Outdoor Halloween Pranks – 13 Funny Pranks for the Spooky Season

Halloween is not only the festival of ghosts and ghouls, but also of merry pranks! There’s nothing better than playing a few pranks to spice up the spooky festivities. If you’re looking for some ideas to entertain your neighborhood, family or friends with something spooky, these 13 Outdoor Halloween Pranks are just what you need to make the evening a memorable one 😉.

Halloween pranks are a great opportunity to combine fun and creepiness and prank your loved ones or even random passers-by. But don’t worry, all the outdoor Halloween pranks presented here are safe and legal, provided you follow certain rules.

13 Ingenious Outdoor Halloween Pranks

The Halloween pranks presented here are all meant to be performed outside. But of course, there are also numerous Halloween pranks that you can play on someone inside your own home. Here on Abenteuer Freundschaft you will also find 13 such Halloween pranks for home.

1. The Talking Halloween Pumpkin

This and most of the following outdoor Halloween pranks are great if you’re expecting guests for a Halloween party and have a garden or patio. Carve scary faces into pumpkins and place them in the front yard as Halloween decorations. Inside one of the hollowed-out pumpkins, place a tape recorder or smartphone that you can control remotely or use to play something at just the right moment. Whether Android or iOS, all popular smartphones can be controlled remotely from a PC with the help of the app TeamViewer.

Record a funny and at the same time scary message in a disguised voice, for example: “Sweetie or else trick!” or a loud “BUH!“. You can also use an app for this to alienate your voice, or instead of a message, just make a sound collage of creepy sound effects. The important thing is that you have a really creepy sound recording up your sleeve.

Now you lie in wait and wait until the first guests arrive. Every time someone passes by the prepared Halloween pumpkin, you remotely play the recording and your guests will be scared out of their wits! A wonderful start to a successful Halloween party!

2. Hidden Horror

Another way to play a prank on your Halloween guests or even family members is to put on a scary costume and/or a particularly scary mask yourself. Then you hide behind a bush or tree or other obstacle and jump out at the right moment to scare your victim.

When choosing your Halloween costume, make sure it is appropriate for the age of the people you want to scare. Some Halloween costumes and masks are delightfully gruesome, but a little too scary for kids.

3. Attack of the Horror Doll

For this Halloween prank you need a creepy doll, invisible thread and a tree or balcony, a canopy or a window over the front door. Attach the invisible thread to the Halloween figure in several places. A puppet that represents a scary character is also good for this.

Now stay hidden in a tree and let the puppet fall down by the strings when someone walks by, so that it dangles directly in the person’s field of vision. This also works if you plop it down from a window or balcony.

4. Confusing Signposts With Eerie Messages

You can do this outdoor Halloween prank in a garden, as well as in your neighborhood or in a park. Craft a series of wayfinding signs on which you write spooky messages or creepy places like, “Hell,” “Just keep running…,” “To the Witch’s House,” etc.

Design the signs in a spooky Halloween style, for example, with a typical creepy font and small monsters and ghosts around the edges. Then place the signs in different places to mislead your guests or passers-by or to send them spooky messages.

5. Firecrackers Under the Doormat

Imagine you’re coming to a friend’s Halloween party and you’re just about to ring the doorbell when it starts popping right under your feet. Your hair will probably stand on end and you’ll have the right hairstyle for a truly scary party.

This is exactly the trick you can play on your guests. If they haven’t stepped on the doormat when you ring the bell, you can politely ask them to wipe their shoes before opening the door. And
RUMMS!

By the way, letting something bang loudly has the positive side effect of driving away evil spirits, at least that’s what popular belief says…

6. The Bushes Have Eyes

For this Halloween prank, you’ll need an electric string of lights, extension cords for electricity and a bush or shrub or hedge that your victim will walk by. Also, it should already be dark for the effect to be fully effective.

First, unscrew all but two of the small bulbs from the string of lights. The two you leave in should be about one apart, like a pair of human eyes. Then drape the string of lights in the bush or hedge so that they are not immediately visible. When you turn on the power, it should appear as if a pair of glowing eyes is peering out of the plant. Ideal for this purpose is a chain of lights with red bulbs or LEDs.

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Connect the light chain to one or more extension cords so that you can switch on the light from a distance or from a hiding place. As always, wait for someone to approach and turn on the light when the person is standing right in front of the bush. Not only the hills, also the bushes have eyes!

Bonus Tip:

If you want the “glowing eyes to have a proper eye shape and look like viciously pinched narrow slits there is a simple trick for this. You need a blank cardboard roll from a toilet paper or kitchen paper roll. Cut the eyes into these as openings.

Now you can stick the light chain with adhesive tape in the roll so that the lamps appear exactly behind the openings. By the way, with this variant you can also use a single larger bulb (preferably red!), because the light naturally emerges from the openings and thus creates the impression of glowing demon eyes in the dark.

7. The Deceptive Luring Ghost Money

A popular type of outdoor prank involves money lying enticingly somewhere on the sidewalk or other highly visible place. And then at the exact moment someone bends down to grab it…. “BANG!!!” …it’s pulled away by an invisible string. Everyone knows this prank, it’s an absolute classic!

But what does it have to do with Halloween, you ask? Okay, here’s the Halloween twist you can give the prank: you first need an object like a wallet or a single 5-euro bill or even a coin to which you stick invisible string.

At the other end, you connect this to a hidden tape recorder so that when you pull the cord, the play switch is pressed and a horrible, grumbling ghostly laugh is heard. You can, of course, lie in wait yourself in the hiding place and play the laughter from the tape (or smartphone). Another alternative is to build a tower of pots behind a bush, for example, and tie the string to the lowest one. When pulled, the tower collapses and there is a huge clatter!

You can now take advantage of the victim’s fright and pull the string with a sudden jerk and pull the wallet or money towards you.

8. The Car in the Spider Web

Some outdoor Halloween pranks should definitely not be played on random people you don’t even know. This one is one of them, because it involves a creative embellishment of a car. This prank should only be played on family members or friends, and only if you have a good relationship and can assume that the person will take it with humor. Otherwise, unfortunately, the fun goes away very quickly. Attention: even if you don’t damage a car directly when just “dressing it up”, an action like the one described below can lead to a report and unpleasant consequences.

A good way to avoid such trouble from the start is to simply decorate your own cart. As the name of this prank suggests, the car is wrapped in a giant art spider web. On top, of course, comes a giant artificial spider (for example, as a stuffed animal). In addition, if you want, you can add Halloween accessories like skulls or severed arms and legs made of rubber to the spider web, so that it looks like the spider has already caught a few people in its web.

Believe me, the result is rather eye-catching and also a wonderful surprise for car owners who understand fun and like Halloween!

9. The Monster in the Back Seat

Let’s stay on the subject of the car. If you have to take someone in the car on Halloween, this is a perfect opportunity for the Halloween joke “The monster in the back seat”. All you need is a monster 😉 You can use a human doll dressed up as a monster, a giant stuffed animal dressed up as a monster, a lifelike figure cut out of cardboard, or even a living monster in the form of a costumed human.

You put this monster in the back seat of your car and make sure that it can’t be seen directly from the outside. If you have dark tinted windows in your car, they will do half the work for you.
Otherwise, just put a blanket over it or put some cardboard boxes on the middle seat so it’s covered.

It is important that your victim does not catch sight of the monster until he opens the car door to take a seat as well and there is an element of surprise. If the monster is under a blanket, just ask the person to give you some of the supposed water bottles under the blanket and when you air them, the terror in the back seat reveals itself.

10. The Spider Dog

The “spider dog” has become almost a modern classic of outdoor Halloween pranks and has gained internet fame, through funny videos like this one:

In essence, it’s about a dog that wears a spider costume and scares people. for this, of course, you need a dog of suitable size that will let you do it. Keep in mind that the welfare of the animal should always take precedence over the prank. The dog must not feel uncomfortable at any time and must not be forced to do anything that he resists. Appropriate costumes are available at Amazon*, among other places.

Putting a dog in such a costume is definitely a super funny and actually pretty creepy Halloween prank in the dark! If you want, you can, similar to the people in the video, extend the prank and put fake spider webs in different places, with supposed human body parts in them. If you have accomplices in this prank, you can also provide additional shock moments by having the accomplices dress up as spider-webbed victims of the giant spider and lie in certain places where they are unexpectedly found by the victims of this prank.

11. Floating Ectoplasm

For this prank you will need clear plastic wrap and, if you want to make the prank really nasty, also a transparent gel, for example hair gel or gelatin. On a door that is open, tape clear plastic wrap to the door frame at face level and secure it to the left and right with parcel tape. It should be stretched as much as possible so that it is not visible at first glance, especially in the semi-darkness of the evening. Whoever now walks through this door will first experience a surprise when he gets the transparent film in his face.

In the somewhat nastier variant, you smear the above-mentioned transparent gel on the transparent film. A joke, because you only with close friends or people whose reaction you can estimate that they do not react pissed off.

12. The Corpse in the Front Yard

Recycling can be spooky too For this Halloween prank, you’ll need lots of plastic trash, large black plastic sheeting or large trash bags, and package tape or string. Your goal is to make a fake corpse out of it, wrapped in plastic and tied up. It works especially well if you use objects of different sizes for the different parts of the body, such as large plastic canisters for the torso, smaller plastic bottles for the arms and legs, an old ball for the head, and so on.

Now place the ready tied up corpse in a place in your garden, where your Halloween visitors won’t see it right away, but will suddenly discover it when walking towards the front door. As a bonus accessory, you can put a garden shovel next to it.

Important:

Please note that this is a rather macabre prank that only people with a strong black sense of humor will find funny, but that some people may find inappropriate. Therefore, think carefully about who the targets of this prank are, who can see the fake “corpse” (neighbors?), etc. Common sense will guide you as to who can be expected to play such a joke.

13. The Ghost on the Drone

Are you the proud owner of a drone, or if not, have you always wanted to buy one anyway? If so, then you can wonderfully use the tech gadget for a Halloween prank. All you need besides the drone is a horror doll that looks like a ghost or skeleton and something to attach this doll to the drone so that it hangs tightly to it.

Now you can launch the drone and let the ghost fly through the air to scare your prank victims. But be careful that you never get too close to people with the drone to avoid accidents.

Happy Halloween and have fun implementing these Outdoor Halloween Pranks!

Halloween ideas are not the only thing Abenteuer Freundschaft has to offer. In our idea treasure trove, you’ll find a wide selection of recreational tips for friends, for couples, and for families with kids. Stay a little longer to browse 😉

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