Everyone already wants to come in costume. Give the costumes a plot. A murder mystery is the Halloween party with a body in the next room, a room full of suspects, and a killer sitting at your table, passing the pumpkin soup.
no gore required. dread does the catering.
Six Halloween-native cases, written for the thirty-first and ready to host tonight. $29 each.
On any other night, talking your friends into costume is the hard part. On 31 October they arrive dressed and in character before you open the door.
Our cases run on candlelight and suspicion, not fake blood. The scariest thing in the room is the person who knows more than they are saying.
Most Halloween parties peak at the costume judging. This one builds all night, to an accusation the whole table has to make out loud.
Mixed group of friends, workmates and plus-ones? Perfect. Nothing introduces people faster than accusing each other of murder.
These are not the historical Case Files. The Halloween Files are original fiction, six invented houses and villages and rocks, each built for one night of the year. Nothing in them is supernatural. Every haunting has a living hand behind it, and your table can prove which one. Six to twelve players, about ninety minutes, $29 a case.
The bonfire is still burning itself out on the meadow when the mill owner is carried into his own counting room. Half the village will tell you the old year took him. The other half knows exactly who was standing where.
Host this case · $29 →The medium is dead in the high chapel, behind a door that was locked, inside a circle of joined hands. Nothing here is supernatural. The séance is a fraud, the darkness is a stage effect, and the room can prove exactly how a living person did it.
Host this case · $29 →Sir Aubrey is dead and the house is sealed with everybody still in costume. The whole puzzle is identity: who was inside which mask, and when. The masks come off in the first hour. The lying does not.
Host this case · $29 →The professor is dead in his own lecture theatre, in the year the city least wanted another body. Six of his colleagues have a reason and a scalpel, and one of them has been telling the truth in a way nobody has noticed.
Host this case · $29 →The Principal Keeper is dead on a rock nobody can leave until the weather turns. Six people, one staircase, and a light that has to keep turning all night whatever else happens.
Host this case · $29 →A town that sells ghosts for a living, on the one night a year it makes real money. Every ghost in it is a fake, which is the point. The crepe paper is still up in the Empire Hotel dining room when the body is found.
Host this case · $29 →Every role comes with a costume note, so guests can dress to the case rather than guessing. The six files run from 1888 to 1971, so a hat and an attitude do most of the work.
Cases play best with 6 to 12. Fewer than six, the two-player Case Files suit better. More than twelve, extras make an excellent jury.
Serve things that survive interrogation: one-hand food, a slow dinner between acts, dessert saved for the verdict. Nobody cross-examines well over a roast.
Candles, lamps, the TV glow. Keep the overheads off and the phone torches for the evidence. Dread is a lighting decision.
You are the victim, so plan your big moment: a toast, a scream from the hallway, a dignified collapse. Then enjoy the rare pleasure of watching your friends fight over your memory.
The evidence arrives on your guests' phones in stages, so ask everyone to arrive charged. A charger basket by the door has saved more than one investigation.
Pick a case, send the invitations, and let the costumes do what they were always meant to do.
