Classic, funny and cute Jack o lanterns are “nice”, but after a while it gets old to watch them when you’re driving around.

If you’re looking to shake things up and need some scary pumpkin carvings ideas, keep reading to inspire you! 

Carve snakes on the pumpkin

It’s always unnerving to see things where they shouldn’t be.

If you’re looking for upsetting and scary pumpkin carvings, try carving a face like you normally would and then add one or two snakes surrounding the “head”.

We know this might be tricky and it requires a lot of practice or and experienced carver, but if the snakes don’t end up looking perfectly it can be even scarier.

A nice touch would be to make one of the snakes to go into the pumpkin mouth, that’s a real scary sight! 

Check out:  Stuffed Animals And Plush Toys

Easy scary pumpkin carvings: The eye that watches everything

If you really want to carve a pumpkin that will have the neighborhood children running away from your door but you don’t really have expert carving skills; there’s plenty of ideas for you to try.

Give your pumpkin a spin by only carving a pair of eyes, or a huge wide-open eye that watches everything.

Try to be as realistic as your ability lets you and carve the veins that go around the eye, it will be a nice touch and you’ll practice your carving skills. 

…Or no eyes at all

The idea of coming home and finding a huge eye judging you doesn’t really sound attractive?

No problem, you can turn it the other way around and make a scary pumpkin carving involving the other parts of the face.

Use your pumpkin carving kit to create only the nose and the mouth, or why not? just a huge, menacing mouth ready to eat everyone who goes near it.

The mouth can either be smiling or roaring in anger! 

Scary pumpkin carvings you can paint or burn 

A pumpkin carving does not have to follow the traditional rules, forget about the classic triangle eyes, nose and uneven smile, you can carve your jack o lantern anyway you like!

And if you’re not going to follow the carving rules, why would you only carve it?

Try using paintings if you feel you’re more talented with a brush, and even burning the pumpkin in the right places to create a scary face.

If you feel creative, mix all of these techniques to accomplish a tri-dimensional and spookier pumpkin. 

Realistic teeth

You know how there are some very life-like illustrations that unintentionally make you cringe?

It’s as if the idea of it becoming real terrifies us to the bone. If realism spooks everyone you should definitely incorporate it into your pumpkin!

We warn you, you’re going to need a lot of practice to pull this scary pumpkin carving to create a very realistic set of teeth but the result will be great.

And here’s a life hack, if you think there’s no way you can carve something so complex, just buy a joke set of teeth and place it in your pumpkin’s mouth. 

Check Out: Halloween Buckets

Pumpkin Reception 

This is a very original idea to use in your Halloween Jack o lanterns, and it’s also one of the easiest ones.

You just have to pick your regular sized pumpkin and carve it like you normally would (this idea works better if you carve a face in pain or shocked),

then you pick a tiny pumpkin and carve some room for it in the big pumpkin.

Once the hole is done just place the tiny pumpkin, more like force it into the hole as if it were a tumor. Scary, right 

Check out: Pumpkin Carving Tools

Let it rot 

Of all the ideas in the list this one is probably the best one for lazy people who want to rock a scary pumpkin carving but don’t really want to invest much time in it.

The only thing you need to do is shop for your pumpkin a few weeks earlier (think of the end of September) and carve it as you usually would.

Store it in a safe place but not in your kitchen, because you will leave it to decompose and eventually rot.

Once October arrives and it’s time to show your creation, the pumpkin will be spookily rotten, just make sure to spray Lysol on it constantly and keep it away from bugs and animals!

Check out: Halloween Cocoon Corpse

If you think that a Scary pumpkin carvings only means the traditional “Jack-o’-lantern” style with a face, eyes and a mouth carved into the pumpkin, then keep reading to learn more! Scary pumpkin carvings can be anything from simple scary faces to very detailed Scary Halloween pumpkins.

If you want Scary Pumpkin carving ideas then just take a look at these Scary Halloween pumpkins. Scary Halloween pumpkins are not going to have realistic features like in traditional Jack o lanterns.

Halloween pumpkins will have big white eyes, sharp teeth or tongues sticking out of them and Scary pumpkin carving patterns like the Scary pumpkin above which is a Scary witch face.

If you are trying to find stuff for Halloween, it might be a good idea to think of some really scary pumpkin carvings. If you’re looking for an easy one, try drawing a face with eyes and mouth like you normally would do but then add two snakes coming out of the pumpkin head.

A nice touch would be to make one of the snakes go into the pumpkin mouth, that’s a real scary sight!

Depending on how difficult this carving is going to end up being, it will probably take more time than other normal ones, so if you want to make sure they look truly scary it needs practice.

Don’t forget that most animals are easier to carve than humans or else too complicated.