Our Halloween weekend started with my driving back home from a week in San Francisco and Berkeley. Ryan is a huge film geek and an even bigger horror film geek (Addendum: Said dude reasons that, though he loves horror films, he hasn’t quite reached horror film geek status. It’s not that he’s ashamed for me to call him one, but he doesn’t feel he has earned the title. I must respect his modesty, but I do think conversing with him about the horror genre will leave you impressed). Although I do love horror films, I guess I need some schooling; he had a full evening of cinematic slasher education and revelry planned for us.

But, as we started to assemble the living room into couch potato headquarters, I began to feel pangs of regret for eschewing a night of costumed, paganistic revelry for another night cozying up on the couch. I mean we can act like old people when we’re old, right? And considering we’re both pretty close to old, I figure we only have a few more years to party without throwing our backs out.

Thankfully, my fantastic housemates—and one honorary housemate—invited us to tag along for their evening plans. And with those plans came a wisdom, which I will now impart on you: Should you EVER be invited to a film industry art department Halloween party, ditch all other plans and go!

This party was, in a word, sick: Two parties, across the street from each other, bound by streams of costume detritus, howling guests, and post-punk dance music. And the costumes were amazing. The Jesus H. Christ costume (complete with bloodied reed slashes, a loin cloth, and a life-sized crucifix) caused people to fall to their knees in prostrate; the Teen Wolf costume made jaws drop in awe; the life-sized Muscle and Fitness magazine made us salivate for a protein drink; and the used car lot balloony thing made all in attendance somehow feel the urge to buy a questionable clunker, with the utmost confidence they’d get an excellent financing rate. OMG, it was such a fun party.

The thing about Los Angeles, particularly at Halloween parties thrown and attended by industry folk (though I should note I don’t think a single actor was in attendance), is the attention to costume—and character—detail. These people arrived in character and didn’t break once all evening. You got the feeling people planned their costumes for months in advance, but it was more about inhabiting a character than dressing up and they were fully committed to bringing their characters to life.

Refreshingly, I didn’t see one store-bought “Slutty Dorothy” or “Slutty Sherlock Holmes” all night, but if I had I’m sure they would have been the most convincing sluts I’ve ever seen.

Ryan and I, shamefully, didn’t bring our cameras to the party (that’s the liability of only owning an SLR), so we had a “morning-after photo shoot.” He was a thoroughly convincing Bob Dylan (as evidenced by the 30 or so chicks who fawned over him the night before); I was some 60s starlet or something. What? I planned on spending the night on the couch. I did my best!

Anyway, both costumes lend themselves well to a morning-after shoot. Here are some outtakes.
*Disclaimer: There were some other shots that made more sense in context, but they had to be taken down. The photo of Ryan is prior to his Dylan transformation; it’s more of the experimental costuming phase, if you will.