Halloween is just around the corner, and what better outfit choice than the hauntingly eerie Samara Morgan. 

Samara Morgan's dress easily dominates Halloween because of the simplicity with which she scares. Her haunting allure resides in the effortless way her limbs contorted. Her frail figure, the wet, white dress and the dripping black hair all make for the perfect elements of an iconic Halloween get-up. 

Samara takes ghost stories to a whole new level. She isn’t your typical ghost in a white gown with long, creepy hair. Her look and character add depth, and her tale of a wronged spirit seeking revenge has a chilling twist that makes her one of the Best Halloween Costumes to recreate.

She is scary, she is vengeful, she is iconic, she is perfect for Halloween. She is Samara. 

From the Well to the Videotape: Samara Morgan's Origins 

Before we talk about how and why Samara Morgan is a justified ghostly icon, we should know how she came to be. Samara Morgan is the main antagonist of The Ring movies. The Ring franchise encompasses three films, The Ring and The Ring 2, and the finale, Rings. But we will discuss the original two movies in this article.  

The Ring (2002)

In the first movie, a small family of two is introduced. Rachel lives with her adopted son, Aiden and works as a journalist. When she receives an anonymous phone call about a series of deaths that occurred allegedly after watching a videotape, she takes up the investigation herself. 

She learns that whoever watches that tape dies horribly within seven days. In order to survive, the watcher should make a copy of the tape and make someone else watch it. In other words, just perpetuating the cycle of the curse. All the victims of that tape died in a terrible yet similar fashion; they were all drenched and their bodies twisted in unnatural ways. 

Rachel gets to work and acquires the tape. In hopes of understanding the situation somewhat better, she watches it herself. The videotape contains grainy black and white footage and features an eerie surrounding that holds some kind of cryptic message that no one would bother to think over. In one scene, a bleak-looking, frail girl climbs out of the well and approaches the screen in a haunting manner. 

Once she is near the screen, almost looking like she'll climb out of the TV, the video ends. The disturbing footage takes Rachel aback and shortly receives an unsettling call that delivers the warning of her impending death within 7 days unless she shows the video to someone else. 

Horrified and troubled, Rachel still doesn't stop with her case. She teaches her son to make a copy and shares the video because he watched it accidentally. The film continues to show Rachel's struggle against time to figure out what the ghost from the videotape, Samara, wants, but she ends up unsuccessful despite having her life spared. 

The Ring 2 (2005)

The second film picks up after 6 months of where the first one ended. Rachel, along with her son, Aiden, relocated to Oregon in hopes of leaving the demented incident in the past. Rachel has been promoted to a reporter when she hears about a case of students dying tragically and follows it. She soon finds out that it is history repeating itself. 

While investigating the case, once again, she finds out that maybe this time the problem is closer than she realizes. Rachel finds her son acting uncharacteristically aggressive and weird. Not long after, she finds out that Samara is trying to possess him. 

Samara is trying to make Rachel her mother by taking over her son. She saw the lengths Rachel went to release herself from the curse and took it for a motherly effort under a mistaken guise. Thus, she tries to make that a reality. 

Rachel investigates more thoroughly and finds out Samara's birth mother. Samara's biological mother, Evelyn, is admitted to a mental institute and upon questioning, she reveals that Samara isn't a normal child but the offspring of a sea demon who impregnated Evelyn. She had tried to kill Samara when she was born, but failed to do so, and Samara was adopted by the Morgans. Anna Morgan, after 7 years, kills Samara by suffocating her, throwing her in a well, and committing suicide. This horrible scene is also part of the imagery in the videotape. 

Rachel battles Samara with all her will and strength. She even ends up entering the dimension within the cursed videotape and fights Samara's evil spirit in an act where maternal love transcends all grudges and curses and saves Aiden. 

Rings (2017)

Rings was the finale of the franchise in the American adapted cinema. The movie starts with a college professor who makes his students watch the cursed videotape in an attempt to lift the curse off of himself. When Julia's boyfriend goes missing after watching the tape, she gets up in the investigation. 

She watches the tape herself to free her boyfriend and then sets out on a journey to uncover the secrets behind the curse. This film shows major differences from the first two. The major one is the "movie within the movie" concept. The videotape has an extended version of the video holding clues. 

Julia follows those clues and finds herself at the doorstep of the same mental institute Rachel visited to question Samara's birth mother. Though that didn't help Rachel much, Julia doesn't even get to see her, seeing as how Evelyn had committed suicide. But Julia uncovers where Samara's remains are. 

She traces them to a blind priest who had buried Samara himself. He is found to be an aggressor and the biological father of Samara. He kidnapped Evelyn when she was young, trapped her in the bell tower of the church, and violated her. The trauma from the incident caused Evelyn to go crazy and believe Samara was something of an evil nature.

Though Julia helps Samara to find her father, whose eyesight she restores, and kills him. Cremating her remains gives Samara's soul the rest she'd been missing. 

Scary & Striking: Timeless Halloween Icon

Samara is a vengeful spirit who returns to share her torment by subjecting others to an unfortunate death. Even alive, she had supernatural abilities called nensha, where she could burn images into the minds of people around her. Her adoptive mother, Anna, was scared by this and driven mad and especially depressed when all her horses killed themselves tragically due to Samara's lack of control. 

Anna suffocates Samara and throws her into a well, and commits suicide out of horror upon her actions. Samara, on the other hand, remains alive in the well for 7 days before dying. This is the reason behind her giving her victims the allotted time before their horrifying demise. 

Along with the deeply tragic and haunting backstory, Samara draws attention because of her eerie appearance. Samara was a reclusive, softly spoken and demure child when she was alive. She was aware of her uncanny abilities but was at a loss in managing them. She had long brown hair, brown eyes and wore a white dress with cute puff sleeves. 

However, when she emerges as a spirit, she is drenched from head to toe. Waterlogged and daunting, Samara climbs out of the well with her contorting limbs in a sickening fashion. Her hair, once brown and well-kept, is black and is draped over her front. That illusion of cover makes her all the more terrifying. 

Her method of killing also involves having the victim look her in the eye, which is why her actual father had made himself blind on purpose, though to no avail. She is scary in an effortless manner that does not require much understanding of lore despite the deep backstory. This is why she's a timeless scary icon. 

Mini Dress Up Guide

From a Halloween perspective, Samara’s outfit from The Ring is iconic for the spooky season. This simple yet terrifying costume perfectly embodies a vengeful spirit, striking fear with just one look. For anyone hoping to stand out during Halloween festivities, this ranks among the best Halloween costumes you can choose.

It's only fair that after the huge recap, we also offer a little guide to how to achieve the perfect Samara Morgan Halloween costume look. Follow the steps mentioned below. 

  • Arrange for a simple white dress. 

  • If you have long hair, then wet it thoroughly and brush it in a draping manner across your face and front body. Or you could use a wig. 

  • Body paint (do a patch test) yourself in a sickly grey hue, and voila! You're done. 

Halloween From the Depths of Death

Samara Morgan was an innocent child and a vicious ghost who would not settle unless she had what she wanted: revenge. And this vitriol is exactly what makes her an iconic Halloween idol. 

Discover high-quality real leather jackets and shearling leather jackets for the upcoming season, available now at Petersign.