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This Halloween promises to be a thrilling K-pop extravaganza.
As the ghostly season approaches, eager celebrants are rushing to snag the trendiest—and most stylish—costumes before they disappear from the shelves.
It’s not just the youngsters getting decked out for this frightful occasion. According to the Halloween Costume Association, 51% of adults who partake in Halloween festivities are planning to don costumes this year. Additionally, 34% of celebrants are keen to have their pets join the fun, dressing them up for the holiday.
With Halloween spending anticipated to hit an all-time high of $13.1 billion, surpassing the $12.2 billion record set last year, costumes account for 71% of these expenses, as reported by the National Retail Federation’s annual consumer survey.
So, which costumes will top the charts? A dive into Google Trends suggests this year’s Halloween will feature a delightful blend of the new and the nostalgic, with costumes from popular 2023 media hits mingling with cherished classics from Halloweens gone by.
Based on these trends, The Post has scared up the cream of the costume crop so people won’t be shamed by the Halloween fashion police come Oct. 31.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that the top trending kids’ costume is the purple-haired protagonist of the hit Netflix series, which is now the most popular Netflix film of all time, with more than 236 million views to date.
Rumi (voiced by Arden Cho is one third of a K-pop trio, alongside Mira (May Hong) and Zooey (Ji-young Yoo), who moonlight as demon hunters battling a rival boy band of — you guessed it — demons disguised as humans.
A variety of retailers offer Rumi costumes from Amazon to Spirit, the latter joining forces with Netflix to offer exclusive “KPop Demon Hunters” Halloween costumes.
Also popular among the kiddies, per Google Trends, were a perennial classic, the racecar driver, and the titular character from the Predator franchise, which coincidentally comes ahead of the “Predator: Bandlands” release on Nov. 7.

Art the Clown from “Terrifier” has taken Pennywise’s spot as the “It” harlequin costume among adults. That is perhaps none too shocking, given the success of the blood-flecked franchise, the last two installments of which were released in October 2024 and 2022 to much fanfare.
Most successful was the third movie, which earned more than $50 million worldwide on a modest $2 million budget, making it the highest-grossing unrated film ever — despite the fact that the flick was so gory it had viewers “vomiting” and walking out of theaters during the premiere.
The most popular “Terrifier” costumes feature Art in the classic black and white harlequin costume with blood splatters galore, like a macabre Jackson Pollock painting.
Other hit costumes among adults include the animated character “Kim Possible” and a pooch from “101 Dalmatians.”
Costumes for dogs: Gizmo

Don’t feed your dog after midnight!
Gizmo from “Gremlins” ranked among the most popular costumes for dogs, and Amazon features a smorgasbord of the Furbie-adjacent getups; their overall pick runs $28.99.
Other hit costumes were Jake the Dog from the animated series “Adventure Time” and a Ty brand dog.
This comes as pet getups are on the rise — a recent survey by Metlife Pet Insurance found that over half of pet owners (53%) buy Halloween costumes for their fur babies, while one in five pet parents (20%) shell out more than $50 on their pet’s Halloween costume.

The iconic “Scream” baddie has been a fixture of Halloween trick-or-treaters since the release of the original film in 1996. Now, with the seventh film slated for an early 2026 release, it seems that this ghost-faced thriller may be seeing a renaissance.
In fact, the classic costume likely also got a bump in 2023 and 2024 with the TikTok “Ghostface trend,” in which users encouraged their partners to wear the “Scream” slasher villain’s masks for humorous and risqué videos that often involved role-playing scenarios.
The Joker and the titular angry golfer from Adam Sandler’s comedy “Happy Gilmore” ranked among other popular getups for boys. In August, “Happy Gilmore 2” shattered the Nielsen streaming record after clocking 2.9 billion viewing minutes during its opening weekend.

The typical witch costume got a major upgrade this year in Elphaba, the green-skinned protagonist of the acclaimed 2024 movie “Wicked,” based on the hit Broadway musical by playwright Winnie Holzman.
The movie took the culture by storm, while actress Cynthia Erivo received an Oscar nomination for her performance in the role. Amazon features several costume variations of Elphaba.
And while tots won’t be able to enlist Academy Award-winning costume designer Paul Tazewell, they can choose from some decent getups on Amazon and elsewhere.
One, priced at $27.99, comes with Elphaba’s trademark pointy hat and cloak and even features green sleeves and leggings, avoiding the need to go ham with face paint.
This seemed to be the year for emerald-hued antiheroes as Batman baddie Poison Ivy also proved a favorite among girls, according to Google Trends.
Fittingly, “Mean Girls”-inspired outfits were also a go-to, coming off the heels of a box office-topping remake in 2024.