8 uniquely quirky Bay Area things to do this Halloween season

This Halloween, there’s no wrong way to smash a pumpkin.

Or maybe you’d rather swim with one.

Whether pumpkins are falling out of helicopters or floating in public pools, these unusual Halloween activities will leave you wondering how you ever settled for that boring old visit to the pumpkin patch.

Looking for century-old ghost stories? We’ve got ’em. Want to explore hidden passageways in a stunning church? No problem. Or maybe you just want to find the best places to sip some festive cocktails. We’ve got you covered with this year’s list of the most unusual ways to celebrate the spookiest month of the year.

Immerse yourself in a Gothic mystery, then cut loose

You know the historic Woodside estate of Filoli in spring and summer, when the daffodils, roses and other gardens are in full bloom. And during the Christmas season, when the mansion is decked out with holiday decor and the gardens shimmer with lights.

But Halloween? Not so much — until now.

Five nights a week from Oct. 16 through Nov. 3, mystery will descend on the mansion and grounds as Filoli turns out the lights indoors and illuminates the gardens outdoors for “Nightfall,” an immersive, slightly spooky but family-friendly Halloween experience.

Guests will begin their visit with a candlelit journey through the house, where a Victorian-era Gothic wedding party has clearly gone awry. Haunting music, a distracting bride and an apothecary full of potions and spell books all combine to offer disturbing hints.

Curious about your own future? A mystic in the dining room will tell fortunes and one in the meadow will do speed tarot readings.

Outside, the mood lightens with live bluegrass music, pumpkin bowling, cornhole and oversized tic-tac-toe. Children are welcome to attend in costume.

Jack’s Bar in the meadow will offer seating around fire pits and seasonal food and beverages. Think Autumn Harvest Chili, Angel’s Floss (aka, homemade cotton candy) or a Filoli Eclair with ghostly images. And a “Shirley Tremble” mocktail might be just the thing to cap off the eerie evening. 

Details: Visitors will be admitted at 30-minute intervals from 5:30 to 8 pm, with the estate open until 9 pm Many time slots are expected to sell out, so advance purchase is recommended. Admission prices are $45 adults, $33 youths ages 5-17. Filoli is located at 86 Canada Road, Woodside; https://filoli.org/

Explore a ghostly historic hotel

With looming dark trees on a fog-shrouded hill, the Claremont Club & Spa is the closest thing the East Bay has to the grand (but very haunted) hotel from “The Shining.” And according to rumors, it is indeed cursed – by, among other appearances, giggling girls who roll down the hallways on tricycles.

This Halloween month, the circa-1915 hotel is offering haunted history tours that delve into the building’s curious architecture and tragic circumstances. The guided excursions lead through claustrophobic hallways out to the garden and then into “active” rooms (say that in a sinister voice). You might gain access to the luxurious presidential tower, where strange figures have been spotted in the windows despite there being no public access. Or it might be a room where you can wield an electromagnetic field meter to detect the paranormal activity of a woman said to have drowned in a claw-foot tub.

According to one story, back when visiting NBA teams stayed at the Claremont to play the Warriors, the Spurs’ Jeff Ayres couldn’t get his room key to work — just as he heard a baby crying inside. When the hotel manager arrived on the scene, the door opened just fine, and the room was empty. Ayres asked to switch rooms.

The tour is part horror and part history, including architectural quirks like a corkscrew-shaped metal slide that functioned as a fire escape. Rambunctious teens and UC Berkeley frat boys used to zoom down it for hijinks. (The fire marshal might call that “scary.”) Sometimes history is the horror: An asylum near UC Berkeley’s Clark Kerr Campus was said to have burned down long ago, and the voices of the immolated still issue from the surrounding forest.

And then there’s Emily, a little girl from the 1920s who chased her ball into a laundry chute and fell to her death. She’s said to be a friendly ghost, leaving mysterious indentations on your bedsheets while she presumably sits and watches you sleep. “She’s doing nothing evil,” a tour guide informs. “It’s almost like she just wants to say ‘hi.’”

There are also hidden actors playing ghosts, tales of haunted subterranean tunnels and an evil monkey presence lurking in an elevator. If all this sounds too freaky, don’t worry – at the end, they give you a Halloween-themed cocktail to drown your fright.

Details: Tours take place every Thursday, Friday and Saturday in October at 41 Tunnel Road, Berkeley; tickets are $40 at claremont-hotel.com/events/haunted-history-tours.

Discover a haunted airplane hangar

Bring your umbrellas to the Hiller Aviation Museum the week before Halloween, because it’ll be literally raining pumpkins in San Carlos.

The 12th annual Haunted Hangar returns once more, pumpkin drop and all. The celebrated tradition involves parading a bright orange squash out to a helicopter pad, flying it high into the sky and then dropping it from the chopper.

The witches in charge of the pumpkin plummet have gotten quite accurate with their aim. They never miss the pavement at the San Carlos Airport, where the pumpkin’s explosion is met with roaring applause.

The bigger the explosion, the better.

“We’ve done experiments and found that the workshop, oblong pumpkins tend to do a little better,” says museum events assistant Heather Stein.

The pumpkin drop is the grand finale of the museum’s spooky Haunted Hangar fest, which transforms the museum into a Halloween-themed adventure area for kids of all ages. There’s a treasure hunt with hidden pumpkins and tiny gnomes, carnival games and craft projects, and the aviation invention lab goes ghost copter centric.

“Everyone loves it,” Stein says. “People talk about it all year. “These are some of our biggest weekends.”

Details: The aviation museum is open from 10 am to 5 pm at 601 Skyway Road in
San Carlos, with suitably spooky fun from Oct. 19 through Halloween. The Haunted Hangar kids carnival, which includes plane painting activities, runs from 10 am to noon Oct. 19 and 20, with more fun — including the pumpkin drop — on Oct. 26 and 27. Tickets are $14-$22;  Hiller.org.

Swim with pumpkins

Every child remembers their first trip to the pumpkin patch to pick out a gourd for Halloween. First, you have to take a shower and then put on your goggles and water wings and get ready to hop in….

What? No one else got their first jack-o’-lantern at a public swimming pool? Well, that can be remedied quickly, as this year Berkeley will once again host its popular Floating Pumpkin Patch at the city’s West Campus Pool .

This outdoor, heated pool is normally used for lap swimming, lessons and senior exercise. But once a year, the city fills it up with pumpkins for frolicking swimmers. It turns out pumpkins float quite well – they have air in them and are buoyant (a good word to use with your budding 6-year-old scientist). While you won’t see lifeguards carrying them around “Bay Watch”-style, hucking them at thrashing swimmers in the water, they will gently — and amusingly — bob around the water.

“Our public pools are treasured by our communities,” says city communications specialist Seung Lee. “And special events such as the Floating Pumpkin Patch encourage children and families to spend more time in the water together, get comfortable inside a pool and even learn to swim.” (Other special events, in case you want to mark your calendar, include egg hunts, carnivals, a New Year’s Day swim and doggie days.)

Floating patches seem to be a particularly Californian way of sourcing a pumpkin. In past years, they’ve appeared in Alameda, Brentwood, Vacaville and Dublin, which is holding its own event this year on Oct. 26 at The Wave water park ($20 residents, $24 nonresidents).

The Berkeley event even encourages people to wear costumes while on the pool deck – the Little Mermaid, perhaps? – though not while swimming. There will be around 300 pumpkins, and everyone who manages to get their arms around one is welcome to take it home.

Details: The Berkeley pumpkin float runs from 10 am to 6 pm Oct. 26 at the West Campus Pool, 2100 Browning St., Berkeley. Advance registration — $10 for Berkeley residents or $12 for nonresidents — is required. Find more details at https://tinyurl.com/pumpkinpool.

Be amazed at mentalist’s ‘Seance Show’

Magician and “comic mentalist” Jay Alexander has conjured up an all-new show for Halloween season, and you can catch his act throughout October near San Francisco’s Union Square.

“It’s not a séance,” he explains, “but a Séance Show,” suitable for ages 12 and up. “Whether you’re a believer or a skeptic, strange and magical occurrences will unfold, making guests question reality in a fun yet spooky way.”

A magician since childhood, Alexander was inspired by some of the greats. At age 14, he received the Society of American Magicians’ Gold Medal of Honor — the youngest recipient ever. He moved to San Francisco in 1986 and now splits his time between San Jose and Sausalito.

Lovers of magic who have attended previous rave performances about Alexander’s “mind-boggling” tricks and showmanship. Besides holding forth at the theater, he’s also in high demand on the corporate circuit.

“We have fans who have seen the show 20 times,” he says, “and I wanted to give them a fresh experience that pushes boundaries and explores the mysteries of ghosts and spirits.”

Guests are encouraged to arrive an hour before showtime for a meet-and-greet and “a little pre-show sleight-of-hand” in the lobby, where drinks and appetizers may be purchased. .

Details: In October, two shows, 6:30 and 9 pm, on Fridays and Saturdays, and one 6:30 pm show on Sundays at the San Francisco Magic Theater at the Marrakech, 419 O’Farrell St. Tickets, $55 to $65 , available at www.sanfranciscomagictheater.com .

Benedict Cumberbatch is “Frankenstein”

Well, sort of.

A superfan of the stage could spend thousands of dollars on a plane ticket to London and tickets to the National Theater for a memorable night out. Or they could go to San Jose’s Hammer Theater Center and see a National Theater production — how about “Frankenstein”? — for $13.

Directed by Academy award-winner Danny Boyle (“Slumdog Millionaire”), the production features Benedict Cumberbatch (“The Avengers,” “Sherlock”) and Jonny Lee Miller (“Trainspotting”) in a harrowing performance of the Mary Shelley classic.

The production originally opened in London in 2011 and promptly drew a four-star rating from The Guardian, which applauded Cumberbatch’s “astonishing” and “unforgettable” performance, and The New York Times exclaiming , “I can’t think of a more wrenching stage portrait of the terror and wonder of being born.”

The National Theater used multiple cameras to capture the live performances and released the final product to theaters all over the world. The show was so well-captured on video, it creates the illusion of a live performance in the intimate, 530-person theater in San Jose.

“What’s remarkable about it is that it’s a staged production shot in high-definition video and the scenery, lighting, performances are all incredibly top notch,” says Hammer Theater director Chris Burrill. “You feel like you’re in that room with the original production.”

Cumberbatch and Miller played both roles during the original production, trading off who played Frankenstein and who played the Creature on any given night, with the Times’ review claiming, “Their approaches are just different enough to make you want to see both.”

At The Hammer, Burrill took that advice and is playing both versions of the show, one on Thursday and one on Sunday.

Details: The National Theatre’s “Frankenstein” will screen at 7 pm Oct. 17 and 2 pm Oct. 20 at the Hammer Theater Center, 101 Paseo de San Antonio in San Jose. Tickets, $13 to $20, are available at hammertheatre.com.

Sip creepy cocktails

Halloween wouldn’t be ghoulish fun without spooky libations and bar revelry. How else are you going to explain what possessed you to go home with a Frankenstein? Here’s a sampling of places around the Bay putting on cocktail-themed fun this year:

The traveling Halloween spectacle, House of Spirits, originated in LA in 2019 and has delighted fright-lovers around the country ever since. This year’s Haunted Cocktail Soiree takes over a 13,000-square-foot industrial building in San Francisco to tell the tale of Dr. Grigor Volkov and his wife, Natalia, who haunt the halls of a psychiatric facility called Volkov Manor. Expect surreal costuming, special effects and eerie performances from two dozen actors, plus a flight of four mini-cocktails to top off the evening. The show runs Oct. 11-Nov. 2 at 460 Ninth St. in San Francisco. Tickets start at $73 at houseofspiritssoiree.com/san-francisco.

The Black Lagoon is an immersive goth and metal, pop-up cocktail experience at San Francisco’s Kona’s Street Market, which Esquire dubbed one of the “Best Bars in America.” Look forward to spooky cocktails, horrifying displays and over-the-top costumes (which are encouraged among attendees, as well). Now through Oct. 31 at 32 Third St., San Francisco; blacklagoonpopup.com.

The Fat Pigeon in Livermore is holding a “Hocus Pocus” Halloween – inspired by the comedy starring Bette Midler and Sarah Jessica Parker as witches – featuring an entirely rescripted menu of ghoulish drinks. Come for the 1990s film references, stay for the magical décor and extra-witchy atmosphere. Open daily at 2223 First St., Livermore; fatpigeonbar.com.

The mini-golf chain Tipsy Putt, so named because adults can imbibe as they thwack balls, is giving its East Bay location a monstrous makeover for Halloween. The action takes place in the course’s speakeasy….er, Spookeasy, called the Trophy Club, which organizers promise will offer “spine-chilling fun, spooky cocktails and festive surprises.” They’ve even brought back the gin-centric Hi-C’s Ecto Cooler for the occasion. Open daily until Nov. 2 at Tipsy Putt East Bay at 5690 Bay St., Emeryville; tipsyputt.com.

Hunt for spooky treasure

San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral is keeping a pandemic tradition alive this October, opening the doors to its Gothic charm and welcoming children to a Halloween treasure hunt for the fourth consecutive year.

In this century-old Episcopal church, where members of its popular Grace Arts program now out-number regular churchgoers by more than 3:2 , self expression is worth celebrating. Dress up as whatever (or whoever) you’d like and bring the kids for an adventure through secret passageways into the pulpit and onto the catwalks as you explore the nooks and crannies of a church originally built in 1862 and rebuilt in 1927.

While adults will be able to appreciate the majesty of a building covered in more than 7,000 square feet of stained glass, the kids can follow their Halloween-themed maps through the church as they look for treasure (candy, duh). They’ll bump into volunteers dressed as characters, control lights using a magic wand, use black lights to reveal hidden messages and avoid cats and bats scattered throughout.

“But it’s not scary,” says children’s program director Steph McNally. “We walk a fine balance. We make it spooky like Harry Potter, but it’s friendly for children. We really like seeing the babies and the toddlers in the crawl spaces. “We try to make it fun for the whole family.”

The treasure hunt started as a way to help kids trick-or-treat in a safe space during the pandemic. McNally said the response was so overwhelmingly positive that they had hundreds and hundreds of visitors.

“It’s free — our gift to the community,” McNally says. “We love doing it. It’s about 30 volunteers who really look forward to it. “We love it when the kids and the whole family can dress up.”

This year’s event has a moon and stars theme — the children will be the stars — with “super-spooky” organ music played by Grammy-winning composer and organist Dorothy Papadakos.

Details: The Edge of Halloween treasure hunt runs from 2 to 4 pm Oct 27 at Grace Cathedral, 1100 California St. in San Francisco; the event is free but tickets are required. Enjoy the music of Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” performed by a trio of San Francisco musicians, on Oct. 24, and a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1927 silent thriller, “The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog” — with musical accompaniment by Papadokos — on Oct. 31. Gracecathedral.org

Need more ideas? Find classic Halloween festivals, haunted houses and events on our spook-tacular calendar .