Halloween is my Christmas! Growing up, the Halloween party was always at my house and I made sure my parents were sent on a weekend trip for the occasion. My dad’s OCD wouldn’t cope with all the decorations. I take a ‘go hard or go home’ approach and since 2020 is a write off, I thought I’d get my Halloween fix by re-living 2019’s celebration. I hosted a murder mystery dinner at home, including a three course meal, decorations and costumes.

I bought a party pack with character sheets and instructions. A few weeks before the dinner, I allocated and sent, each guest, a brief character biography, an outfit description and an accent that they would have to adopt for the evening. The accent isn’t part of the game but it certainly adds to the fun of it.

The way it works is:

• The murderer is chosen at the beginning, you draw a piece of paper out of a hat and whoever has an ‘X’ in their box is the murderer and only they know it.

• Each guest receives a booklet with their ‘lines’ and they read out the relevant section based on whether they’re innocent or guilty.

• Everyone has to guess who they think the murderer is at the end. There are clues within the text but, everyone is usually too drunk by then to suss it out.

• There are three acts and you time dinner; starters, main and dessert, around the acts.

I made a height chart and pinned it to the wall in the hallway. This was to be the photo booth for guests arriving to have their photo taken with an old-school polaroid camera. I used my light box to create a suspect board that each person would hold, as if it were a police line up. I then stuck the photos onto a ‘floorplan’ (in a very Cluedo-esq way) and connected them with red string to place each suspect in a room at the time of the crime. Yup, I meant it when I said I LOVE HALLOWEEN.

The table was set for eight people. It was a tight squeeze and we didn’t have enough chairs, but we made it work. I made place names and envelopes with ‘blood’ spatter and ‘top secret’ labels on them. I placed each person’s character sheet inside the envelope. I threw black rags over everything and decorated with some flowers and mini pumpkins that I picked up from Lidl.

For dinner, I prepared pumpkin soup for starters, followed by (carved) stuffed peppers and broccoli mash spew. Dessert was a graveyard of chocolate pudding and a cheeseboard. I prepped most of it in advance so that I had less cooking to do on the night, but not only that, the soup was, almost, a disaster. I made a huge pot of it and added garlic as per the recipe, but it seemed like way too much. I gave it a mix and had a taste. Now, I love garlic but even I found it overwhelming. I managed to save it by scooping some garlic out and adding carrots. Luckily, all the guests love garlic too, either that or I have very polite friends.

After a lot of belly laughs and some questionable accents, the time had come to solve the mystery of the murder. Despite calling Graeme out on several discrepancies in his story, NOBODY guessed that he was the murderer! Once the game was over, we continued the party with Halloween themed music and dancing. I soon realised that Aperol in a syringe was a bad idea when it ended up on the walls.

The party was worth the clean up on a hangover. It’s a great ice-breaker if you have a group of friends that have never met before. Obviously, I took an ‘extra’ approach but the thing I love best about murder mystery is that you can adapt it to any occasion and you’re guaranteed a laugh. The game cost me around £20 and a lot of the decor was DIY, other than the decorations I’ve collected over the years.

This year, I was hoping to host a 1920’s themed dinner but, with the restrictions, it won’t happen over Halloween. As soon as we are allowed, I’ll be straight on it! If you decide you want to try it yourself then here is the link for the game I used: Murder at the Manor