4 Crazy Ways Halloween's Going High-Tech This Year

4

NASA Employee Quits to Pursue High-Tech Costume Dreams

Back in 2011, Mark Rober noticed a complete lack of tech-savvy Halloween costumes on the market. At the time, he was working for a lowly, humdrum company called NASA as a mechanical engineer on projects like the Curiosity Rover.

wired.co.uk
*Yawn* Just another boring day at the office.

That's when he presumably shouted "Fuck Mars!" and quit to pursue his dreams of scaring the world pantsless. His first project was a costume that would make it appear as though the middle of your abdomen was completely blown through.

Mark Rober
You don't want to see the "sexy" version.

Rober used two iPads, one in the front and one in the back, and had them FaceTime each other to make it appear as though you could see completely through his body in real time.

The pretend hole in his body opened up everyone's eyes to the real hole in the market for amazing high-tech costumes. After everyone fell in love with Rober's creation, he came up with his own company, Digital Dudz, which he just sold to a British company called Morph Suits. They created a whole line of T-shirts and a free app allowing people to match up the shirt with the proper video on their phone, which slips into an inside pocket, making an easy yet horrifying costume, like the crowd-pleasing twitching eyeball held open with safety pins:

DigitalDudz
Simple, yet eye-catching.

There's also the creepy clown shirt with the accompanying realistic eyeball animation:

Mark Rober
Sweet dreams.

They even have something for the faint of heart:

Mark Rober
This enchanting effect will last at least 15 minutes, until your phone battery wears out.

The phone-in-the-costume trick also gives a special touch to already horrifying costumes:

Mark Rober
Disgusting. When will this trend of showing more flesh every year in Halloween costumes end?

Or, if you're not a fan of dressing up but still want to give people nightmares, there's always the option to display giant eyeballs on your car or front door.

Mark Rober

Mark Rober
We're pretty sure your insurance company will not take "because a car's giant eyeballs were staring at me" as a valid excuse
for your car accident.

But the coup de grace, and perhaps the most extensive costume Rober has come up with, is the gut-ripping costume:

Mark Rober
Man, these Apple Keynotes just keep getting weirder.

The app is sensitive to thrusting motions, so when you have someone come up behind you with the intent of ripping your guts out, the motion causes the sickeningly realistic animation to go into action. At the very least, since your phone is inside your shirt, these costumes accomplish the feat of giving people's texting fingers a break, even if only for a few hours.

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Drone Ghosts

Because terrorizing people with technology shouldn't just be something that is limited to the earthbound, several people have also taken to the skies with their Halloween spirit. Tom Mabe, for instance, has taken a near-silent remote-controlled flying helicopter and cleverly disguised it by dressing it like the Grim Reaper to haunt cemeteries:

MabeInAmerica
Finally, someone has given mourners a reason to avoid paying their respects to dead loved ones.

As if the thought of a wireless reaper coming after you for shockingly long distances isn't alarming enough, it is also accompanied by a dreadful screaming sound effect. In this instance, he helps out joggers by giving them that extra adrenal boost to get the blood pumping:

MabeInAmerica
"Don't give up! Just a little farther!"

Another iteration is the ghost drone created by Alton Porter, complete with glowing red eyes:

Alton Porter
"This guy always brings the best spirits to the party."

Otto Dieffenbach has taken his love of remote control gadgets to new heights by conjuring a witch drone that darts through the sky at a McGonagalling fast pace.

Otto Dieffenbach
Incidentally, robot witch is a staple of Harry Potter vs. Terminator fan fiction.

2

Insane Projection Displays (from the Devil)

Steve Charles of Warren, Michigan, decided to put his program engineering skills to good use by creating a full-fledged, nightmarish Halloween show in his basement.

WXYZ-TV
"Try to carve me. I dare you."

To create this dentally gifted pumpkin from hell, Charles used projections to give it that talking, lifelike appearance. He also has an array of singing skeletons and one that even plays the piano.

WXYZ-TV
"I'm sick to death of people requesting Billy Joel songs."

A few disturbed individuals dared to ask the question, "How can we make creepy projections even scarier?" The answer to that is of course using creepy projections of kids. Including everyone's favorite twins:

StrawCulture
Haunted hotel playset and ax-wielding husband sold separately.

To create The Shining twins, take a video of a little girl in costume, mirror it, drape a sheet over a piece of cardboard you've cut into the proper shape, then focus a projector repeating the video onto your cardboard. People will be lining up to play with the twins in no time!

One creative Halloween projectionist made what appears to be a recurring character in everyone's nightmares, Samara from The Ring, as a ghost playing the piano through a window. This is perhaps the best attempt ever to make sure you don't have to buy any candy, because there's no way in hell any trick-or-treaters would want to stop at your house after witnessing this:

5qu1d
She's playing the ballad of AHHH in Fuck Major.

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LED Stick Figure Costume for a Toddler

A photographer from California was pondering the best way to make his delightful toddler terrifying when he remembered that he had some Velcro and spare LED lights lying around. Being the loving dad that he was, Royce Hutain fashioned the lights onto his kid so that she looked like a pint-size bogeyman running around talking gibberish. The baby's sloppy movements and shrieking squeals only cement the notion that this isn't a baby at all, but a gremlin coming to steal your soul out of your kneecaps.

Visual Burrito
Be prepared to have the most adorable nightmare ever.