Spankoween
Spankoween / Nineteenth Annual / Kim & John

Any Character As A Zombie

Saturday October 24, 2026 Costume registration required Plus the Misfit Brunch

You voted for horror. This is the compromise, and it might be the best brief we've ever run: play the one character you never got to play — then kill them.

Register your costume Join the Thriller dance

The Brief

Two rules, one loophole

Any character, from anything, from any year — as long as they're undead when they walk in. That's the whole brief. The loophole is the point: every theme we've ever run locked somebody out of the costume they actually wanted. This one doesn't.

Rule One
Pick any character — real, fictional, living, historical, animated, whatever. If you can name them, you can be them.
Rule Two
They have to be a zombie. How far you take that is your business. Subtle rot is a choice. So is full prosthetics.
The Catch
Register your character. First claim wins. This is not new and it is not negotiable — see below for why.
Trades
Somebody took the one you wanted? It's happened before. Make them an offer on the form — Kim will pass it along and stay out of it.
Group Costumes
Encouraged, and they don't block anyone. Register each person separately and note who you're with.

Why we register — a true story, 2012

The theme was TV & Movie Characters. Eight people — men and women, independently, with no coordination whatsoever — walked through the door in the same Party City Top Gun flight suit.

Kim lost her mind. Costume registration has existed ever since. It exists because of you people. It will be enforced.

The Claim Board

What's already taken

Characters are public so nobody doubles up. Names are hidden — you'll find out who's who on the night. Search before you commit, then register.

0 claimed so far
Register your costume

Saturday night registration: your character, the Thriller dance, the yearbook,
whether you're staying over, whether you want brunch too, and whether you'd like to
help decorate a room or bring something to eat.

Changed your mind about your character? Just register again — the most recent entry wins.
Coming only to the brunch? Use the brunch sign-up instead.

New this year · Separate sign-up

The Thriller dance,
in the cemetery

The one across the street. We are going to learn the Thriller dance and perform it there, in costume, on the night. This is not a joke and it is not optional for anyone who signs up.

Learn it at home — two links

  1. Watch the originalThe video · so you know what we are aiming at
  2. Learn the stepsA tutorial that breaks the choreography down

There is no time for group rehearsals this year, so this one is on you. Watch both, practice in your kitchen, and we will run it through once on the night before we head across the street.

You have to sign up

We need a headcount so we know how many of you are coming across the street, and so nobody is learning this alone.

Sign-up is part of the same registration form as your costume — one checkbox, takes a second.

Sign up to dance

Sunday, October 25 · Separate sign-up

The Misfit Brunch

Not everyone wants to be in a cemetery at midnight, and that has never been held against anyone. The brunch is the other half of Spankoween: daylight, day drinking, and a costume bar set exactly as high — just softer, funnier, and considerably more comfortable.

  • Also known asMrs. Roper Brunch, the year everyone wore muumuus. It was amazing and it set the standard.
  • Dress codeCommitted but comfortable. If you can't sit down in it and eat, it's the wrong costume.
  • Who it's forDay people. Brunch people. Anyone who'd rather not explain a zombie face to a neighbor at 1am.
  • WhenSunday, October 25, 2026 — the morning after. Recovery is the point.
  • This year's themeA tea party. Wear the hat. There is no such thing as too much hat.

Come to one, or come to both

Plenty of people do both. Plenty of people only do this. Neither is the lesser Spankoween — they're just different shifts.

Brunch has its own short sign-up — no costume to declare, no zombie to explain. If you're coming Saturday night as well, the costume registration asks about brunch too, so one form does it.

Sign up for brunch

The Idea Bank

If you're stuck

Fifty starting points, most of them dragged out of themes we've already run — because somebody out there is still mad they didn't get to be Stefon in 2016. Filter, steal, register.

Pre-Order

The Spankoween Yearbook

Twenty years of this. Somewhere between Shutterfly, Dropbox and Facebook there is photographic evidence of all of it, and it deserves to exist as an object before it disappears into dead accounts.

Space you can buy

  • Two-page spread The full showcase. Your best years, across the gutter.
  • Full page One year done properly, or a greatest-hits column.
  • Half page Two or three costumes you're still proud of.
  • Quarter page One photo, one caption, one moment.

Final prices depend on how many pages we end up printing, which depends on how many of you are in. That's what the deposit is for.

Refundable deposit

$25

Per person · applied to your order

  1. Venmo @Kim-Barrows-1 — put Spankoween in the note.
  2. We count the deposits and price the book properly.
  3. You pick your size, and the $25 comes off the top.
  4. Changed your mind? You get it back. No questions.
Send the deposit

The book covers 2007 through 2026 and gets handed out at the finale next year. Deposit now, pick your size once we know the page count.

Photo Amnesty

We need your pictures

Nineteen years of this party are scattered across Shutterfly, Facebook, and everyone's camera rolls. If we're making a book, we need what you've got — including the ones that never made it online.

Upload anything

Drop in whatever you have from any year. No account, no sign-in — you get a link, you drag your photos onto it, done. You won't see anyone else's and they won't see yours.

Upload your photos

The galleries

Every year, browsable, so you can find yourself and decide which costume was worth paying to immortalize. Going up as the archive gets pulled together.

In progress

Who Wore It Best

Some characters have been played more than once, by more than one of you, years apart. Now we settle it. Head to head, you vote.

Needs photos first

The retroactive contest

Best costume awards quietly stopped after 2016. So we're going back and running them anyway — every year since, judged now, by everyone, with the benefit of hindsight.

Needs photos first

Fair warning: photographic evidence submitted here may be used against you in a yearbook.

2007 — 2027

Every Spankoween

It started as a housewarming party and never stopped. Here's the whole run, including the year that didn't happen.

  1. 012007No themeA housewarming party for Kim and John's new house. Nobody knew it was the start of anything.
  2. 022008No theme
  3. 032009No theme
  4. 042010No theme
  5. 052011Heaven and HellThe first year with a theme.
  6. 062012TV & Movie CharactersThe Top Gun Incident. Eight people, one Party City flight suit, zero coordination. Costume registration was invented that night.
  7. 072013Musicians
  8. 082014Villains
  9. 092015Brand Ambassadors
  10. 102016SNL
  11. 112017Spankoween X — Elvis, in Las VegasTen years in, and every last one of us came as Elvis. We rented the Real World Suite at the Palms. Kim and John and Brian and Karen — both couples hitting their tenth wedding anniversary that year — renewed their vows at a chapel, married by Elvis, dressed as Elvis. It was amazing. (Named for the decade, not the party count.)
  12. 122018Cartoon Characters
  13. 132019Someone You'd Most Like To Be
  14. —2020CanceledCOVID. Against considerable resistance from the host.
  15. 142021The Roaring 20'sGatsby. Back with a vengeance.
  16. 152022John Hughes Movie Characters
  17. 162023Project SpankwayNobody came in costume. Everyone took a turn as designer and model, dressed entirely from what was in the basement — which guests were allowed to stock beforehand.
  18. 172024Boston Characters
  19. 182025SNL, Take Two
  20. 192026Any Character as a ZombieYou are here. A group decision — the room wanted horror, this was the compromise, and it turned out to be a gift.
  21. 202027The Finale — The Met GalaTwentieth anniversary. Twentieth party. Last one.

20

Years, 2007 to 2027

20

Parties — the two counts landed on the same number

1

Year missed, and it wasn't by choice

8

Identical Top Gun flight suits, 2012

Next year · October 2027

The Last One

The twentieth anniversary and the final Spankoween: The Met Gala. Start thinking now. Start building in January. The theme gets announced the night of the zombie party.