Spook Up 

• Deep Love

Whether it's the candy, the costumes or the scares, Utahns love their Halloween, getting into a spooky spirit earlier and earlier each year. However you like to celebrate, there's almost certainly an event or entertainment that's right for you. Here's just a handful of ways you can put Halloween on your A&E calendar.

Theater: As we noted in our feature a couple of weeks ago, Odyssey Dance's Thriller is all-but-sold out for its farewell run—but there are other ways to enjoy chills and chuckles in a theater seat. The Off Broadway Theater (12366 S. 900 East, Draper, theobt.org) presents some of your favorite monsters singing a revue of classic hits in Forever Dead, running through Oct. 29. The merry band at Desert Star Playhouse (4861 S. State, Murray, desertstar.biz) tells the story of a neighborhood trying to figure out why everything has gone to the bats in Dracula: He Loved in Vein, through Nov. 5. Salty Dinner Theater (various Wasatch Front locations, saltydinnertheater.com) invites you to solve a real-life mystery involving a legendary writer of the macabre with The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe, running through Nov. 1.

The annual tradition of Deep Love: A Ghostly Rock Opera brings its story of love from beyond the grave to the Mid-Valley Performing Arts Center (2525 Taylorsville Blvd., Taylorsville), Oct. 22-23 The Hive Collaborative (290 W. 600 South, Provo, thehivecollaborative.com) serves up a Spectral Soirée, a Roaring '20s-themed murder-mystery theater experience that adds haunted house elements. And if you want to carry the Halloween spirit into November, Plan-B Theatre Company introduces local playwright Morag Shepherd's My Brother Was a Vampire, which turns the lore of the blood-sucking undead into a dark, dysfunctional-family comedy.

Family-Friendly: It wouldn't be Utah without a wide range of options for the Halloween season that appeal to both adults and kids. Gardner Village (1100 W. 7800 South, West Jordan, gardnervillage.com) presents its WitchFest 2022 through Oct. 31, with activities including photo opportunities, a witchy scavenger hunt, "Witches Night Out" shopping and dining experiences, the Ricochet Canyon Amusement Park with themed attractions and more. Millcreek Gardens (3500 S. 900 East, millcreekgardens.com) presents its Festival Transylvania Oct. 13 – 29, including a walk-through story experience without the gore and shocks of the big haunted houses.

Loveland Living Planet Aquarium (12033 S. Lone Peak Parkway, Draper, thelivingplanet.com) turns weekend evenings into "Halloween on the High Seas," including a vintage seaside carnival, "scare zone," dance party and the new pumpkin smasher, plus a cosplay contest on Oct. 28 and trick-or-treating Oct. 27 – 31. Thanksgiving Point's Ashton Gardens (3900 N. Garden Dr., Lehi, thanksgivingpoint.org) hosts its Scarecrow Festival Oct. 10 – 15, with colorful scarecrow creations throughout the 50-acre gardens. Utah's Hogle Zoo (2600 Sunnyside Ave., hoglezoo.org) opens up at night for its "Boo Lights" experience of Halloween-themed lighting displays. All that, and too many corn mazes and local fall parties to count.

Film: Many of your favorite scary movies are going to be available on big screens near you. The Salt Lake Film Society's Tower Theatre is still undergoing renovations, but the annual "Tower of Terror" programming moves to the Broadway (111 E. 300 South, slfs.org) throughout October, with classics like Halloween, Suspiria, The Exorcist, The Shining, The Thing and more. Salt Lake County Library's Viridian Events Center (8030 S. 1825 West, West Jordan, slcolibrary.org) brings more classics for free screenings on Mondays and Thursdays in October at 7 p.m., including It, Carrie and The Sixth Sense. At Abravanel Hall (123 W. South Temple, utahsymphony.org), the Utah Symphony's "Films in Concert" series presents Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, Oct. 27 - 29

Miscellania: Get a taste for the way local artists interpret themes of the uncanny at Urban Arts Gallery's (116 S. Rio Grande St., urbanartsgallery.org) A Dream Within a Dream, a group exhibition on the theme of the thin boundary between the known and unknown worlds, featuring Desarae Lee, Vincent Mattina, Grant Fuhst, Mary Elizabeth Jenkin, Faris Alawi and more. Get a taste of the pagan origins of Halloween at the Hibernian Society of Utah's Sawain celebration at The Gateway (18 N. Rio Grande) on Oct. 8, free to the public.

Haunted Houses: Oh yeah, there's also the intense scary-season experience of Utah's many amazing professional haunted houses, filled with chills, thrills and things that go bump in the night. Nightmare on 13th (320 W. 1300 South, nightmareon13th.com), Fear Factory (666 W. 800 South, fearfactoryslc.com), Castle of Chaos (7980 S. State, Midvale, castleofchaos.com) and Asylum 49 (140 E. 200 South, Tooele, asylum49.com) are among the higher-profile showcases of ghouls and shocks, often with varying levels of "contact" experience based on guest preference, and it seems like there are new offerings every year. We all like to experience Halloween in different ways; you're bound to find some way that hits the right scary sweet spot for you.