Playing Dead

Don't know what to do this Halloween? Why don't you start with zombie hunting?

by Lauren Seibert and Holly Otterbein

[ holidays we like ]

Noah Scalin GARDENHEAD: Each day for a year, Noah Scalin assembled artwork depicting a skull — out of everything from flower bouquets to books to found scrap metal.

Screw Thanksgiving, July Fourth or anything happening in December — Halloween, in all its goofy escapism, innocent trickery and sloppy sexiness, is the best holiday of all. So good, in fact, that it's the perfect litmus test. Does your mom like Halloween? No? Then you probably shouldn't be friends with her.

Mix and match themes from Shaun of the Dead and The Da Vinci Code and you arrive at one of the more athletic ways to spend Halloween. The Undead Invasion literally has zombies taking over the city, with teams competing to find and eliminate them using clues and gadgets. "We call it adventure in the spirit of the intellectual," says founder Joshua Czarda. Winners get prizes. Everybody gets drinks. Sat., Oct. 31, 7 p.m., $35, begins at Welcome Park, 240 S. Second St., 888-702-9039, sold out with a waiting list at undeadinvasion.com.

A collision of Mexican tradition and American ghoulishness defines the PMA's culture-conflating dance party. As the band Cumbiagra plays the classic cumbias of Colombia and Mexico, costume-clad guests can sip on cocktails with eyeball ice cubes, dance, take a turn at face painting and tarot card readings, and even join in a tour of some of the museum's creepier artwork. Surely that includes Duchamp's Étant Donnés? Fri., Oct. 30, 5-8:45 p.m., free with $12-$16 admission, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2600 Ben Franklin Parkway, 215-763-8100, philamuseum.org.

Throbbing through a darkly lit room, the live organ music of T. Desiree Hines texturizes the experience of watching a silent film and sets the mood for a more old-school Halloween. She'll both improvise and draw from classical pieces during her accompaniment of Nosferatu, with reverberating notes enhancing the chill of one of the earliest films in the horror genre. "Before all the other Dracula movies," says Hines, "there was Nosferatu." Fri., Oct. 30, 7 and 11 p.m., $5-$10, First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut St., 800-595-4849, traversetheater.tix.com.

Some 200 years ago, death and disease swept through Old City. Add an eerie pinch of history to your Halloween and check out the public house in Elfreth's Alley, where its 18th-century owner may have succumbed to yellow fever's fatal grip. Guides in colonial costume will narrate the story. "This is a talk we don't ever do," says director Dena Ferrara. "It's just for Halloween." Sat., Oct. 31, 1 and 2 p.m., $3-$15, Elfreth's Alley Historic House, 124 Elfreth's Alley, 215-574-0560, elfrethsalley.org.

"From middle school onward, I dressed in all black," says Noah Scalin. So it's no surprise that he later embarked on a yearlong project to create one piece of art depicting a skull each day, which he published on skulladay.com. What is shocking, though, is that the site's themes of DIY creativity and acceptance of death garnered praise from librarians, teachers and other non-Goths around the world. Eventually, Scalin documented the project in a book, Skulls (Lark Books, $15). He'll display photographs and read from his book, discuss the significance of skulls in modern culture, and teach attendees how to make skulls out of rice, duct tape, silk bubbles and other materials. We don't know what silk bubbles are, either. Sat., Oct. 31, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., free with $10-$14 admission, Mütter Museum, 19 S. 22nd St., 215-563-3737, collphyphil.org.

The stars of Revival Burlesque, one of the flashiest, artsiest, most surreal nudie shows in town, like D&D. And fantasy novels. And wizards and fairies and gnomes. Stop drooling on your 20-sided die, geeks, and see their Halloween-themed show based on all of the above. Fri.-Sat., Oct. 30-31, 8 p.m., $15, Walking Fish Theatre, 2509 Frankford Ave., 215-427-9255, walkingfishtheatre.com.

(editorial@citypaper.net)