15 Vintage Kids' Halloween Costumes That Are Truly Terrifying

Halloween is one of the best holidays of the year, but let’s be honest: isn’t all that scary, particularly not for the children. If you’re a kid on Halloween in 2018, the day is pretty much about scoring as much candy as possible while dressed up like either Elsa or Deadpool.

But there was a time when Halloween was scary. The holiday originates with the Celtic culture about 2,000 years ago. Back then, Halloween was a fall festival when people would dress up in costumes to scare ghosts away. And not in a fun way. In an “if we don’t do this, everyone’s going to die” sort of way. The costumes had to be legitimately scary. (Sorry, Elsa and Deadpool.)

And that’s how Halloween was, until fairly recently. When you look at old pictures of kids’ Halloween costumes, they’re SO MUCH SCARIER than anything we give our kids today. Even when the kid is dressed like something normally harmless, like a bunny rabbit! Somehow it’s the scariest rabbit you’ve ever seen.

It’s honestly kind of baffling. How did kids in the past cope? Maybe everyone was tougher back then. Dressing up like a murderous clown wasn’t so scary compared with stuff like polio and world wars. Or maybe people were the same as we are now, and all these kids grew up to be serial killers. I could go either way! I’m just glad things cooled off.

Here are 15 kids’ Halloween costumes (via Bored Panda) that are scarier than anything you’ll see this October 31st.