Halloween is creeping closer, and Vancouver has plenty of options to help you prepare for, and enjoy the year's spookiest night.
First, you need a costume, and one of the best places to start is at The Party Bazaar at 1296 Station Street. The store has a massive selection of ghoulish attire ranging from your classic ghosts and vampires to the inevitable franchise fare of Transformers, Halo, Angry Birds etc.
The Dressew Supply fabric store at 337 West Hastings also offers costumes and accessories that have people lining out the door ever year. So does Spirit Halloween at 557 West Broadway, a seasonal store with a vast inventory of wigs, masks and decorations.
Those fashioning a military theme this year should try Gorilla Surplus at 1458 East Broadway. It's filled with hardware ready to turn you into a cop, a SWAT team officer or even Maverick from "Top Gun."
Next, you'll need a pumpkin, and one of the best places to go is the Richmond Country Farms Pumpkin Patch at 12900 Steveston Highway. There you'll find vast fields of little orange orbs that you can carve into ghoulish faces. The farm also offers singalong hay rides, a corn maze, animal viewing and children's entertainment. It opens Oct. 6.
Alternatively, try Southlands Heritage Farm at 6767 Balaclava Street in Vancouver. You can pick up a pumpkin from the farm's Old Apple Orchard and take a look at horses and goats along the way.
When the time comes, Vancouver offers plenty of haunted houses and other Halloween-themed events perfectly primed for you to strut your spooky stuff. The PNE'sFright Nights at Playland includes a series of terrifying attractions such as the Asylum, where mad doctors perform criminal experiments on insane patients, or Car-n-Evil, where people come face to face with fearsome clowns.
The Dunbar Haunted House Halloween tradition is put on by two families in the Shaughnessy area. This year's theme is "The Terror of History," with sets including an Egyptian Necropolis, the Spanish Inquisition and even the Crusades.
East Vancouver's Parade of the Lost Souls is a series of backyard displays that in past years have included animatronic snakes and the zombies from Michael Jackson's "Thriller." The parade's location is kept secret until 24 hours before the event.
However you plan to celebrate Halloween, Vancouver has a vast array of attractions ready to scare you silly.
Also on HuffPost
