The Scariest Halloween Story Ever! Review

The Scariest Halloween Story Ever! is one of the most charming and fun Halloween apps I have come across in a long time.

An interactive storybook starring “Candy Corn Man,” who is a boy a boy dressed in a wonderfully homemade superhero costume who vows to protect readers from the scary content in this book.

Reminiscent of The Monster at the End of this Book, I really appreciate how instead of readers scaring an unwitting character from this story, here, the Candy Corn Man is trying to separate readers from the ending of this book as well as the other gruesome elements within, allowing readers to defy him by turning pages themselves as they make their way through this terrific application.

Readers will be introduced to dancing skeleton bones said to dance in a graveyard, including percussive sound effects which can be moved around the page, bouncing into each other with the use of a physics engine.

Bloody monster eyeballs are also explored, as players get the chance to splatter these gruesome objects all over a blank white page.

I also admire how this app, designed to be scary, is still-child friendly as later children are let in on the secret that the bones and eyeballs are actually sidewalk chalk and meatballs, as Candy Corn Man uses these props to acclimate readers to the scares they still face if they continue to turn these pages.

Bats, witches, ghosts and cockroaches appear within this book to a nice, spooky effect as these images flash upon the screen complete with sound effects. I especially like being dared to touch a blank white screen to hear the realistic squeaks of a mouse - a moment of this app that startled me first at first tap.

All the warnings by Candy Corn Man lead up to an ending, memorable as it is anticlimactic and silly - an ending that makes me smile each time I reach the end of this application.

The narration, spoken by a boy, is excellent although the actual recording sounds a little muffled - a mild concern most people will not pick up on.

It is worth noting that this app is rated 9+ for infrequent Mild Horror and Fear themes, and although this is the case, I do believe that younger kids who enjoy scary things as I did from an early age could enjoy this app as well.

The use of meatballs for eyeballs is a great demonstration for how this app never crosses a line in terms of what would be appropriate in a children’s app, and I very much enjoy the “first person” style of Candy Corn Man which engages the reader directly.

For me, this application is a very easy recommendation to make, but I am fan of blood and guts. For families who also enjoy this genre in general, The Scariest Halloween App Ever! is worth looking into.