Fright Night Goes Upscale : Halloween: The cost of a costume that fulfills a fantasy is becoming downright scary.

Batman outfits selling for up to $300? Sixty bucks and more just for the rubber mask? Holy price hikes!

Welcome to the new era of costume marketing. Now that grown-ups are rediscovering the joys of the Halloween season in a big way, many of those who sell and rent costumes and accessories are zeroing in on upscale adult pocketbooks.

The result: Expensive costumes for people in their 20s, 30s and well beyond are becoming a growing part of the business--and, apparently, an annoyance to some less flamboyant consumers.

Southern California--a haven for conspicuous consumption and home to several costume shops that cater to the entertainment industry and trend-setting masqueraders--is one of the nation’s hottest markets.

“We’re finding that people want to be special,” said Paul Abramowitz, president of Hollywood’s vast Western Costume Co., the world’s largest costume house. “They want to be unique. And they’ll pay virtually anything to do that.”

Western rents out Halloween outfits for $75 to $500 a day, with the average customer spending about $100.

Pat Burdy, owner of Somewhere in Time Costumes & Masks in Pasadena, is finding that “people begin to get gun-shy at $275 or $300” for one-day rentals. But, she quickly added, many customers get caught up in the Halloween spirit and spend that much and more anyway.

The average shopper is more apt to buy than rent an outfit. And, retailers say, most shoppers typically spend less than than $40 on children’s disguises and no more than about $60 for complete adult outfits.

But even that price range is too high for many Halloween party-goers. Shirley Murray, a contract administrator for the Defense Department, stopped this week at a Halloween concession in the Northridge Fashion Center intending to jazz up her homemade leopard outfit. She went away empty-handed.

“Twenty-five dollars? Oh my God!” Murray exclaimed when she got the word about the price of a black “wild shag” wig. “I don’t want to pay $25 for a wig. I could mess up my hair that bad myself,” she said.

“Most of my friends are going to buy accessories and put their own thing together,” Murray said later. “They don’t want to spend that kind of money just to fool around the office one day.”

Perhaps even more frustrated are parents with tight budgets. Children’s plastic outfits costing $6 to $8 are being pushed off retailers’ shelves by more costly, albeit more durable, fabric disguises.

Elaine Miller, a self-employed transcriber in Ventura, said she considered buying outfits for her two sons, ages 4 1/2 and 6 1/2. Then she scanned the selections at Toys R Us and a couple of mail-order catalogues, and found nothing left below $20.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Miller said. “It wasn’t something I wanted to spend that kind of money on with Christmas, school supplies and other expenses coming up.”

Now Miller plans to dig up materials from around the house to put together cowboy outfits or perhaps a pillow case ghost costume for her boys. Other parents are heading to fabric stores.

Even parents with permissive pocketbooks seem to have their limits. At the Disney Store in Northridge, $55 Minnie Mouse outfits for little girls quickly sold out. But it has been much slower going for the $120 Cinderella dresses with the white lace and silk fronts.

The booming popularity in recent years of adult Halloween parties at home and work fuels the demand for fancy costumes, retailers say.

Hallmark Cards researchers estimate that more than 50 million Americans, mostly adults, will attend Halloween parties this year, up 25% from three years ago. Retailers say that after Christmas, Halloween is their best time of the year.

The statistics on Halloween shopping trends, however, aren’t universally accepted. Hallmark also estimates that costume buyers spend an average of $30 on their purchases, a figure that many Southern California retailers believe is low.

No one, though, denies that adults are spending more than they used to on costumes for Halloween and, for that matter, masquerade parties throughout the year.

Maureen Holmes of Arcadia, who runs an auto body shop with her husband, is a case in point. Last year she dished out about $200 to dress up like Mad Maxine. This year she is renting a less expensive cat outfit, but she expects to pay “a few thousand dollars” for decorations to create a haunted house look for a combination Halloween and 40th birthday party for herself and a friend.

Why spend so much on Halloween? It’s a chance to act out fantasies and relieve stress, Holmes said, as well as to outdo your friends.

“It’s just sheer fun,” she said.

To cash in on the free-spending Halloween trend and raise some money, the Center Theatre Group Costume Shop decided last year to start renting out its outfits to the public.

The shop, which serves as the costume department for the Ahmanson Theatre and the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, has an inventory of theatrical costumes originally made for the likes of Charlton Heston and Lauren Bacall. But it also offers less exotic outfits. In fact, CTG’s top five rentals--Batman, the Joker, Freddie Krueger, the Phantom of the Opera and the Jason hockey mask--are, for the most part, favorites at costume stores across the country.

Batman outfits and accessories have gotten so hot that some retailers have accused higher-priced competitors of taking advantage of customers by charging whatever the market will bear.

“I realize that some places are getting into customers’ pocketbooks and gouging them, but we don’t do that,” said Arlene Freed, manager of the Chickenshirt shop in Canoga Park’s Fallbrook Mall. Freed cited prices of up to $70 for rubber Batman masks at other West San Fernando Valley stores; she sold out her stock for $45 apiece. (Others in the costume business said the higher prices reflected, among other things, the cost of improved materials, shipping, licensing royalties and distributors’ charges.)

High prices and strong demand, however, have not translated into across-the-board profit increases for all retailers. Some costume and novelty shops say they have been pinched by the recent stepped-up competition by giant discount chains.

Manufacturers have noticed signs of softening sales growth, too. Collegeville Flag & MFG., a leading costume manufacturer in Collegeville, Pa., passed along price increases of 8% to 12% this year. But the number of costumes it shipped was up only slightly, apparently in part because many of the newcomers to the business over-ordered last year, said Cindy Smith, the company’s sales manager.

Beyond that, she said, no one is sure how long the giddy spending spree will last.

“You wonder how high it’s going to go,” Smith said. “Next year is someone going to pay $50 for a costume at a K mart or Target? I just don’t know.”