What to Watch on Halloween

Here’s my off-the-top-of-my-head list of movies that would be good to watch on Halloween, perhaps in a group setting. Because group settings have a wide range of tastes, I’ve purposely left out some of the legitimate horror classics that would otherwise be great but some might object to (like The Thing (1982), Halloween (1978), The Exorcist (1973), and The Blair Witch Project (1999)) in favor of a bit more general appeal. This list will also hopefully bring attention to one or two films off the beaten path that you may not have seen.

Scary movies are fine, but I also like it when they’re a bit fun, or at least deliciously creepy. I’ve given a Fun/Fear rating for these with a 4 star scale.

01 Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

This is my go-to pick for a Halloween movie night. It’s very appropriate for the day, yet is approachable from a general audience. It’s an extremely funny dark(ish) comedy about a guy who discovers his beloved aunts are actually murderers. The number of “can it get any crazier” events just keep building to a hectic and hilarious climax as this poor guy gets put through the ringer keeping all the balls in the air. It’s delightful.

On a personal note, this movie right here is what got me started in my interest of classic films. I was probably about 15 and thought old black and white movies were boring. Then I saw this and realized they were extremely smart, funny, and unlike modern movies in many ways. A new world opened.

Fun: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Fear: ⭐

02 Poltergeist (1982)

Straight-up horror is not my favorite genre, but I do appreciate the techniques used to do it effectively. I love when those techniques are used to make a movie scary, but also something a bit more than just a scary movie. Poltergeist is legitimately scary, in my opinion (little girls talking to TV static will never not be creepy), but it’s also a fun movie. I compare it to a theme park ride or roller coaster, it’s meant to scare, give you a shock, but also be thrilling and put a smile on your face. This is the movie equivalent of that. There’s enough dry, dark humor sprinkled throughout, and a fun-house quality to the tone and style to make a scary movie something more.

Fun: ⭐⭐⭐ Fear: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

03 Psycho (1960)

What to say that hasn’t already been said? This is the one that started the horror genre proper. It’s Hitchcock at his best, creating a creepy, slow-burning suspense masterpiece. The often-imitated-never-duplicated shower scene is not only iconic but an editing marvel. And the score almost feels cliche given how it’s the go-to basis for every other horror music score to come later.

If you find yourself in an erudite mood on Halloween I’d go with this one.

Fun: ⭐ Fear: ⭐⭐⭐

04 The Trouble with Harry (1955)

Maybe you want to stick with Hitchcock, but need something lighter. Here’s a deep cut for you. This is a fascinating film because it operates almost exclusively on tone, a difficult trick to pull off. The story is about residents of a small town trying to hide a dead body, but it’s told in a slow, almost dreamlike manner. The tone is light, airy, and preoccupied with the subtle dramas of the characters involved, which contrasts interestingly with the actual subject matter. It’s a unique flick.

Fun: ⭐⭐ Fear: ⭐

05 The Night of the Hunter (1955)

If you see the year 1955 and expect “Leave it to Beaver”-style wholesome Americana, you’re going to be very surprised. This one hits hard. The tropes and conventions of the horror genre hadn’t really been invented yet, so this movie has to terrify in a whole different way. It creates a truly unnerving atmosphere that just feels… off. Not so much scary as it is disturbing. It gets under your skin.

The story follows a serial killer pretending to be a travelling preacher perusing children. There’s actually a good deal of subtext around true religion and false prophets, so if you’re a person of faith this one will be extra unsettling, but also extra rewarding.

Visually, this is black and white cinematography done right. The palette is murky, lighting and framing create unnatural angles, the entire thing is a feast for the eyes. It’s very effective.

Fun: ⭐ Fear: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

06 Anything from the 1950’s pulp horror sub-genre

You know the era, guys in rubber suits and cheesy looking puppets attacking miniature sets. It’s a look. It can be fun if you don’t take it seriously, watch it with friends and laugh at it. These are the movies I’d put on in the background of a party to add some atmosphere. All of this goes against my normal rules around watching a movie, by the way, but you gotta give the people what they want sometimes.

The Thing from Another World (1951)

The War of the Worlds (1953)

Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

Them! (1954)

Gojira (1954) I recommend with bad dubbing, it adds to the effect

The Blob (1958)

Fun: ⭐⭐⭐ Fear: ⭐

07 Low-Budget Directorial-Debut Double-Feature

This is an oddly specific category, but trust me, it works. Take a promising young director, give them a small amount of money, they overcome those limitations with creativity, and end up doing interesting things in the thriller/horror genre.

Duel (1971)

The young director, you may have heard of, is Steven Spielberg. This is an extremely economical thriller about a guy being chased by an increasingly murderous truck driver (whom we never see). There’s echos of Jaws to come, with the truck treated as a monstrous beast rather than a machine.

Fun: ⭐⭐ Fear: ⭐⭐

The Vast of Night (2019)

The young director, you hopefully will hear more of, is Andrew Patterson. This plays like a combination of a spooky episode of the twilight zone and a well-told scary campfire story. This is the rare film that manages to be legitimately scary without any typical genre tropes like jump scares and gore, relying instead on a spooky atmosphere built expertly. Plus, there’s some creative camera work as a bonus.

Fun: ⭐⭐ Fear: ⭐⭐⭐

What NOT to watch: classic Universal monster films

This may come as a surprise to you, given how much I love classic films, but I actually can’t recommend these films for anything other than an academic study. To a modern audience they are very slow, uneventful, primitive and completely un-scary. The grammar of horror film making was in it’s absolute infancy and these films suffer for that. It’s unfortunate really, because these films are extraordinarily iconic, these monsters are still recognizable the world over 90 years later and still being reinterpreted in modern films. Perhaps that adds to the disappointment of actually seeing the original.

Dracula (1931)

Frankenstein (1931)

The Mummy (1932)

The Invisible Man (1933)

The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

The Wolf Man (1941)