Halloween is a great excuse to dress up, to go trick or treating and to attend parties. And where there are Halloween parties, there's Halloween cake. For the 15th in our series of 31 posts for the 31 days of Halloween, we found some cakes that will make you reach for your fork—not to take a bite, but to use in self-defense.

Anatomically correct body parts, the undead, Zombie Hello Kitty ... we have them all below. We noticed that while some of these cakes were made for Halloween, others were made for birthdays and weddings, not the typical beastly feast. But what these cakes lack in gravitas, they make up for in imagination and talent.

The best thing about these creations? If they really frighten you, you can just eat them.

Because some of these cakes are rather stomach-turning, we've organized them by level of gruesomeness. The first few are reasonably tame ... but like any good horror, the terror escalates.

And please take note of the last two photos, a before-and-after look. For a step-by-step guide to the creation of this remarkable and horrific cake, click here.