All the Songs and Dances for Halloween’s ‘Monster Night’ on 'Dancing with the Stars'
Rylee Arnold, Harry Jowsey
Dancing with the Stars will be calling all ghouls and goblins to take part in the Monster Mash for Halloween on Tuesday night when the nine remaining couples get into the holiday spirit with eerie transformations and performances to match.
The fright night will see a fourth judge added to the panel when Niecy Nash-Betts joins Carrie Ann Inaba, Derek Hough, and Bruno Tonioli to critique the celebrity teams.
Parade caught up with Derek and Carrie Ann after last week’s episode to ask if they would be dressing up for Halloween.
“Nothing crazy,” Derek told us, but also shared his favorite memory from childhood. “Being a pumpkin, I think. My mom made all my costumes growing up. It was awesome.”
“I like being either cats or witches,” Carrie Ann shares. “That’s one of the things that I always did. When I was in eighth grade, we went to a volleyball game, and I was trying to impress this guy that I really liked. He played volleyball. I wore my witch’s hat, and we walked in, my girlfriends, three witches. Somebody served the ball and it hit my hat off my head and I fell down. So, it was kind of horrific. So, no more witches. It was so embarrassing.”
Monster Night will also see the return of the Dance Marathan to DWTS – labeled “Dance Monster-thon” for the occasion -- as the nine couples perform a Hustle to “Stayin’ Alive” by Bee Gees and a Charleston to “Grim Grinning Ghosts (Dance Party)” by Kris Bowers.
The judges will tap out couples from the marathon, one at a time. Couples earn additional bonus points based on how long they remain in the Dance Marathon, and the last couple standing will be declared the winners. Bonus points from the Dance Marathon will be added to the judges’ scores from the first round of dance to determine a final combined leaderboard of the night.
Related: Derek Hough and the DWTS Pros Share Their Feelings on Dancing in the Len Goodman Tribute
Dancing with the Stars 2023 songs and dances for Week 6, their transformation, and their Halloween memories.
TV and film star Alyson Hannigan and pro Sasha Farber will perform a Paso Doble to “Supermassive Black Hole” by Muse as vampires.
“One year my best friend and I at the time, were like, ‘We’re going to go as that best friend heart necklace thing,’” Alyson recalls. “We made it out of cardboard and marker, but then it rained. So, all of the marker and paint ran down our legs and they were just red and black and we were drenched. It wasn’t pretty.”
Marvel star Xochitl Gomez and pro Val Chmerkovskiy will perform a Contemporary to “Game of Survival” by Ruelle as the undead.
Xochitl remembers, “Halloween was one of those times where I was like, ‘Got to get the costume out, got to start preparing, got to get everything ready.’ I think that was definitely one of those times where I was fully in my character mode. I would dress up as Frida Kahlo and add flowers, real flowers in my hair. All this stuff, it was something that I put a lot of time into. I also did Belle, I did Rapunzel. Sometimes I did random, abstract things that I thought were cool. My mom would sew all my costumes until the day of. It’s something that we really enjoy.”
But her partner Val has more of a trick approach to Halloween than treat. Born in Ukraine, he didn’t celebrate Halloween until he moved to the U.S.
“I was introduced to Halloween in Brooklyn, New York,” he says. “I celebrated by egging, putting toilet paper on houses. It was just different times. I didn’t grow up in a suburban neighborhood where you walked around and collected candy. This was more like you’re either getting egged or you’re throwing them back. Literally, our first Halloween I remember we lived on the first floor across the street from a park and we were just getting egged like crazy. Max and I didn’t understand why. So, we’re like, ‘Screw it,’ we took a carton of eggs from the fridge and we came outside and started throwing them back. We got into a lot of trouble from our mom, who was like, 'Where are the eggs?' So that was my Halloween.”
Vanderpump Rules’ star Ariana Madix and pro Pasha Pashkov will perform an Argentine Tango to “Bad Guy” by Billie Eilish disguised as a harpy and harpy slayer.
Singer and social media star Lele Pons and pro Brandon Armstrong will perform a Paso Doble to “Bloody Mary” (Wednesday Addams dance TikTok version) by Lady Gaga in costume as a dead goth girl/spider.
“In 2020, I threw a party at my dad’s house while he was gone to Mexico,” Lele reveals. “The cops came and actually the party was so good that they stayed. It was in a moment that nobody was doing any parties, so I was the only party in Miami, and everybody came. People I didn’t know. People were coming in and they were like, 'excuse me,' and I’m like, 'It’s my house, literally who are you?' There was glass in the pool, so they had to empty the pool. A lot of things happened. They broke my boat. My dad and I didn’t talk for like five months. Call him right now and you’ll see it in his face.”
Her partner Brandon also loves to celebrate, but in a much safer way. He says, “I love haunted houses, so growing up we would always go to a haunted house that was right down the street from the house that I grew up in. We would go the same time every year and every year was a different theme. It would always scare me senseless, but I loved going every year. I still love them.”
Disney/Christopher Willard
Former Bachelorette Charity Lawson and pro Artem Chigvintsev will perform a Jive to “Skeleton Sam” by LVCRFT as skeletons.
“I was very wholesome, obviously, as a kid,” Charity shares. “I loved everything princesses. I did a lot of fairies, things like that. When we got to college, that’s when things got a little risqué. I was a Victoria’s Secret angel. College is just always wild and fun. So many different memories, it’s just always fun with friends and going to theme parties, and then trick-or-treating as a kid never gets old.”
Artem tells us that his story is a little different: “My Halloween literally started two years ago. I truly appreciated it because of my son. He was a baby Yoda. Well, we call it baby Yoda; it’s not a true baby Yoda. Then this Halloween, he truly started recognizing everything about the holiday. He wanted to do the pumpkins; he was dressed as a rocket man. And he’s in heaven. Just seeing his joy makes me very happy. Coming from Russia, we didn’t celebrate any of that stuff. So, it truly has blossomed within me because of my son.”
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GRAMMY?-winning singer Jason Mraz and pro Daniella Karagach will perform a Contemporary to “Zombie” by The Cranberries in costume as a zombie/mummy hybrid.
"Halloween’s my sister’s birthday so I always gave it up for my sis," Jason says. "I was never early in picking out my costume, so I was a little late and I was always just the weird kid with the last minute costume. So, Halloween was never something that I got to participate in fully. I think that’s what excites me about this coming week, is that I do get to get into a serious costume and dance a purposeful Halloween dance."
And for Daniella, she says, "I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and my mom used to take me to Rego Park. We used to go and look at all the beautiful houses and then we used to trick-or-treat. That was pretty much every year, she would take me and my best friend, we’d go eat all the candy together and that was it."
Unlike Val and Max, Daniella says that even though she is also from Brooklyn, she didn't TP houses. "I didn’t get to that, I was a good girl. I just ate candy and trick-or-treated."
Social media and reality TV star Harry Jowsey and pro Rylee Arnold will perform an Argentine Tango to “Blinding Lights” by District 78 as aliens.
Harry, hailing from Australia, explains Halloween wasn’t celebrated Down Under when he was a kid, but Rylee enjoyed the holiday.
“I always loved Halloween,” she says. “I’d always go trick-or-treating with my friends. Last year I was Nacho Libre and that was really funny. I’ve been Napoleon Dynamite. There’s been some really good costumes that I’ve had.”
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The Brady Bunch actor Barry Williams and pro Peta Murgatroyd will perform a Viennese Waltz to “It’s A Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World” by James Brown, performing as a Werewolf and Little Red Riding Hood.
“My mom was very healthy in the household so we didn’t have candies or chocolates or anything like that,” Peta recalls. “When kids used to come to the door, they would be very disappointed to be handed an apple in their basket. My mom would be like, ‘Well, that’s all we got.’”
And Barry’s story takes a page from Artem in that Halloween, for him, is about his son.
“I really began to enjoy Halloween when I had my son, to take him trick-or-treating,” he says. “He was a pirate and he had practiced that. I had taken him out on a pirate ship and so he wanted to be a pirate for Halloween. He scored a bagful, let’s say that.”
Disney/Christopher Willard
Real estate mogul and TV star Mauricio Umansky and pro Emma Slater will perform an Argentine Tango to “Somebody’s Watching Me” by Rockwell costumed as a gored matador.
Dancing with the Stars simulcasts live across both ABC and Disney+ on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT and next day on Hulu.
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