Zombie Halloween Party Ideas

You’re infected! Spread the virus at your next party with a zombie theme. Thanks to TV shows like The Walking Dead, and AAA video games, like the Left for Dead series, zombies have become a pop culture icon. Don’t just encourage your guests to show up in their undead best, but get in on the zombie craze with themed invitations, party supplies, and favors. Even fill your menu with food only a zombie could love. BRAINS!

Zombie Halloween Party Invitations
Let your guests know they’ve be infected, I mean invited, with custom zombie theme invitations. Make sure to include the necessary information (address and time) so your guests will know where to go to survive the zombie apocalypse. Family and friends will come dressed to kill if you make note on the invitation, like “Come in Zombie Costume” or “Dress Like the Undead.”

Send along a frightening add-on with your invite. Something like:

Zombie Anti-Virus: A box of tic-tacs, Skittles, or M&Ms with a custom zombie sticker make sure guests don't arrive infected!
Brainsssss! Attach a pack of brain gummies or a chocolate brain sucker to your invite. You don't want your guests to arrive hungry!
Medical Bracelet: A medical bracelet that says "Infected!" is a fun wearable for a zombie theme. Plus, it's easy to add one to each envelope.

Try some of the wording below on your invite, and browse our list of Halloween Party Invitations for ideas:

Extreme Caution Advised: Zombie Outbreak Zone
Enter Jason and Natalie’s at your own risk
Disinfection protocol will begin
On Saturday, October 18 at 7 pm

Fight the Dead, Fear the Living
At the Phelps’ Halloween Party!
You Can Run, But You Can’t Hide!

Come to My Party…. Bring Brainz!

Beware: The Undead Have Awoken
And They’re Ready to Party!

Zombie Party Decorations and Supplies
Make your space a perfect place for the undead by decorating with blood spattered décor and warnings to the uninfected. Start with the entrance:

Zombie Halloween Personalized Banner: This personalized fallout shelter banner lets family and friends know that your home is the only safe place on the block. Once they enter, however, they’ll be horridly surprised by the number of zombies.
Keep Out: Warn your guests before they enter with gory door decorations. Wrap your front door in caution tape and add a "Keep Out" sign. Give your entrance an eerie glow with green outdoor lighting.
Zombie Graveyard: Trace your arm onto black foamcore, cut the silhouette out, and attach to a dowel rod. Sink the dowel rod into your lawn and add a few tombstones so it looks like zombies are rising from the grave.

Make sure your home is overrun with the undead. These no-hassle decorations will make any zombie's head turn:

Zombie Water Bottle Label Party Favors: Make sure your guests stay uninfected with these personalized water bottle labels, which let them know the water is safe to drink.
Blood Spattered Decorations: Make your home look like there’s been a zombie attack with blood spattered walls and floors. Spatter red poster paint on wax paper and hang the sheets on windows and walls.
Quarantine: Quarantine parts of your home (like the bedrooms) where you “keep” the undead. Block doors with caution tape, and create a “blood” paint spattered sign that says “Infected Keep Out”. Complete the look with a chain (find at the hardware store) wrapped around the door knob as if you’re locking the infected inside.
Bloody Drapes: Create an eerie effect by draping bloody gauze on stair railings and chandeliers, in doorways and ceiling corners, and among the curtains. Make your own bloody drapes by splattering red paint and making handprints on cheap white curtains.
Bloody Weapons: No zombie slayer is complete without his horrifying collection of weapons. Gather plastic toy weapons and tie them to a length of rope to make an easy gory garland. Hang over a buffet or along the mantle to leave a threatening message to the undead.
Toilet Zombies!: Zombie got your bum? Pop open the toilet tank and place bloody limbs so they're peeking out through the cracks!

Not every guest will arrive dressed in their undead best. Set up a "Dress like the Undead" station with zombie masks, zombie face paint, and ripped "bloody" clothes. It's important to decorate your guests!

Zombie Table Decorations
Give your tables and buffet an undead touch by covering them with more bloody gauze table cloths, and try one of these centerpieces to leave a deadly impression:

Zombie “Flowers”: Fill a ceramic flowerpot with dirt and half bury a plastic hand to make it look as if a zombie is climbing from the grave. For an extra touch, paint the fingers red to make them look like they’re covered in blood.
Body Part Centerpiece: Fill a tall vase with plastic body parts. Add water with red food coloring to make some very creepy centerpieces.
Skull Centerpiece: Fill a large glass bowl with plastic skulls and gray basket filler.

Use lime green paper goods that match your invites and favors and keep cleanup easy!

Zombie Menu Ideas
Make sure your infected guests are served the best quality foods, including brains! Make labels for each food using these free horror themed fonts:

Try some of these themed foods and desserts that the infected won’t be able to resist. Start with the main meal and drinks:

Corpse Buffet: Lay out a t-shirt, flannel, pants and shoes on your buffet and fill it with trays of ribs, chicken wings, hotdogs and hamburgers, and pulled pork. Add a zombie mask and skeleton hands holding tongs coming out of the sleeves for a Corpse Buffet.
Bloody Chunks Salsa: Set out bowls of chips and salsa, labeling the salsa “Bloody Chunks.” Gross!
Pigs in a Blanket: They double as Zombie “Finger” Food, resembling the human appendage. Make sure to add a label so guests get the joke.
Skeleton Pulled Pork: Pile pulled pork in the cavity of a plastic instructional skeleton. Make sure the skeleton lies flat on a large, foil covered cookie sheet. Check out this ghoulish example of a Cannibal Buffet on our blog for inspiration.
Bloodbath Drink Cooler: Fill a bathtub with ice and drinks and add red food coloring to make it look bloody. Hang a bloody shower curtain to frighten guests. Don’t have a tub? Add red food coloring to iced coolers and add a “Bloodbath” label instead.

Don't forget dessert! Zombies love these gruesome treats:

Brain Cupcakes: Pipe white frosting on any flavor of cupcakes in a squiggly pattern to create some exquisitely delicious brains. Here's a Brain Cupcake How-To on our blog.
Graveyard Dirt: Layer chocolate pudding, marshmallow fluff, crushed Oreos, and gummy worms to make a graveyard. Add Milano cookies as gravestones and perhaps a Sour Patch Kid or two as corpses.
Red Velvet Cupcakes: These cupcakes are a choice dessert for a zombie party due to their color. Add a touch of the undead by piping red cake gel on top of the white cream cheese frosting to mimic blood.
Eyeball Fruit Punch: Mix equal parts Sprite and fruit punch and add plastic eyeballs to create a creepy beverage every zombie will love.

Make sure to set out silverware bundles wrapped in lime green napkins, lime green straws, and even green glow cups to give your buffet and dessert tables an eerie glow.

Zombie Playlist
The music you play at a party sets the vibe for the entire night. Make sure the undead rise from their graves and boogie down with this Zombie Party Playlist.

Re: Your Brains – Jonathan Coulton
Monster Mash – Bobby “Boris” Pickett & The Crypt-Kickers
Superstition – Stevie Wonder
Howlin’ for You – Black Keys
Time Warp – The Rocky Horror Picture Show
This Is Halloween – from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas
Ghostbusters – Ray Parker, Jr.
I Put a Spell On You – Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
Thriller – Michael Jackson
Black Magic Woman – Santana
Don’t Fear the Reaper – Blue Oyster Cult
I Put a Spell on You – Screaming Jay Hawkins
Highway to Hell – AC/DC
Werewolves of London – Warren Zevon
Bad Moon Rising – Creedence Clearwater Revival

Zombie Party Favors
Send the undead back to their graves with a gift to remember your zombie apocalypse. Try some of these personalized and handmade favors:

Personalized Zombie Halloween Candy Bar Wrappers
Zombie Theme Custom Lollipops
Zombie Halloween Party Favor Bags: Add Halloween candy or setup a candy buffet (all green candy!) so your guests have something to munch on their way home.
DIY Zombie Survival Kit: Fill a plastic bag with a birthday candle, 5 Hour Energy bottle (only for adults), Band Aid, bar of soap, life saver, a stick of gum, and a clothes pin. Include a card of what to do with each item, so the uninfected can stay that way. Try this wording:

Zombie Survival Kit
Birthday Candle: To light your way
5 Hour Energy: To keep you going when the zombies attack
Band Aid: For those oozing zombie sores
Bar of Soap: To wash off the guts
Life Saver: Need some help?
Gum: Can’t brush your teeth when being chased by a hoard of zombies
Clothes Pin: Hang in there…

The Party Girl hopes you survive your zombie apocalypse. Watch out for your brainz!