Scare tactics: Four ways to scare your friends
MANILA, Philippines - Halloween can be the new April Fool’s Day if you want it to be. With a little planning and safe — and I repeat, safe — tricking here and there, you’ll be kicking the night off with — if you’re a wizard at this — a fourth of the accumulated adrenaline Neve Campbell has had to endure in the course of her Scream career. It can be fun, man, but don’t overdo it. I mean, improvise and customize if need be but know when enough is enough. Just make sure you dodge the possible face slap whether or not you pull it off. Time these tactics carefully and you’ll be forever proud of yourself.
Dolls from hell
Befriend your friend’s or girlfriend’s yaya so she trusts you to let you in the house before she gets home after work. This is so you can decorate her room with dolls you bought from an antique shop the week prior and remove all the light bulbs in her room. Make sure you pick dolls with the crazy eyes, scatter them across the room, and shed lamps on them. You can also shroud these dolls with blankets so they look like mini Mother Teresas but in nightmare form.
Clown around
This time, your friend’s yaya isn’t just your trusted accomplice; she becomes the hero. Hopefully her parents are out so your team can pull off this Stephen King-fuelled prank. Go up to her room at first to hang. About 10 minutes into the hang out her maid turns the electricity off and you have a pretend brownout. You go down to check but God knows you only went down to fake a muffled scream. Her maid then goes up clad in a Pennywise costume and knocks on her door. She is scheduled to stop the prank after about 15 seconds.
Li’l devil boy
Pretend the car is under some kind of breakdown — do this inside your village under the shade of a tree in the night for no traffic and extra eeriness — then park the car so you can check the engine. Enlist your friend’s help by asking her to check the trunk at which point a midget painted in red jumps out to meet her. All he does is jump around though. That’s it. We can’t smear her dress with paint or else the joke’s really over. Pay your little friend his talent fee, drop him off where he can get a ride, then remedy the stress with a back rub.
Dead date
The scary stuff ain’t over. This one’s very simple though — it’s more of a shock tactic. As you enter your preferred restaurant and get seated, wait for her to leave and go to the restroom (they always do). Once she checks in the toilet, wait for her right outside with a corpse-looking mask. She opens the door, you stare at her, she shouts, you both cause a commotion in the restaurant, and your prank is a small success quickly overshadowed by how great the sashimi is.
