Halloween is the one night of the year where camp truly takes centre stage. Sequins, glitter, exaggerated wigs, and haunted excess all find their way into costumes and interiors. To understand why Halloween feels so visually spectacular, it helps to think about the art of camp itself—an aesthetic of irony, parody, and theatrical exaggeration. From drag queens in dazzling Gothic gowns to over-the-top home decor filled with cobwebs, candles, and neon skulls, Halloween embraces camp’s love of artifice and spectacle.
Camp as an Aesthetic of Excess
In her famous 1964 essay Notes on Camp, Susan Sontag described camp as a sensibility that delights in the unnatural, the artificial, and the exaggerated. Camp is about embracing “bad taste” as something glamorous, theatrical, and joyful. Halloween costumes and decor channel this philosophy perfectly.
The witch’s hat becomes comically tall, the vampire’s cape impossibly long, the jack-o’-lantern neon bright. Camp thrives on spectacle, and Halloween is its most mainstream playground.
Drag, Performance, and Halloween
Halloween has always been a holiday of transformation, where masks and costumes let us play with identity. It’s no surprise then that drag culture and Halloween share so much common ground. Both embrace parody, exaggeration, and theatrical gender play.
From the glamorous excess of Divine to the Gothic beauty of drag queens dressed like Victorian vampires, drag aesthetics influence Halloween fashion and, in turn, Halloween-inspired visual art. Glitter, sparkle, oversized lashes, and decadent fabrics all become part of the seasonal language.
Camp in Halloween Decor
It’s not just costumes—Halloween interiors are filled with camp excess. Think of fake cobwebs stretched across chandeliers, plastic skeletons posed in humorous positions, and glitter-covered skulls that shimmer under candlelight.
Camp home decor revels in the “too much”: rooms dripping in candles, walls adorned with maximalist art prints, tables overflowing with pumpkins of every colour. It’s theatre turned domestic, turning the home into a stage set for enchantment.
Gothic Meets Camp: A Perfect Union
One reason Halloween feels so enduring is its fusion of gothic darkness and camp humour. The result is a mood that is eerie but never entirely serious. Consider The Rocky Horror Picture Show, where Gothic horror tropes were reimagined with glam, glitter, and over-the-top musical numbers. Or Beetlejuice, which balanced morbidity with playful absurdity.
This intersection between Gothic and camp continues to inspire contemporary art prints and posters. Maximalist compositions, surreal portraits with glitter details, and playful dark whimsy capture that same tension between fear and fun.
Theatricality in Art and Posters
Halloween posters themselves—whether vintage horror film adverts or modern graphic prints—often lean into camp. Dramatic fonts, lurid colours, and exaggerated imagery are designed not just to scare but to delight in their own theatricality.
This tradition lives on in art prints that blend camp motifs with gothic atmospheres: surreal faces framed by glittering moons, pink skulls with floral crowns, maximalist collages of witches and cats. These works carry the camp philosophy into contemporary interiors, turning walls into playful theatres of symbolism.
Why Camp Resonates at Halloween
Part of Halloween’s magic lies in its invitation to go beyond restraint. In daily life, minimalism and subtlety often dominate—but on Halloween, camp excess is not only allowed, it’s celebrated. The holiday legitimises sparkle, parody, and theatricality.
In art and decor, this impulse resonates deeply. Hanging a Gothic-camp print on your wall isn’t just a seasonal gesture—it’s an embrace of the aesthetic of joy through exaggeration. It’s a reminder that the theatrical can also be profound, that irony can coexist with beauty.
Halloween as Camp Celebration
Halloween, at its heart, is more than a night of costumes: it is a stage for the aesthetics of camp. It celebrates the artificial, the excessive, the theatrical—and it encourages us to turn our homes, our bodies, and even our walls into spaces of playful transformation.
When we light candles under glittering skulls or hang maximalist wall art with Gothic flourishes, we are not just decorating—we are participating in a centuries-old theatre of excess, irony, and beauty. Halloween and camp belong together, and both remind us of the joy of turning life into spectacle.
