Christian Smith, a sophomore education major in secondary English, thinks Halloween costumes are becoming repetitive, so he decided to create his own by being Batman and Superman at the same time.

“I thought of fusing before, but I didn’t really have any good ideas, or at least nothing I thought would be funny,” Smith said.

While Smith went out of his way to create a costume, the local themes for this Halloween season ranges from fusions of pop culture characters, blood-drenched zombies and superhero characters.

“They’re just putting two and two together, and coming up with four,” Ron Thompson, of Spotlight Costumes LLC, said describing the latest fad. “They’re just saying, ‘I’m going to put this, this, this, and this together, and it’s going to be this,’ and it’s wonderful.”

Partakers of Halloween are taking classic characters to another level of creativity by fusing them together – creating costumes and characters of their own. Others are choosing to be Rastafarians, nuns, celebrities, and inmates, which is due to the popularity of the series, “Orange Is the New Black.”

Thompson, whose   store is located at 1503 East Carson St., recalled an experience in which a customer wanted to combine the image of Michael Myers, the psychopathic murderer of the classic film, “Halloween” and the international detective   of  the 1960s, Austin Powers, a character played by the award-winning actor, Mike Myers, which was something that amused Thompson during business hours.

 “I thought it was incredibly clever,” Thompson said. 

Thompson also stated that people are taking popular characters and turning them into zombie, ranging from presidents, such as President Obama and Abraham Lincoln, to “just married” couples.  

Thompson said one of the more bizarre recent costumes was the customer that wanted to turn Santa Claus into the walking dead.

“We sold Santa suits because they’re going as Mr. Santa, Mrs. Santa and all the elves as zombies,” Thompson said while sitting behind his counter, surrounded by different costume accessories.

 “They’ll be people who shouldn’t be zombies, and so they’re taking it, tweaking it and turning it to eleven,” Thompson said as customers perused store suits, hats, axes, guns and jewelry.

Yes, the zombie invasion is here and the trend is spreading, along with large amounts of fake blood, which assist customers with achieving their zombie personas.

“As far as trends go, zombies are always popular,” Harley Chessey, an Art Institute graduate, said. He is also an employee at Costume World, located in the Strip District at 1690 Smallman St.

“Zombie fest kicks off the sales of blood,” Chessey said.

Besides zombies, customers are purchasing licensed costumes. Superhero characters such as Captain America, “Hunger Games” characters such as Katniss Everdeen, “Frozen” characters such as Queen Elsa of Arendelle, and other cartoon characters have been popular as of lately.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have not been made into zombies, but they are still being sold to children, and even adults, according to Megan Calabro, another employee at Costume World and an Art Institute graduate. 

“Ninja Turtles are selling well,” Calabro said.

Costumes that are not popular are the current movie monsters like Freddy Kruger and Jason Voorhees.  

Chessey said that “movie monsters are not as popular.”

Smith feels that costumes are becoming repetitive and mediocre.

“Every year, people are wearing the same things,” Smith said. “You see the Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman costumes for the ladies. Switch it up to make something original.”  

Smith said that he’s going to attempt to be half of Batman, and half of Superman. 

Smith loves the fact that people like him are fusing popular characters together, which has influenced his costume idea – a Batman and Superman costume fusion.

“I was thinking of having a parody thing of Batman and Superman, as if they fell asleep, woke up and accidentally put on each other’s outfit,” Smith said with a smile.

Whether Mr. and Mrs. Claus are now zombies or Batman and Superman are wearing each other’s outfits, people are obligated to stand out this year by taking what is deemed “usual,” as Smith put it, and making their costumes unusual.

Costumes can be rented from Spotlight Costumes LLC for affordable prices from $55 to $75 per costume.