Weather 
Screw Salem and skip Sleepy Hollow. If you want to scare up something spooky this month, slash the clichés.
Start in the Keys. Campy, quirky and regularly NC-17, the 10-day Fantasy Fest in Key West was invented in the 1970s to goose visitors to the gay-friendly town during its low season. Think of it like a sequin-spangled, adults-only mash-up of Halloween and prom, electing a king and queen with an annual costume theme.
This year, it’s “Musical Icons and Iconic Musicals.” There are now 60 different events around town, from a zombie bike ride to a headdress ball with a prize of five thousand bucks for the most impressive.
Then again, you could head to St Louis. It’s the legacy of not one but five members of the Lemp clan, who all died by suicide. It makes their mansion a major draw in October. Come audition for a revival of “Ghost Hunters” every Thursday this month, complete with ghost-tracking gadgets and a paranormalist — all for just $44 per person.
If you’re keener to raise the spirits rather than hunt them down, head to Cassadaga, the tiny town just outside Orlando that’s like a psychic Disney World. Its residents lay claim to extrasensory gifts, from healing to speaking to the spirits.
Book a reading with one of them after you brave the Nightmare Hotel, which turns the local lodging house into a scare factory. Come on Oct. 17 and you can compete to be Scream King or Queen. And do you dare sit on the Devil’s Chair in the cemetery here at midnight? It might earn you a chat with Old Nick himself, or you may vanish — as one man supposedly did.
Otherwise, follow the flames of the Fifolet to Baton Rouge, La., which celebrates Halloween via the Cajun cryptid. Folklore holds that the eerie blue flame seduces those who see it into seeking out an elusive fortune buried in the bayou — only to lead them to a watery grave.
Join one of three events over the weekend, including: a $45-per-person pub crawl, a costumed krewe parade and the Fifolet Costume Ball, an adults-only bash on Saturday night ($60).
Poor Emma Crawford had no idea that she’d become an ironic icon after her death at just 28. The Manitou Springs, Colo.-local asked to be buried high on the hill when she died of TB in the 1890s. But cowboy gravediggers half-assed the job and her coffin clattered down the mountain a few decades later.
A waggish local took inspiration from this grim event to create a quirky Halloween celebration in the 1990s that would help cement the town’s status as alt and off-beat: the Emma Crawford Coffin Races.
On Oct. 24, the free-to-attend race will feature teams of five pushing handmade coffins down Manitou Avenue — one inside, dressed as Emma, and four to get it over the finishing line. There are prizes for everything from the three fastest to the most creative riff on Emma.
Many cities stateside mark Día de los Muertos with as much gusto as anywhere in Mexico, especially border spots like San Antonio, where almost 200,000 people come every year to celebrate. This year’s events run from Oct. 22 through 25, with a Day of the Dead river parade that includes illuminated barges and live music.
The freebie, three-day Muertos Fest in Hemisfair Park is a showcase for more than 80 ofrendas, or altars (cast a vote for your fave), plus five stages with more music and two processions, all of them shot through with vibes that both honor and celebrate the dead.
And if you’re dead-set on a trip to Salem? Swap the coasts and head to Oregon instead, which has its own spooky town by that name.
For the last 40 years, the Oregon School for the Deaf has turned its basement into the ultimate haunted house, a 15,000-square-foot labyrinth aptly known as the Nightmare Factory, with tickets from $20. This year’s theme is “Containment Breach on Basement Level 3.” Expect ghouls, strobe lighting and sudden scares.
