An Alexa-Powered Halloween (Smart Home Series Part 11)

An Alexa Powered Halloween:
Enhance Your Halloween Using Alexa and Your Amazon Echo

 

Halloween is upon us. Although Halloween falls on a Tuesday this year, many communities are celebrating this weekend.  Additionally, many of the adult parties are scheduled for Saturday. Many families are using this weekend to prepare for Halloween.  If you have an Amazon Echo or Dot, you can use Alexa as an adjunct to your Halloween preparation and celebrations.

Today, we return to our Smart Home Series.  This article is Part 11 of the series. You can go back and read Part 1 here.  This post examines fun, Halloween-related things to do with Alexa. We'll look at spooky skills, spooky sounds, and spooky videos, as well as how to find some Halloween-related recipes using Alexa.

Spooky Skills

As we learned earlier, Alexa has a plethora of skills which can extend her functionality. Amongst these skills are some specific Halloween oriented skills.  Remember, you can activate most skills by saying "Alexa, activate the [name of skill] skill."  (Skills which require account linking usually need to be activated from the skill's page at Amazon, or through the Skills section of the Alexa app.  More information about skills and how to activate them can be found in Part 3 of our Alexa series.)  Since most of these spooky skills do not require account linking, they can be activated with a voice command.


What follows is a list of some useful or fun Alexa Halloween skills. This is not an all encompassing list, as new skills are being developed every day.   Hopefully, you'll find a couple of skills in this list that will make your own Halloween a little more fun or easier.

NOTE: A lot of the descriptions in this article come right from the skill or video description. Many are a little cheesy!

Halloween Costume Ideas

Need a last minute costume? Out of ideas on how to dress? The Halloween Costume Ideas skill is here to help. Halloween Costume Ideas is a skill created out of frustration in finding the right costume for Halloween. Simply ask "Alexa, open Halloween Costume Ideas" to get started. You will have a costume idea in no time!

Halloween Facts

Halloween Facts tells you interesting trivia about the holiday. Just ask Alexa to open Halloween facts to get an interesting Halloween fact.

Haunted House

Haunted House is a choose-your-own-adventure type story.  Haunted House lets you experience a stormy Halloween night.

Surprise Scream Prank! 

The Surprise Scream Prank practical joke skill will play 60 SECONDS of silence, followed by a VERY LOUD horror movie scream! So, the skill will NOT make any sound when you first open it, it's not broken... the silence is there on purpose to give you time to set up the prank.

HalloweenFunJokes

HalloweenFunJokes will tell you Halloween-themed jokes.  To use it say: "Alexa ask Halloween Jokes tell me a spooky joke" 

Trick or Treat

Trick or Treat is an adventure game. Bravely set out into the neighborhood to receive candy, avoid tricks, earn achievements and find out more about your neighbors. Trick or Treat is a quick and easy game that you can replay. Try earning achievements by seeing how many lifetime treats you can get.

Something Scary

Want Alexa to whisper something scary or spooky to you? This skill will whisper something sure to scare any listener.

HP Wizard Spell Book

A simple app for Harry Potter fans. This skill will give the user a spell straight out of their very own spell book, along with a description of what the spell does.

Scary Tale

This is a story-telling skill.  Tap. Tap. Tap. A ghost is knocking at your window!

Open the crypt, and be prepared for a spooky, scary short story customized to include you or your friend's name! All stories are original and chosen randomly for maximum scariness!

Trick or Treat Unicef

This skill honors the "Trick or Treat for Unicef" tradition.  Are you ready to have some scary fun?!? With the Trick or Treat Unicef Skill, listen to some spooky sounds to get you ready for Halloween, learn some fun facts you definitely don't know about Halloween, and play a game of Ghosty Says - like "Simon Says", but so much more spookier!

Spooky Scream

This is another skill that produces screaming sounds.  These realistic screams will be sure to send a shiver down anyone's spine. Set the number of seconds or minutes you want Alexa to start the scream. 

Radio Fear

Get your freak-out on with Radio Fear, a subcast of all of the best horror podcasts and tales of the strange, weird, and supernatural. New episodes every day.  Now playing:

- Lore

- Last Podcast on the Left

- Welcome to Night Vale

- The NoSleep Podcast

- And That's Why We Drink

- Snap Judgment Presents: Spooked

Trick Or Treat Trivia

This skill tests your knowledge of Halloween trivia with five spooky questions.

Haunted Adventure

Another skill that is an adventure story, taking you through a Haunted House.  Alexa will act as your magical wizard as you navigate through a scary haunted mansion. You never know when something might creep out of the shadows and make a scary sound. Cats, ghouls, and mummies run rampant in these parts, so be careful. You do have Alexa to protect you, but find your way out fast, she only has one magical wand!

Use a scanner by saying, "Use Scanner", and you can get a hint.

There are 9 possible endings to the story.

Radio Witch's Tale 

Radio Witch's Tale plays episodes from  the old-time radio show The Witch's Tale, a popular horror fantasy series 

Unofficial Harry Potter Spells Library

This is another skill that reads spells from the collection in Hogwart's Library.  

Halloween Feel The Pressure 

This skill is a game.  You progress through each foul level, by answering a terrifying question based on a horrifying letter of the alphabet, that Alexa diabolically selects. Some questions are spine-chillingly easy, some questions are blood-curdlingly hard.  You need 10 correct answers in a row, to save your soul.  This game is best enjoyed in the dark.

Ghost Detector 

Ghost Detector uses highly advanced technology to detect spirits and beings from the beyond!

Collect Ghost Bux by detecting and capturing ghosts. However, you can only capture one per day. Our Ghost Detector scientists are hard at work developing improvements, gadgets and missions that you will be able to unlock with Ghost Bux.

There are hundreds of possible ghosts, see if you can catch them all!

Spooky House

Ask Alexa to speak with your spooky house and find a ghost! You never know where it will turn up.  Invoke by saying "Alexa ask Spooky House to find the ghost."

Spooky Sounds Skills

There are quite a few skills designed to promote a spooky ambience for Halloween. Many of these focus on playing spooky background sounds.  If you are expecting Trick or Treaters, you can move Alexa near your door (or pair a Bluetooth door-side speaker) and greet the children with spooky sounds. I like to clothe Alexa in some fake cobwebs for extra ambience.  

Spooky Music

This skill contains over 90 minutes of unique and unsettling instrumental music. These are not your traditional haunted house sounds, rather they are more in the vein of today's modern horror films and video games.

After you say "play the music", Alexa will play through the tracks in the playlist. "Alexa, stop" will end your session, but Alexa will remember where you left off the next time you start the skill.

Creepy Audio

This skill plays 90 minutes of creepy instrumental music, perfect for Halloween or other spooky engagements. After you say "start the music", Alexa will play through the tracks in the playlist. "stop" will end your session, but Alexa will remember where you left off the next time you start the skill.

Halloween Music

Halloween Music plays scary, creepy, and fun music for your trick or treating or Halloween party. Get in the Halloween spirit with this entertaining skill.

Spooky Halloween Sounds

Spooky Halloween Sounds plays a continuous loop of scary, spooky, and frightening sounds, perfect for trick-or-treat night or inspiring some Halloween spirit among your family or co-workers.

Just say "Alexa, start Spooky Halloween Sounds" to get started.  The sounds will continue to play until you say "Alexa, stop".

Halloween Sounds

Halloween Sounds plays scary, creepy, and fun sounds for your trick or treat night or Halloween party. Get in the Halloween spirit with this entertaining skill.

Halloween: Spooky Night 

This is another skill which provides spooky background sounds.

Halloween Sounds

A second skill to provide you with Halloween Sounds.  Halloween Sounds provides a high quality stream of very spooky sounds. To start, just say "Alexa, launch Halloween Sounds" or "Alexa, play Halloween Sounds."

Halloween Ambience

Jump straight into the spirit of the Halloween season; simply say: 'Alexa, start Halloween Ambience' and you've got an hour of fantastic scary background music.

Spooky Sounds

When you need scary, spooky, spine chilling and heart pounding sounds look no further then this skill. You WON'T be able to sleep tonight!

Find the audio easter egg.

50 minutes of pure original spook in an endless loop that goes on forever.

Halloween Playlists

Amazon Prime Music has a lot of Halloween Playlists which are free for Prime (or Amazon Music) members.  Most of these can be found at this link.  Playlists tend to focus on Halloween-related songs, rather than sounds.  These are great if you are having a Halloween Party. If you have more than one Echo device, one can be set to play a Halloween Sounds skill, while another can be set to  play a musical playlist.  These are only a few of the Halloween playlist choices.

Of course, any of these can be invoked by saying "Alexa, play [name of album/playlist] from Amazon Prime Music. You may also queue up a playlist using the Alexa app and send it to your Echo device.

99 Must-Have Halloween Classics (Album)

Includes 99 Halloween songs, some classical, many from horror movies, all performed by the "Halloween All Stars."  Other selections by these musicians, some Prime eligible, can be found here.

Halloween Music Collection (Album)

Creepy, but not scary, music performed by Midnight Syndicate. Contains 22 tracks.

Kidz Bop Halloween Hits! (Album)

15 Kid-safe, kid-friendly Halloween tunes.

Scary Halloween Music (Album)

This is mainly a collection of sound effects with some music tracks included in the list. Contains 14 songs.

Essential Halloween - 50 Scary Songs (Album)

A collection of covers of the most popular Halloween songs. Geared towards adults.  

Halloween Party Soundtrack (Playlist)

2 hrs 15 mins, 34 songs. The spookiest rock, hip-hop, and everything in between to soundtrack your Halloween party. Great mix of old and new, no bad language for kids.

Kids' Halloween (Playlist)

1 hr 0 mins, 20 songs. Get your little ghouls and goblins ready and enjoy this mix of family-friendly Halloween songs.

Scary Songs for Halloween (Playlist)

1 hr 53 mins, 29 songs.  Revisit the eeriest tracks, from Alice Cooper to Talking Heads and beyond. Boo! 

Haunted House Sounds (Playlist)

1 hr 38 mins, 29 songs. This is a playlist of spooky sounds, rather than of spooky songs.   Scare the neighbors this Halloween with these seriously spooky sounds.  For the most part, these are higher quality sounds than you will find in one of the "sound skills."

Spooky Videos

As we discussed earlier, if you have a Fire TV Stick, you can voice control it with Alexa.  And if you have Prime, the Prime Video Library contains many Halloween-related videos.  You can watch these videos as a part of your Halloween celebration, or you can use them as background during a party or trick-or-treating.

This list is not extensive.  There are approximately 200 Halloween-themed videos in the Prime Library, with additional titles available to rent or purchase.  If you subscribe to any premium channels or services, additional videos will be found there.

Since almost every horror movie can be deemed Halloween-related, we are not going to focus on those here.  This link will take you to a list of over 3500 "horror" movies in the Prime Video Library.  Instead, we'll focus on the "Ambience" type videos, with a few Halloween Movies thrown in.

Halloween at Dracula's Haunted Castle

Transform your room into Dracula's Castle! Halloween at Count Dracula's Haunted Castle is an eerie and fun atmospheric video piece that creates great atmosphere for Halloween parties or anytime you want to hang out in Count Dracula's Castle. Complete with thunder storm and some paranormal activity here and there, Halloween at Dracula's Haunted Castle is just what you need to get your lurk on! 

Scary Pumpkin Halloween Holiday Video

One Scene. Nature Sounds. This is the scariest of the tree pumpkins so here is 2 hours 40 minutes of just her. The frog night sounds are a little haunting at first but quickly become relaxing and good company. -chill dude 

Happy Halloween Fun Spooky Music 6 Hour Ambient Video

Happy Halloween Fun Spooky is a 6 hour ambient video. This video is great for the Halloween festivities, this music is perfect for parties and setting your home Halloween theme. 

Spooky Halloween Tale

The crack of thunder. Scary eyes. Crows cawing under a full moon. A creepy collage of images and sound to get your fright factor going!  Only runs 4 minutes, so this is a good one to play on repeat.

Spooky Pumpkin Scary 8 Hour Ambient Video for Halloween

Trick or treat! Get in the Halloween "spirit" with an eerie video of a traditional carved pumpkin. This ambient video is perfect for parties by filling the room with its dark ominous tones.

Halloween Window Projections

This Halloween animation series is the perfect way to set the mood for Halloween! It contains 6 different Halloween scenes with subtle sound effects and music. The scenes include a haunted house, graveyard with ghosts and zombies, cemetery gates, pumpkin patch with bats and floating pumpkin faces.

Halloween Horror Movie Marathon: Silent Classics - Nosferatu - The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 

Take a chilling journey back to the silent era with two of the most influential German Expressionist horror movies ever made. Nosferatu (1922) is the original vampire film - this Count is far from the bloodsucking playboys of later Draculas. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) tells the twisted tale of a somnambulist who commits murder while under the spell of the sinister Dr. Caligari. These Silent Movies make a great background for a spooky ambience.

Hoopla Halloween- Halloween Songs For Kids

Kids it's a spooky Halloween Night! Get ready to sing and dance with the monsters, skeletons, zombies and many more creepy characters but try not to get too scared! Happy Hoopla Halloween! 

 Halloween Shorts: Tales Of Your Childhood Nightmare Stories 

Tales of your childhood nightmare stories: horror short films. A series of four different horror shorts in one. A horror anthology based from childhood nightmares that have to do with our childhood fears. The boogeyman, an imaginary friend, or just being afraid of the dark. All are based in our minds. We explore the world of our fears.What makes us scared,and why are we afraid of these fears. 

Halloween night, 9 hours holiday music video

Halloween has come! This scary video with music is perfect for parties. Happy Halloween!  9 hours of background video and sounds.

Classic Halloween Videos

In addition to the many "ambience" type videos, the Prime Library includes many Halloween Movies and Classics. Some of these are:

• The Witches:  A recently orphaned young boy is taken to England by his grandmother. At their hotel, he stumbles across a witches convention plotting to rid the world of children. Starring:  Anjelica Huston, Mai Zetterling, Jasen Fisher 
• The Witch: In this exquisitely made and terrifying new horror film, the age-old concepts of witchcraft, black magic and possession are innovatively brought together to tell the intimate and riveting story of one family's frightful unraveling in the New England wilderness circa 1630. 
• A Little Halloween: The heartwarming tale of an odd girl who just wants Halloween to last forever...
• Addams Family Values:  The family's future grows bleak when the no-good nanny marries Fester and has the kids shipped off to summer camp. But Wednesday still has a Thing or two up her sleeve...
• The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About Halloween!  The Cat in the Hat takes Nick and Sally on a Halloween ride filled with howlers and shockers and scary fandangles, big laughs and music and fun from all angles! Their fright-filled adventure takes them deep into the Oooky-ma-kooky Closet where Nick and Sally discover the very best Halloween costumes ever.

Halloween Food and Makeup

The Allrecipes Skill

Enable the "Allrecipes" skill, and you can ask Alexa to find you one of the thousands of Halloween Treats in their database.  You can narrow your choices by theme or ingredients and even send recipes to your phone.

Halloween Gummy Candy Skull: DIY Food Ideas for Kids

This is a prime video.  DIY Halloween Candy Skull made out of Gummy Jello! The video shows you a DIY life hacks on DIY Halloween candy skull. You can say its DIY Halloween food props or a DIY Halloween food tutorial for your Halloween party!

Basic How-To Halloween Makeups

Another Prime Video, in this one Tempe Digital presents 20 unique, easy-to-apply makeups, all created from materials found around the home and in local costume shops. Professional Hollywood makeup artists introduce you to some of their secrets, explained in easy to understand, step-by-step detail! Makeups include: Zombie, Pumpkin-Head, Lizard, Witch, Cat, Exorcism Victim, Vampire, Alien, Burn Victim, Frankenstein's Monster, more! 

Have a Happy Alexa-Assisted Halloween

As you can see, Alexa can add a lot of value to your Halloween Celebration! Whether you need help with costumes, food, make-up, or ambience, Alexa can help.  Alexa can provide you with both background music and videos for your Halloween Celebration. She can provide you with spooky sounds to make your Halloween a little more creepy.  Whether it be through a skill, a playlist, or a video, Alexa is here to help enhance your Halloween.

Although you probably did not purchase an Echo to be another Halloween prop, she can be very useful in this way. And she can go on assisting you with operating your Smart Devices all the while.  

This week, we returned to our Smart Home Series, focusing on all the ways Alexa can enhance your home and your life. And in honor of one of my favorite holidays, this week, we focused on how Alexa can help improve your own Halloween.  Rather than talking about how Alexa can help you shop, we focused on how Alexa can help add a creepy ambience to your Halloween. But of course, you can also use Alexa to shop for costumes and for treats to hand out on Halloween night.

Were you aware of all the Halloween-related skills you can enable? Had you ever thought about integrating Alexa in to your Halloween festivities? How do you think you will use Alexa this Halloween? Let us know in the comments.  

We would like to wish all of our readers a Happy, Creepy Halloween.  We hope you will be able to use Alexa to enhance your own.  And we leave you with this Halloween Fact, courtesy of Alexa: did you know Halloween is believed to have originated in Ireland?