Wednesday, October 30, 2024
Scary movies are a must for spooky season, but as Halloween approaches, it's important to really narrow your focus. If, like me, you have a highly compulsive need to organize your movie watching more deliberately, that might mean setting aside movies that are just scary in favor of ones that explicitly celebrate the season by being set on Halloween itself.
Halloween (which I'll of course get to) has nailed down many a holiday viewing by virtue of being, yes, a great slasher...but also by being called Halloween, and by taking place on Halloween. But it's not the only one: Here are 13 spooky (or spooky-adjacent) movies that take place either solely (or just mostly) on Halloween.
Hell House LLC (2015)
A spooky, enjoyable entry in the canon of found footage horror, Hell House presents itself as a documentary examining the deaths of 15 people on Halloween night 2009 at the opening of the titular hunted house attraction. The setting for the pop-up event, Hotel Abaddon, was already rumored to be haunted, but the group producing the event is all in, and an obnoxious CEO has no intention of letting a few early mishaps and mysterious injuries deter him from opening on schedule. It adds a bit of zip to Halloween haunted house attractions by suggesting that the scares might not all be fake. It's a solid premise well executed, with several decent sequels if you find yourself invested.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Shudder, Tubi
Late Night with the Devil (2023)
Late Night has a lot of fun recreating the feel and aesthetic of the 1970s in its recreation of a sub-Johnny Carson talk show called Night Owls With Jack Delroy (who is played with engaging hubris by the always reliable David Dastmalchian). It's 1977, and the show is hosting a Halloween spectacular with guests including a psychic, a skeptic, and a parapsychologist. With the typical corny schtick, it's all in good fun—until it isn't. Turns out Delroy has some secrets in his past and a dead wife who might not be resting all that peacefully.
Where to stream: Hulu, AMC+, Shudder
Terrifier (2016)
After debuting his scary clown in a couple of shorts, writer/director Damien Leone gave him a proper introduction here. In the years since, Art the Clown has become an unlikely pop culture icon, starring in three films, each more popular and successful than the last. This first entry, which cost almost nothing to make, takes us to Halloween night, 2017, and finds Art stalking a couple of young women, and murdering anyone who gets in his way. It all started on Halloween night, and his reign of terror has no end in sight.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Peacock, Tubi
Halloween (1978)
Halloween more than earns its title by celebrating not one, but two, Halloween nights, 15 years apart but connected by the murderous impulses of one Michael Myers. The iconic opening sequence finds us in Haddonfield, Illinois, where a harmless-looking 6-year-old butchers his older sister before being rather quickly apprehended and sent off to a mental institution, where he is placed in the care of the stern Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence). Then it's on to 1978, when Jamie Lee Curtis' resourceful teen Laurie Strode (who may or may not be Michael's sister, depending on your own personal sequel canon) finds herself hunted by the recent escapee. The lesser, but still entertaining, first sequel picks up immediately after this movie's end, and takes place on the same night.
Where to stream: Shudder, AMC+, digital rental
Night of the Demons (1988)
It's 1988 in America, and where better to host a Halloween party than in an abandoned funeral home—especially one with a particularly grisly past? Goth kid Angela Franklin (Amelia Kinkade) certainly figures that it's a good idea, and that they might as well hold a séance while they're there, just for laughs. As you might have guessed from the title, the mortuary isn't quite abandoned, and demons rise to possess and murder the kids in gruesome ways. The most indelible image is of a demonic possession as a seductive dance set to a Bauhaus song. The first sequel and the 2009 remake are likewise set on Halloween.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Peacock, Tubi, Shudder, AMC+
Ghostwatch (1992)
Ghostwatch descended upon an unsuspecting British public way back in 1992, presenting itself as a live Halloween TV special filmed at the site of an allegedly haunted house (based on the "true" story of the Enfield Poltergeist, which was also the subject of the second Conjuring movie). Real-life TV presenter Sarah Greene is on hand, as is comedian and Red Dwarf star Craig Charles, each playing themselves for what looks like it's going to be a night of spooky fun. That's before our presence, only ever referred as "Pipes," makes itself known, and all hell breaks loose (almost literally). It's all so convincingly presented as a goofy holiday TV special that you'll almost believe it's legit, as some of its alarmed original viewers did.
Where to stream: Shudder, Tubi, AMC+, digital rental
The Houses October Built (2014)
A reasonably good double-feature with Hell House, LLC, October (released a year earlier) takes on a similar set of fears (this haunted house attraction is actually going to kill me) from a different perspective. Here, the threat isn't supernatural, but far more human and down-to-earth. Having grown board with more mundane scares, a group of friends from Ohio set out on a road trip to find the most extreme haunted houses possible. Good news: they find what they're looking for! Bad news:They find what they're looking for.
Where to stream: Hoopla, digital rental
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
Pretty much all of the Halloween movies take place on the titular holiday (obviously), but I'm calling out Season of the Witch only because it's the one sequel in the long-running series that has absolutely nothing to do with any of the others, not even the original. The notion was to turn Halloween into a horror anthology franchise, but everyone involved gave up on that idea pretty much immediately and went back to making movies about Michael Myers. But this one, has a premise that's every bit as grisly, but far goofier—in a fun way. It involves a plot by the maker of Halloween masks to murder children by the millions (the ploy involves using a bit of Stonehenge as part of an ancient ritual). If your kid is wearing a Silver Shamrock mask and they find themselves in front of the TV when that jangly earworm of a jingle comes on, it's already too late.
Where to stream: Peacock, AMC+, digital rental
Scream VI (2023)
The sixth Scream movie (and the second of what would have been a trilogy, except that the studio laid off a lead cast member for dumb reasons) heads off to Manhattan during the Halloween season. The latest iteration of the Ghostface killer uses the hustle and bustle of New York to cover for, and escape from, their various murders. In memorably meta style, we're trapped on a subway train full of revelers dressed up as Ghostface, star of the series-within-a-series Stab films, alongside horror icons from movies like Hellraiser, Ready or Not, and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Where to stream: Paramount+, digital rental
Hocus Pocus (1993)
Exploring a haunted house on Halloween, three teenagers in Salem, Massachusetts, accidentally set loose a trio of evil witches from the 1600s: the Sanderson sisters (Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy). Critics in 1993 dismissed it as hokey nonsense, but it quickly became a goofy cult classic, and one of Halloween's most popular family watches. The witchy sisters returned decades later for a sequel, with another reportedly on the way. Normally I'm not a fan of narratives that present Salem witches as actually deserving of being punished, but this one's all in good fun.
Where to stream: Disney+, digital rental
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)
Taken from the 1980s-era book trilogy, Scary Stories is a solid entry-level horror movie for preteens, blending tried-and-true genre elements with real visual flair. On Halloween, 1968, a bunch of kids swipe a book from an allegedly haunted house, one filled with stories written by a young woman who'd been accused of witchcraft and tormented a century earlier. The five teens find that the book is still being written, with new stories leaping off the pages to menace them. Elements of classic stories from the book series, from “Harold,” to “The Big Toe,” to “The Red Spot," wind their way through the narrative. Trollhunter's André Øvredal directs, backed by producer/co-writer Guillermo del Toro, neither of them strangers to creepy subject matter.
Where to stream: Netflix, digital rental
Trick 'r Treat (2007)
A direct-to-video Halloween anthology that quickly became a seasonal favorite, Trick 'r Treat takes us lovely, charming town of Warren Valley, Ohio, where we're introduced to Sam, an adorable trick-or-treater in footie pajamas...who will slaughter you in the most brutal fashion if you don't obey the rules of Halloween, including by blowing out your jack-o'-lantern before midnight. Sam ties together the movie's four stories of seasonal murder and mayhem, with an impressive cast that includes Dylan Baker, Rochelle Aytes, Anna Paquin, and Brian Cox.
Where to stream: Max, digital rental
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)
Tim Burton returns to Winter River, Connecticut after thirty years for a pretty good sequel reuniting several members of the original cast (Winona Ryder, Michael Keaton, and Catherine O'Hara). Erstwhile goth girl Lydia Deetz (Ryder) returns home for her father's funeral, where she's reunited with her stepmother (O'Hara) and estranged daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega). Lydia is there with her boyfriend Rory, who's obsessed with the idea of a Halloween wedding, but has shady motivations. Astrid too meets a guy who hopes to share Halloween with her—and both events eventually coincide with the return of a certain slovenly ghost.
Where to stream: digital rental
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