Halloween’s coming up, so prepare a list of SpOoOoOky movies, carve up some pumpkins, and set a tripwire across your front gate to protect yourself from trick-or-treaters. It’s also a good time of year to play tricks on people (like April Fool’s, but scarier), and there are some great apps designed just for that purpose. So get your spook on with our list of scary and creepy apps to try out on yourself and your friends this Hallow’s Eve.

Also read:5 Sites to Stream Free Scary Movies for Halloween

1. The Walking Dead: Dead Yourself

Availability: iOS, Android

If you want to give your friends and family a nasty surprise, why not take a photo of them through this app, then say “Hang on, something’s wrong” and show them a picture of their rotten zombified face?

Yes, this official Walking Dead app gives you all the tools you need to turn you friends and loved ones into a shambling horde of brainless zombies. There are loads of details you can add, like bits of clothing, twisting the head to strange angles, curling back the lips, rotting the teeth and milking up (or poking out) the eyes.

It’s the most horrifying face transformation app around!

2. Zombies, Run!

Availability: iOS, Android

This app feels like it’s been around forever, and deservedly so. If you’re looking to keep fit around Halloween, then why not add a bit of spooky ambience to your jogging to really get you into the Halloween spirit.

Zombies, Run gamifies your running routine by turning it into an immersive post-apocalyptic zombie game. As you run around, an audio drama will play where you’re rebuilding your base by fetching goods around your local area. You’ll need to avoid (or run away from) zombie hordes, and it’s all accompanied by great narration from Naomi Alderman as well as a ghoulish soundtrack.

3. Scary Prank

Availability: iOS

This one really is both cruel and hilarious – cruelarious, if you will. This app poses as a simple quiz game, asking pretty generic maths and general knowledge questions. However, unbeknownst to the victim playing it, the quiz gets interrupted by a horrifying image accompanied by death-curdling scream.

It basically turns your phone into a horrifying jack-in-the-box, and best of all it captures the moment your friend gets the living hell scared out of them with a video, which you can then share with your friends if you’re feeling extra-cruel!

4. Ghost Lens AR

Availability: iOS

Apps that superimpose ghosts onto existing photos vary a lot in quality, but this one is a little more novel. It lets you clone yourself within a single image, creating all kinds of cool visual tricks like your spirit leaving your body, superimposing a twisted version of your face over your own face, or creating multiple spectral versions of yourself within the image.

It’s a little more subtle than some of the in-your-face stuff that we have in this list, but it’s definitely a nice way to unsettle your friends with some eery imagery.

5. Slasher – The Horror Network

Availability: iOS, Android

This one’s a little different from the rest of the scary apps on this list, which are more prank-themed. Slasher is a social network dedicated to fans of horror and the macabre. Make new friends, discuss creepy things with horror communities, and maybe even make plans to tour graveyards or abandoned spooky houses on Halloween.

It’s like Facebook specifically for fans of horror, and there’s even a dating feature so you can potentially find romance with someone just as ghoulish as yourself.

6. Ghost Hunting Tools

Availability: iOS, Android

The way this app presents itself, with all its talk of EMF meters and EVP detection, you’d think that you’re buying a fully-functioning Ghostbusters-style ghost detector. With a vast dictionary that apparently translates electromagnetic signals in the air into human words, this app works well enough that it’s convinced its users that they’re actually communicating with paranormal entities.

Another way of looking at it – depending on how skeptical you are – is that it’s a fun thing to do with your pals. Turn the lights out, go wandering around the house, and see what creepy sounds you can discover.

7. The Walking Dead by Telltale Games

Availability: iOS, Android

Telltale’s narrative adventure games are a great group activity, even though they’re played using only one controller. They’re all about making big decisions, engaging stories, and deciding who lives or dies rather than running around shooting things. The Walking Dead was their breakout game, and it’s a great story, following a group of people trying to survive post-zombified America (separate characters from the TV series). The first episode is free, too, so it’s a tense, scary and surprisingly poignant way to spend a few hours on Halloween night. (Think of it as a movie replacement.)

8. Scary Pranks

Availability: Android

Relying on the oldest trick in the jump-scare book, this app lulls users into a false sense of security by making them focus on an image or puzzle, then abruptly switches to a scary image of your choice accompanied by a bloodcurdling scream (of your choice). You can also set it up to make a fake phone call to a friend followed by a scream, and best of all, it uses the front-facing camera to capture the reactions of the shell-shocked victim. Thrills don’t get cheaper than this.

Which scary apps will you choose? Prank phone calls, spooky snapshots, or immersive stories set in the zombie apocalypse? If you want to watch scary movies with your friend online, then check out our list of ways to watch videos online with friends in real-time.