Halloween

Be afraid — be very afraid. The legions of the dead shall walk the earth, hell will spew its guts onto the streets, and you shall know the evil ones by the sign of the pumpkin . . . not to mention their cute face paint, diminutive stature, and ravenous hunger for candy. This year — in addition to the usual fistful o’ chocolate — give the trick-or-treaters a blast of Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s “Monster Mash,” Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London,” or that scariest of October 31 signature tunes, John Carpenter’s goose-bumpin’ boogie-man classic, the theme from Halloween.

Blues, prog and post-punk get a Halloween spin, in Next Steps.

Rock ’n’ roll has always been drawn to the night of all things creepy. The post-punk side of spooky is represented by Siouxsie & The Banshees with “Halloween,” while the Diamonds give the night of horrors a clean-cut Canadian spin on “Batman, Wolfman, Frankenstein or Dracula,” and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins adds a touch of voodoo to the blues on “Alligator Wine.” Blue Öyster Cult tries to curdle our blood with cowbell on “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper,” the Doors invite us for a ride on their carousel of freaks with “People Are Strange,” and Creedence Clearwater Revival speaks to our inner lycanthrope on “Bad Moon Rising.”

Too much pumpkin pie can make you sick, but your appetite for our Halloween Deep Cuts should prove insatiable . . .

Welcome to the darkest corner of our Halloween laboratory, where rock’s most demented scientists go about their terrible — yet utterly satisfying — work. Marilyn Manson straps the Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” to a table and turns up the voltage, and Rob Zombie mixes equal parts of industrial squelch, diabolical glam, and hell-fried vocal to produce his “Living Dead Girl.” Jonathan Richman, meanwhile, ponders the culinary talents of his “Vampire Girl” by posing the question: “Does she cook beans? Does she cook rice? Does she do ritual sacrifice?”

Like an overstuffed swag-bag of sweets, our Halloween Essentials should have something for everyone, from the spoofery of Sha Na Na’s “Witch Doctor” to the new wave wonders of Oingo Boingo’s “Dead Man’s Party” and the post-punk Gothica of Siouxsie & The Banshees’ “Spellbound.” We’ve also thrown in the Who (with their arachno-centric creep-crawly classic, “Boris the Spider”) and Santana (the intoxicating “Black Magic Woman”), alongside Michael Jackson, whose “Thriller” video was directed by John Landis . . . who made An American Werewolf in London . . . which features Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising” on its soundtrack . . . but not Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London.” Spooky.