Whether planning your Halloween door decorations just for trick o' treaters, or for a full-out Halloween party, the entrance to your home will make or break the effect of your Halloween decor.

For party guests, this is the thing that will set the scene for what they will find inside. For trick o' treaters, it's the last scary thing that will warn them of who (or what) might be opening that door...

Just as with the rest of your outdoor Halloween decor, it's easiest to create a great effect with your Halloween door decorations if you choose a theme. But any way you do it, the best thing is to go all-out. It's actually remarkably easy to do a really effective Halloween-decorated door! Some of my favorite ideas are:

1. Crime Scene.

All you need to pull of this Halloween door decoration is a roll of caution tape, some bloody handprints, and maybe a novelty knife if you feel like it. Criss-cross the front door with strips of caution tape, add some blood and gore, and leave the rest to your guests' imagination. Be sure to add a chalk body-outline (or three) to the driveway or walkway as part of your outdoor Halloween decor.

2. Warned Away! Hanging Intestines

Follow the instructions on this page for making your own intestines at home. Then hang them from your front door. Spatter with bloody handprints, gore, or whatever you like. Very gross and very effective.

3. "Dead" Animals

This is similar to the Halloween door idea above, but you can vary it to match your theme. Using a creepy Halloween animal or even a discarded (realistic-looking) stuffed animal, hang a cat, rat, snake, or whatever you like from the front door with a small rope noose (or a nail).

Some variations on this idea would be a plastic skeleton or a shrunken head. Or a pair of old white sneakers from the thrift store with red paint "blood" spattered on them. Or go subtle and elegant and use only a plain rope noose-- let your guests fill it in with their imagination.

4. Simple Sign

Sometimes the creepiest and most effective outdoor Halloween decor is about subtlety. Using a simple sign, like the Bates Motel sign below, to give your home a subtle air of threat that can be really effective. "Keep Out" signs, Wanted signs, or variations of this also work well.

5. Create a Cave

You don't necessarily need to decorate the front door itself to create maximum creepiness. If you leave the door free and open but occupy all the space around it with creepiness, it creates a wonderful effect. Create a spider web "cave" like the one pictured. Or make dozens of bats of different sizes from black foam and hang them at different levels surrounding the front door. Or if you want to be really gross, make loads of fake Halloween intestines and hang them all around the door.

6. Warning: Spider Infestation!

Cover the entire front door from top to bottom in cotton spider webbing. Or create a more structural spider web from string (or simply buy one). Dot the webbing with plastic spiders of varying sizes, from little dime-sizes spiders to tarantulas the size of your fist. Using double-sided tape, tape spiders all over the woodwork of the door, especially around the handle. This theme looks especially good when you have a giant, hairy 4-foot tarantula guarding your front porch.

7. Have Fun with Lighting

It's pretty common to see pretty Halloween string-lights used as Halloween door decorations. But it also looks great to use different colors of lighting, as pictured here. If you shine different colors of light (blacklight, green, red) on white Halloween decorations, such a linen ghosts or cotton spider webbing, the light will have a strange and ethereal quality that will look very spooky indeed.

Get some more Halloween lighting ideas here!

8. Make it Aged

Your Halloween door decorations can be subtle and still spooky. Rub dust into the door to make it look old and unopened. Install a squeaky door sound effect. Drape porch lights, etc., gently with spider webbing, and add a few rusted old lamps from flea markets. This quiet sense of spookiness can be a great effect!

9. Go Harvest-y

If you perfect not to make your Halloween door decorations too spooky, go for a harvest theme instead of a strictly Halloween one. Pick up or make a wreath of dried leaves or harvest corn. Use lots of pumpkins and gourds (uncarved looks nice) around the porch, the railings, and the front door. Fill a basket with autumn harvest goodies and leave it next to the front door.

10. Cover it up

If your front door is located in a recessed area (like the one pictured), think about draping long strips of gauze-y material (use a little red paint to make it blood-stained) in front of the arch that leads to the front door. Make the area beyond it dark and creepy as could be-- guests will have to be brave enough to push through the first layer of curtain to get to the front door... if they dare!