• One lonely zombie in search of human "companionship"John Block/Brand X Pictures/Getty Images
  
  They want to eat your brains, so use yours instead to blend in with the other zombies prowling your street on Halloween. Forget the lame zombie masks and ketchup blood. Get some real gore effects under your belt and make your night a thrilling living dead adventure you will never forget.
  
  

Fake Blood

• No self respecting zombie leaves home without her makeup -- fake blood to frighten her intended victims. Fortunately, this is an easy essential to make at home. Simply mix red food coloring with clear corn syrup, adding a drop or two of green or blue food coloring to get just the right blood tint. Apply liberally for maximum effect. For thicker blood stir in a small amount of unflavored gelatin powder. It will solidify quickly to a rubbery texture -- great for making blood clots.
  
  

Rotting Flesh

• There are a several ways to make creepy rotting flesh. Graham Holt suggests one easy formula in his blood-curdling treatise on the website Theatre on a Shoestring. Just mix flour, corn starch and white glue into a paste and roll it out thin enough to look like skin. Apply it to the face -- or wherever you need rotting flesh -- while still moist so the glue will stick to your skin and stay. As it dries, it will crack a bit and add to the decaying look. Cover with makeup to blend with skin or use another of his tricks to create a "pallor of death" with white base makeup and black shading.
  
  

Gooey Guts

• If you are going to be a zombie, you need to show some guts -- literally. This is a fun, if rather disgusting way to do it using nothing more complex than a few resealable plastic bags, tape, skinny balloons and some food items from the kitchen. Cook up a batch of spaghetti or throw some mashed potatoes and jello together in a big bowl -- whatever makes you say yuk will probably be fine. Stuff a few slender pink or clear balloons with the mess until they are plump, squishy and organ like. Put those in a bag, then tape the bag to your skin under carefully made slits in your clothing so they show through. For added grossness, rub cooking oil on a few inches of "intestine" poking out through a hole in your abdominal "skin" -- the plastic bag.
  
  

Scabs and Scars

• Mix dry oatmeal with white glue to make fake scabs. Cover in makeup matching your skin tone, then add some fake blood as desired to make them more realistic. Make scars by painting thickened gelatin solution -- made with 1 tbsp. of unflavored gelatin powder dissolved in 1 tbsp. hot water -- onto skin and allowing it to dry before covering in makeup and blood. Alternatively, use skin safe silicone to create a realistic, if somewhat more complicated scar.