Alice Cooper's Guide to a Bloodcurdling Halloween

Alice Cooper is no stranger to the dark side -- the awesomely campy rocker has been creeping people out for over four decades. His latest single, "Keepin' Halloween Alive!" is a tribute to his favorite holiday (and the razor-blade-laden apples that come with it). Cooper has even recorded a touching PSA to draw attention to the plight of children being denied "the joy that is high fructose corn syrup and yellow dye number five."

Asylum caught up with Cooper to discuss the finer points of celebrating Halloween, from the intricacies of Italian horror and the lackluster nature of candy corn, to how a zombie Paris Hilton costume might be your best bet for the holiday ...

Keep it simple, stupid
Are you one of those people who practice Wicca and like to refer to Halloween reverently as All Hollow's Eve? Well, watch out, because Alice Cooper probably wants to bitchslap you: "I always take exception to people that try to make Halloween anything other than, 'You dress up silly and get candy.' When people try to [say], 'It's a pagan ritual' and all this -- no, it isn't! You go out, you put on a ridiculous costume, go to a party, and then go out and get as much candy as you can."

Candy corn killer
For the record: Cooper is reverent on the topic of Mounds bars. He's also a fan of Red Vines. But slip him a candy corn at your everlasting peril; he rates them about as tasty as calf's liver. "I don't know whose idea it was," he says of the sugary confection, "but it was the worst idea ever."

For your viewing displeasure
Cooper doesn't have much love for modern horror films like "Saw." But this Halloween, why not rent a Cooper-approved flick, like "The Exorcist" ("It didn't speak to your intellect, it spoke to your soul") or "Suspiria," a thriller from Italian icon Dario Argento. (Yes, that would be the father of frighteningly hot Asia Argento.) Or skip all that fictional stuff and turn on the Syfy channel's "Ghosthunters," which even Cooper admits gives him pause when he turns out the lights.

Paris Hilton, Zombie
"Your whole family should be totally involved in it," Cooper says. "Do a theme. Go as the Addams Family. Go as the Allman Brothers, or Slipknot." Extremely topical costumes can get tricky -- Cooper wonders how many Michael Jacksons we'll be subjected to in 2009. For the rocker himself, Zorro was always his costume of choice. "The character shows up even in my show now," he says. "I use a rapier sword that actually belonged to Errol Flynn."

Asylum asked Cooper his thoughts on those omnipresent "seductive" costumes that girls are so fond of. "I could actually handle the seductive nurse thing pretty well, because I have great legs," he confides, before suggesting that women do Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan -- as zombies.

Suck on this
With the runaway popularity of "Twilight," Cooper predicts a wave of vampirism this Halloween. "It works because it's romantic," he says. "Here's a guy that's pale, poetic, he's sucking on your neck, showing up at night when there's nobody around ... " (Some critics have recently argued that this is all about the female infatuation with gay men, but we won't go there.) Cooper prefers his vampires a bit rougher around the edges -- like the ones in the film "30 Days of Night." "The vampires were these really horrible Russians that didn't bite you in the neck -- they just rip your arm off. Whatever spurts out, they would eat."


Soundtrack to your nightmare
Cooper's playlist for Halloween mood music includes classics like "I Put a Spell on You" (either the Arthur Brown or Screamin' Jay Hawkins version), as well as "Halloween" redux director Rob Zombie's "Living Dead Girl" and Cooper's own classic album, "Welcome to My Nightmare."

Halloween is for lovers!
If you find the right girl -- or hot zombie -- don't be afraid to make first-date plans on Halloween. According to Cooper, scary movies can be something of an aphrodisiac, in most cases: "If she's a hardcore goth chick, you probably can't find a horror movie that's gonna scare her enough, because she's going to be tougher than you. But if it's a normal girl that works in a bank, and you bring home 'Evil Dead' or 'Hellraiser,' she'll cuddle up close." (Now let's just hope someone in the neighborhood is handing out jimmy hats along with those Mounds bars.)