J.J. Griffin and her husband, Mark, spend a month getting their house ready for Halloween, with skeletons on the lawn and screaming witches in the powder room and decorations out the wazoo.

So when they give their annual Halloween party Saturday, it's fitting that the buffet table will be loaded with creepy surprises, too.

Andy Sharp/Staff (ENLARGE)

J.J. Griffin of Marietta gets in the spirit of Halloween with her Peanut Butter Eyeballs. She paints irises and red veins on the white chocolate coating.

• Scare up some Halloween recipes • More photos

"I do enough work for five dinner parties," says J.J. of Marietta, whose signature snack, Peanut Butter Eyeballs, looks disturbingly like the real thing.

That's because after dipping the peanut butter balls in white chocolate, she paints irises and little red veins on the white spheres.

"I make about 30 different things; I kind of overdo it."

Overdo? You mean the dough-wrapped monster toes? The butchered Barbie cake? The severed hands made of blue-cheese-and-white-wine spread?

Perish the thought.

Too much is never enough on this booming holiday, which is rapidly catching up to Christmas as a time for decorating excess and street-sweeper parties.

To create even spookier shindigs, canny hosts and hostesses are including more elaborate themed dishes. And some are going to extraordinary lengths to make their appetizers unappetizing.

Doreen and Brent Wagner of Marietta stage a blowout each October with their friends Steven and Kathy Sherman and scary (not to mention disgusting) party food helps to kick it up a notch.

Some of the goodies are recognizable, and even tasty-looking. One year (under the influence of "Pirates of the Caribbean," no doubt) the party had a buccaneers theme, with a 20-foot-high pirate ship moored in the front yard. That year they called chicken wings "parrot wings." Fair enough.

Then there was the Mad Mortuary party, where Doreen offered a Jell-O-molded "brain" with fruit and nuts inside. With another heart-shaped Jell-O mold she formed a jiggly heart that guests could dig into.

The Wagners and Shermans often assemble these parts into a full-size representation of a body, with breadstick bones and stromboli lungs and guacamole-filled intestines — the Edible Man.

"I'm a nurse, with a background in operating room nursing, so I've seen the insides of people quite a lot," says a matter-of-fact Doreen, admitting that some of the dishes were a little too realistic for her guests.

"With the [liver-shaped] pate, most people were 'ugh,'" she says.

Consumer spending on Halloween has exploded recently, as adults get into the spirit of the spirited holiday. Americans will spend $5 billion on parties, greeting cards, costumes, decorations and candy this year, estimates the National Retail Federation, up from $3 billion in 2005.

There is no traditional Halloween party dish, but picturesque options abound.

Some of the recipes are simple adaptations of non-Halloween refreshments.

The Witch's Panty Pulldown punch that Lucy DeForest of Lilburn will serve this year comes from a Pink Panty Pulldown punch, with the substitution of regular lemonade for pink lemonade and the addition of green food coloring.

Of the vodka, beer and lemonade concoction, Lucy says, "It packs a punch."

Other treats are perfect for Halloween, but probably not appropriate at other times of the year.

J.J.'s eyeballs, for example, which the adult guests love, but which her 5-year-old daughter, Grace Ellen, loves even more, might not go over well as a Christmas bonbon. But watching her little girl gobbling eyeballs just warms her heart.

"When my child puts a peanut butter eyeball in her mouth, I just smile."