Dedham residents get ready for a ‘super’ spooky night

Shopping with her mom at Spirit Halloween at the Dedham Mall, 8-year-old Emma Weiss had a certain costume in mind: a “candy corn witch” outfit that includes a layered dress, long black coat, black boots and “an up-do wig.”

They were having a hard time finding it, but the Oakdale School third-grader had a backup plan – Monster Girl.

“It’s kind of like a girl Frankenstein, but cuter,” she said.

“You have to be cute for Halloween,” agreed Emma’s mother, Jane Weiss.

As the haunted holiday draws near, local kids and adults are seeking out costumes from the endearing to the creepy – such as Michael Saliba, 8, who will be the Grim Reaper on Oct. 31.

“I sort of want to be something scary this year,” said Saliba, wandering the aisles of the Dedham store with his 6-year-old sister, Bella, and their mom, Kara.

The Riverdale family said they are competing with neighbors to see who has the best decorations around the house. Getting even more in the spirit, “We dress up all year round,” Kara Saliba said.

“She wears her costume to the football field,” Kara said of her daughter, who was considering five costumes for Halloween, including a devil, witch, and Dorothy, from the “Wizard of Oz.” “She doesn’t care who looks at her.”

“I don’t,” agreed Bella, who minutes later was checking out a large crib full of “zombie babies” when one swiveled its head toward her and hellishly cried. “Oh hi,” she told the freakish tot, before walking away.

Spirit Halloween employees said Mario Brothers, “Star Wars,” “Wizard of Oz,” and ’80s costumes are popular this year.

At another Halloween store that has popped up this month – Spooky Town, down Route 1 in Westwood – Greg Cady also reported that “Star Wars” is popular, thanks to the new cartoon, “Clone Wars.” So is “X-Men” for the same reason, and Spider Girl and Wonder Woman are both huge, he said.

Cady said that, if anything, vampires are the top choice this year.

“Everybody wants to be Dracula. Vampires are always in,” he said.

Cady, a manager at Pool & Patio Specialists in the same strip, said his store decided to open Spooky Town and sell Halloween gear this October for the first time.

Dorice Dionne, the co-founder of Dedham-based iParty, said many old favorites are selling at her company’s Boston-area stores, led by “Star Wars” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

“Movies really dictate what sells each year,” Dionne said, but this season those movies are from years ago.

iParty does not have a Halloween pop-up outlet in Dedham, though the company’s first store is on VFW Parkway in West Roxbury near the Dedham line.

Dionne said that for girls pink Batgirl and pink Supergirl are hot, “empowering young women to be superheroes like boys.”

And – with the King of Pop’s death in ’09 – Dionne said that “anything to do with Michael Jackson is selling – his jacket, his gloves, that kind of thing.”

Dedham Transcript staff writer Edward B. Colby can be reached at 781-433-8336 or ecolby@cnc.com.