Grim Reapers

The Grim Reaper; the one who comes to take your life during your final hour. For years this has been a Halloween costume staple. The robe with long sleeves (frayed on the edges), and a hood with optional face camouflage. Of course it wouldn’t be complete without a tall scythe to…. do what with? We don’t exactly know. Possibly for popping off heads, but what does the guy in a grim reaper costume really need heads for? All he should need is your soul.

Regardless, just because it’s been overdone doesn’t mean you can’t do it. With some creativit, even the most common Halloween costumes can gain renewed life and a serious wow-factor. When you already have such a fearsome thing to work with, the options should be endless.

The first route you could take is to work with what everyone commonly understands as being ‘how the grim reaper looks’. Some good ways to spice it up would be to first get a really nice robe. Something that doesn’t look like it was made from cheapy-cheap Halloween fabric, but of some kind of thick heavy material. It should be a little too big on you and have very wide sleeves, to give the illusion that underneath is something made of bones, or perhaps nothing at all. That would raise the question as to whether or not he was some kind of formless entity. The second thing you should take care of is the scythe. If you could find a good tree branch or pole and create your own scythe from it, that would make for something 100 times better than the plastic ones you can buy at the store for a few dollars. After that, you’re basically set. You could add accessories, like a rope or chain belt, or a sand timer hanging from around your neck. Perhaps maybe even a clasp for your robe made to look like someone’s bones.

There’s always the option of being a more casual modern grim reaper as well. You could simply put on black clothes and paint your face to look like a skull. Make sure you still have that awesome scythe with you though, to help fellow party goers differentiate between you and the other guy that just came as a skeleton.