Get your creep on

When Halloween is on its way – and you aren’t naturally pale, jerky, and screaming – then you might find a use for HauntedBooth. This little app takes a photo of your face and, with a little calibration, is able to animate your visage into that of a jittery, howling banshee. Which is fun, for about five minutes.

Hey, are you okay?

Considering the host of scary face apps on the store, HauntedBooth is actually quite impressive. Rather than simply offering a selection of lackluster masks to place over your face or photo, HauntedBooth asks you mark out your eyes and mouth then it animates your whole face.

You start by picking a picture from your library or taking a photo in-app. The picture has to be quite dull – full face towards the camera – but don’t worry because HauntedBooth will soon make it more exciting.

Once your photo is in place, it’s time to make sure that the app has accurately identified your eyes and mouth. It is actually pretty good at doing this automatically, but occasionally you may need to move the markers to perfect it.

You don’t look very well, a bit pale.

Finally, you get to pick out exactly what you want on your frightening face. From a screaming open maw to wrought, bloodshot eyes, there are a good range of selectable features to ensure that your face is as unnerving as you wasn’t it to be. Though there are a number of options, some are locked behind a paywall – but you get a good idea of everything on offer from the free version.

After this, tapping on the tiny preview of your face reveals the true horror! By which I mean a jittering image of your pale face, with whatever additions you have made to the eyes and mouth, superimposed over your own. It moves and groans a little, plus you have the option to pull and drag it around – forcing it to deform and morph as you move it.

You’re a g… g… g… ghost!

HauntedBooth is one of the better freaky face apps we have come across. And the effect is truly creepy the first time your pale face starts to moan and jerk around on screen (especially if The Ring still gives you nightmares). Unfortunately, with many of the options locked behind a paywall, you will probably exhaust the free fun on pretty quickly.

But, the same company can also turn you into a zombie… so you can give that a try here.