My wife was a Girl Scout leader for many years and both her and her co-leader buddy loved Halloween
. It was our favorite time of the year. They did some pretty interesting things to keep the girls amused. One game we played to play was "Pass the Cat".
The girls would sit in a circle and we would pretend to pass Kitty parts under a blanket thrown over their laps. It sounds gruesome but the girls loved it with their squealing and laughing. First we would put some things in bowls and then tell them what it was as we stuck it (the bowl) under the blanket and they would pass it around. Grapes that were slightly wet became the eyes. Spaghetti (also wet) became the guts. A piece of very wet sandpaper became the tongue and so on.
Another awesome thing we did was to turn the garage of our house into a haunted house. We used sheets and blankets for walls. We also enlisted the help of the neighborhood boys to help scare the girls. This would bring the boys into the fun. After the GS fun was over we opened it up to the neighborhood. We did insist on the kids being in costum so we could award the Best Costume.
Following the traditional Halloween parties, we would just spice it up a little. For instance, bobbing for apples could be a little more gruesome if you colored the water red. Put scary things inside the piata like.... Fake spiders, ghosts, eyeballs, bats etc. (You can find all of those things in candy form also).
Turn off the lights and play Blind Man's Bluff. Everyone walks around in the dark and tries to touch someone. Once you are touched you must sit down. After about 5 minutes turn the lights on and see who is left standing. If there is more than one person, have all the sitting children move to chairs and turn lights off again until only one remains. It sounds pretty docile but it's pretty scary in the dark.
These three ideas can be party pleasers so give them a try. Your whole family will be frightfully pleased.