It’s almost time to carve those pumpkins, drag out the Halloween decorations and prepare for visits from hobgoblins and ghosts, vampires and princesses and Harry Potter.

If you’re looking for a little seasonal inspiration, several local theaters offer Halloween-themed shows. Cygnet even has a double-header.

What’s better for a cold and dismal evening (or, if you’re in San Diego, a sunny Halloween season) than a good ghost story?

Cygnet Theatre’s got the ticket, a splendid production of Henry James’ spooky masterpiece The Turn of the Screw, adapted for the stage by Jeffrey Hatcher and playing through Nov. 11, directed by Janet Hayatshahi.

The Turn of the Screw is the story of The Woman (Amy Biedel), an unnamed young governess “seduced” by the handsome uncle of a pair of orphaned children into caring for them on a remote English estate called Bly. Bly may or may not be haunted by the ghosts of former governess Miss Jessel and valet Peter Quint (now dead). The uncle gives her full charge of Miles and Flora, with the instruction that she is not to contact him about anything concerning the children, but must take full responsibility herself.

The Woman hopes to escape her own unpleasant family situation (living alone with her strict father in a dark and cramped vicarage), musing that “we were all children. What we wanted was affection, love, protection.” What they got was something else entirely.

Hatcher’s version requires only two actors. Biedel’s Woman narrates the piece. The Man (David Tierney) plays a variety of roles including housekeeper Mrs. Grose, the uncle and 10-year-old Miles.

At Bly, strange things happen from the outset. She first meets Mrs. Grose and little Flora, a beautiful child who does not speak. Asked about Miss Jessel, Mrs. Grose says, “She went off one day and then she was dead. Welcome to Bly. Lock your doors.”

She “sees” a man in the tower. Miles is expelled from boarding school for unspecified “actions of a nature injurious to other students” described by the words “corruption,” “contamination” and “unspeakable.” The governess “sees” a woman across the lake. The two apparitions are, of course, the dead Miss Jessel and Peter Quint.

Usually the story’s the thing, but in this case Eric Lotze’s atmospheric lighting design shares star billing. Moody, stark, foreboding, sometimes shocking, light and shadow become disembodied players in this tense drama.

Biedel and Tierney’s psychological pas de deux could scarcely be better. Tierney’s facility with voices, postural changes and facial expressions adds counterbalance as The Woman’s initial young, perky vibrancy gradually gives way to fear and near paralysis, lending credence to Mrs. Grose’s assertion that “the madhouse is full of governesses.”

Were there ghosts? Is she crazy? You decide.

The Turn of the Screw plays through Nov. 11, at Cygnet Theatre. Shows Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2 and 7 p.m. For tickets call 619-337-1525 or visit www.cygnettheatre.com.

There’s nothing like an Irish storyteller, besotted with booze and words, to captivate us with the simple magic of a voice and a great tale.

Ron Choularton becomes playwright Conor McPherson’s storyteller in his one-man show St. Nicholas, playing through Nov. 10 at Cygnet Theatre, directed by Sean Murray.

You’ll find no leprechauns here, nor banshees, just a burned-out Man, a nameless theater critic who spends the first act revealing the inside dope about that revered and detested profession (“I was a hack” whose job existed because “the man in the street needed to know what to think”).

“I had lots of what I thought power was,” notes the critic. “I got respect because people were afraid of me.”

But the critic suffers twinges of conscience because of his cavalier approach to the job, writing the review on the back of the program during the show and leaving 10 minutes before the end to phone it in.

One night in the theater the critic is taken with a lovely actress playing Wilde’s Salomé in Dublin. He quits his job to follow her and the troupe to London, deserting his “fat tracksuit wife” and two kids at home.

He ends up drunk in a park and wakes to see a man walking toward him. This is the vampire William, who will take him home to meet he rest of the “family” – five female vampires – and recruit him to pimp for them, visiting pubs each night and bringing home a half dozen likely prospects for a bit of nonlethal bloodsucking. All quite innocent, you know, because “they won’t even remember it.”

The Man discovers his influence as a critic was nothing compared to that in the vampire world. “They have power. Not the power to make you do what they want. But real power: the power to make you want what they want.”

Finally, his conscience getting the better of him, he smashes a jar of rice and escapes. (Vampires are compelled to count rice grains – a good thing to remember should you ever need to flee from a gang of vampires).

Choularton does exactly what he should: sipping on a pint of suds, he casts a verbal spell over the audience. Whether you believe – or, for that matter, whether he believes – what he says is immaterial. The point is to sit back, relax and let McPherson and Choularton tell you a story.

St. Nicholas plays through Nov. 10, at Cygnet Theatre. Shows Monday through Wednesday at 8 p.m.; matinee Saturday at 2 p.m. For tickets call 619-337-1525 or visit www.cygnettheatre.com.

Sledgehammer Theatre, known for edgy offerings and icon-busting shows, offers a blood-spattered but unscary trio of short pieces inspired by an old French horror genre called Grand Guignol, characterized by blood, guts, excess and lots of naturalistic gore.

David Rosenthal has translated and adapted three pieces from this genre; the result is Seven Crimes, playing through Nov. 4 at the Tenth Avenue Theatre, directed by Scott Feldsher.

Tying them together is Mistress of Ceremonies Mei Ling Downey, strutting around in a tame dominatrix outfit, including fishnet stockings, top hat and riding crop, who introduces each piece and forces audience participation in naughty exercises between pieces.

On a handsome, angular, modular set with pieces that can be turned for each act, locales change from a living room in San Diego to a Barstow barbershop to a turn-of-the-20th-century drawing room in France. The cast includes Janet DeGuzman, Dana Hooley, Walter Ritter, Stanley Madruga, John Polak, Mike Oravec and Lydia Butynski.

The Awful Pleasure is the most successful of the trio, revealing the “awful pleasure” of cuckolding one’s husband. The wife Djana (DeGuzman) has given her husband the “auto-suggestion” of paralysis in order to make way for her extracurricular activities.

The Sweeney Todd-inspired Seven Crimes, which takes place in a Barstow barbershop, features a poor client nearly abandoned under the dryer, a lottery of death and too much sitcom-like dialogue for my taste.

The Terrible Experiment seems to be a riff on The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, in which experimenter Dr. Charrier attempts to revivify his daughter Jeanne, an accident victim.

Seven Crimes isn’t always successful, but if you’re in the mood for Halloween fare a little further out there, give Sledgehammer a try.

Seven Crimes plays through Nov. 4, at Tenth Ave. Theatre. Shows Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 7 p.m. For tickets call 619-544-1484 or visit www.sledgehammer.org.

And now for a little zombie romance.

Enrico Fermi High School, presided over by Miss Delilah Strict (Lindsey Gearhart), is a couple of weeks from the senior prom when new kid Jonny Warner (Joseph Almohaya) arrives. Jonny is a rebel (you can tell by way he spells his name), but for pretty, perky, poodle-skirted Toffee (Maeve Martin), it’s love at first sight, and only her parents’ firm insistence forces her to break up with him.

Zombie Prom, a tale of young love thwarted after Jonny’s “nuclear suicide” (he runs his motorcycle into the waste treatment silo of the nuclear plant across the street), runs through Oct. 28 at SDSU’s Don Powell Theatre, directed by Rick Simas.

“Can love survive when your boyfriend’s buried in a lead-lined coffin at the bottom of the ocean?” asks Toffee.

Well, sure, because Jonny returns as a zombie.

Zombie Prom, a take-off on Night of the Living Dead and a few other classic science fiction films, is full of recognizable characters, high-energy actors and songs and costumes reminiscent of ’50s musicals. Mainly, though, it’s a goofy but fun musical boasting fine singing actors and excellent direction.

Martin and Almohaya are terrific, as are Gearhart’s Miss Strict and Charlie Reuter as Eddie Flagrante, chief correspondent for Exposé magazine, who shares some history with the school principal.

Kudos also to set designer Sean Fanning for the slightly off-kilter trapezoidal high school facade.

Zombie love? Hey, it’s Halloween. Why not?

Zombie Prom plays through Oct. 28, at SDSU’s Don Powell Theatre. Shows Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.; matinee Sunday at 2 p.m. Special fund-raiser show Oct. 31 at 8 p.m. For tickets call 619-594-6365 or visit theatre.sdsu.edu.