You know what’s terrifying? Waiting until the last minute to prepare for your fabulous Halloween party. It leaves you crazy in the aisles of the party stores, grabbing crepe-paper streamers and flimsy centerpieces that spell “Boo!” in cardboard letters.

Start out early and get your orders in for some upscale Halloween party decor. You will not find this exquisitely unsettling skull cloche in just any store; the crystal skull under glass leers out at you (left),  only from Horchow ($75).

Nor can you expect to score treasures like their ceramic black Halloween punch bowl and skeleton ladle set ($150) or their nearly Mardi-Gras-like painted skull masks on stands ($75, below) if you wait too long.

First impressions are everything, and Frontgate’s animated life-size Edwardian butler will help you creep everyone out with his moving eyes, evil laugh and hauntingly inviting serving tray ($179).

He’s especially unnerving if arriving guests first saw this life-sized skeleton, hinged joints and all ($79, above), resting in the Adirondack on the front porch, or a pair of menacing mummy window panels ($24, below) gazing at them from the second story window.

Hand them a cocktail in a shiny black Halloween goblet with “Toxic,” “Poison” or “Arsenic” on the side ($19); it makes even that glass of chardonnay ever so much more wicked.

We have always swooned for dramatic tables, and we may have found the end-all and be-all of atmosphere-setting items: Pottery Barn’s black and white 8-by-12 foot spooky house wall mural ($199, above). The laminated paper is attached to a suspended bar, making hanging and un-hanging a piece of cake. If it’s time to splurge on a table setting, we vote for basic black, such as Nautica’s Arctic night dinnerware, with its alternating glossy and matte finishes ($8-$25), but we also admit that Horchow’s orange-toned raised edged dinnerware (20 pieces, $289, below) would make a beautiful pumpkin-themed table.

If you’re a pumpkin lover, Crate & Barrel always has your back. Their squash and pumpkin servers ($13-35) would be the ultimate bowl to fill with warm pumpkin chowder, accompanied by tiny cornbread pumpkins freshly baked in their pumpkin’ patch pan ($32). And when the evening winds down, we’ll still be enchanted with Horchow’s chocolate haunted castle ($150, below). It’s made of nearly solid chocolate, it’s a centerpiece, it’s a conversation piece and, at some point in the evening, it’s bound to become dessert.