1886
I actually adore this painting. The colours are so magnificent, and the shoulder-dropped posture of the skeleton is so… devil may care? Scary or no, a smoking skeleton CLEARLY deserves Halloween attention.
Saturn Devouring His Son
Francisco Goya, c. 1823
This, on the other hand, I hate (not because it’s a bad painting, because it’s absolutely amazing, but because EWWW). This is based on the Roman myth of the god, Saturn, you know… eating his son. Hoo boy. There are actually multiple scary paintings based on this moment in mythology, but Goya’s is TERRIFYING. Gawd. Get it off my computer screen.
Judith Slaying Holofernes
Artemesia Gentileschi, c. 1610
I don’t personally find this painting scary, per se… but hey, I’m a feminist and Holofernes was a big jerk. There are a ton of paintings of this scene, meant to represent the power of women over unjust/power-drunk men, but none as famous (nor as gory) as this one.
Follow the leaders
Isaac Cordal, 2011
Cordal is known for outdoor installations, particularly this series of tiny sculptures of business men/politicians in watery gutters, on ledges, and buried in debris – a commentary on “our inertia as a social mass.” I find them TERRIFYING.
Macbeth
Shakespeare (duh), 1606
IMO, you can’t have a Halloween arts list without “The Scottish Play” (shh! It’s bad luck to say its name! …in a theatre, at least.) In case you’ve forgotten your high school English class, there are ghosts! There are witches! There’s blood that won’t go away, and a floating dagger! Plus it’s all in the foggy Scottish moors. There’s the original play of course, there are several movie versions (including one with Michael Fassbaender and Marion Cottiard), and there’s also a kick-ass opera version by Verdi.
Little Shop of Horrors
Miles Goodman and Alan Menken, 1982
There are several great spooky musicals, but Little Shop is my favourite (mostly because I played Audrey in high school… the girl, not the plant! But also because it’s just all-around awesome). I’m not exactly sure why, but I find the movie version scary as hell. Maybe it’s the creepy lighting. Maybe it’s the sadistic dentist. Maybe it’s the giant man-eating plants from outer space. It’s a mystery.
Sweeney Todd
Steven Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler, 1979
A demon barber in Victorian England slits the throats of his customers while they’re in his chair, then a baker turns them into meat pies. Fun for the whole family, really.
“In the Hall of the Mountain King” from Peer Gynt
Edvard Grieg, 1875
This is literally a whole piece about a bunch of trolls, gnomes, and goblins in the, well, hall of a mountain king. Yes, please!
Danse Macabre
Camille Saint-Saëns, 1874
The devil makes the spirits rise from the dead and dance to this sweet sweet creepy tune (basically the equivalent of “Devil Went Down To Georgia”, but for symphony orchestra).
A Night on Bald Mountain
Modest Mussorgsky/Nikolai Rimsky-Korzakov, 1886
To me, this will always be “the terrifying part of Fantasia.” Or, the scary part of Mario. Like, seriously, how can music sound so damned terrifying right from the very first note?!
“March to the Scaffold” and “Dream of a Witches Sabbath” from Symphonie Fantastique
Hector Berlioz, 1830
This piece of symphonic music is meant to tell the story of a guy who is so hopelessly in love with this woman that he overdoses on opium then dreams that he kills her and is condemned to be executed (fun!). So this is the end, where he has to march up the scaffold to his death, then, for some reason, there’s a super wild, evil, witches’ ritual.
Lucia’s Mad Scene from Lucia di Lammermoor
Gaetano Donizetti, 1835
There are loads of creepy moments in opera, but this is my favourite. Lucia is forced into marriage, then kills her betrothed on her wedding night. Apparently it was a thing for the wedding party to continue on while the couple headed upstairs, which makes for the stunning moment when Lucia emerges from her marital bed, still in her wedding dress, covered in blood – oh, and she’s gone completely crazy. This aria also features the glass harmonica – an instrument some believed to have supernatural powers.
Commendatore scene from Don Giovanni
Mozart, 1787
Sooo… most of Don Giovanni is about the worlds’-most-famous-womanizer scheming and, well, womanizing all over the place. Then it all catches up with him, and the statue of the dead father of a woman he assaulted comes to life and drags him to hell. And it’s some of the best music and drama in all opera. Plus, there were probably real fire effects on stage as early as the premiere during Mozart’s time. Yikes!
Swan Lake
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, 1876
Ballet is FULL of creepy plots, femme fatales, and supernatural ballet babes. If you know the plot of Swan Lake, you know it’s no exception. Are you team Odette (White Swan) or Odile (Black Swan)? Maybe embrace your dark side and, if you can’t watch the real thing, re-watch Black Swan this Halloween.
Giselle
Like many ballets, Giselle is about a female lover scorned by a big jerk who she then comes back to haunt/kill as an evil spirit. Giselle is extra awesome because she joins a whole army of evil female spirits called the Willis. Ummm, vengeful lady ghosts? That’s my kinda Halloween. Just for fun, here’s the contemporary reimagining by choreographer Akram Khan. Evil lady spirits unite!
