All Time Best Halloween Movies
All Time Best Halloween Movies – Halloween is a holiday celebrated each year on October 31, and Halloween 2021 will occur on Sunday, October 31.
Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in).
The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago, mostly in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1.
This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death.
Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred.
All Time Best Halloween Movies – On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.
All Time Best Halloween Movies – Speaking of commercial success, scary Halloween movies have a long history of being box office hits.
Classic Halloween movies include the “Halloween” franchise, based on the 1978 original film directed by John Carpenter and starring Donald Pleasance, Nick Castle, Jamie Lee Curtis and Tony Moran.
In “Halloween,” a young boy named Michael Myers murders his 17-year-old sister and is committed to jail, only to escape as a teen on Halloween night and seek out his old home, and a new target.
A direct sequel to the original “Halloween” was released in 2018, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Nick Castle. A sequel to that—”Halloween Kills,” the twelfth film in the “Halloween” franchise overall—was released in 2021.
Considered a classic horror film down to its spooky soundtrack, “Halloween” inspired other iconic “slasher films” like “Scream,” “Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Friday the 13.”
All Time Best Halloween Movies – More family-friendly Halloween movies include “Hocus Pocus,” “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Beetlejuice” and “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.”
All Time Best Halloween Movies – Scary
It Follows (2015)
After carefree teenager Jay (Maika Monroe) sleeps with her new boyfriend, Hugh (Jake Weary), for the first time, she learns that she is the latest recipient of a fatal curse that is passed from victim to victim via sexual intercourse.
Death, Jay learns, will creep inexorably toward her as either a friend or a stranger. Jay’s friends don’t believe her seemingly paranoid ravings, until they too begin to see the phantom assassins and band together to help her flee or defend herself.
Truth: The most terrifying moments in horror don’t come with a sudden pop-up or loud music cue—it comes with the prolonged feeling of sinking dread.
That’s probably the best way to describe the feeling you’ll get while watching this movie.
The story revolves around a contagious curse, but its premise is definitely a unique one.
The curse, an entity that takes on different human forms to follow you slowly wherever you go—is passed on via sexual intercourse (talk about a terrible STD).
Rotten Tomatoes Score
TOMATOMETER 95%
AUDIENCE SCORE 66%
Velvet Buzzsaw (2019)
A thriller about the contemporary art scene of Los Angeles, where big money artists and mega-collectors pay a high price when art collides with commerce.
After paintings by an unknown artist are discovered, a supernatural force enacts revenge on those who have allowed their greed to get in the way of art.
Rotten Tomatoes Score
TOMATOMETER 61%
AUDIENCE SCORE 36%
1922 (2017)
A simple yet proud farmer in the year 1922 conspires to murder his wife for financial gain, convincing his teenage son to assist. But their actions have unintended consequences.
Featuring shades of Edgar Allan Poe’s [“A Tell-tale Heart” and] “The Black Cat”, 1922, with a Bonny and Clyde sub-plot, based on the Stephen King novella of the same name, centers on simple but proud farmer, Wilfred James, who, with the reluctant help of his teenage son, murders his wife to gain ownership of her inherited land.
Shortly after, however, strange and supernatural occurrences begin to plague both James and his farm.
Is it just simple bad luck, or is it the work of something much more sinister?
Rotten Tomatoes Score
TOMATOMETER 92%
AUDIENCE SCORE 57%
The Silence (2019)
A family struggles to survive after deadly creatures that hunt by sound invade the planet.
When the world is under attack from terrifying creatures who hunt their human prey by sound, 16-year old Ally Andrews (Kiernan Shipka), who lost her hearing at 13, and her family seek refuge in a remote haven.
Rotten Tomatoes Score
TOMATOMETER 30%
AUDIENCE SCORE 25%
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019)
A chronicle of the crimes of Ted Bundy from the perspective of his longtime girlfriend, who refused to believe the truth about him for years.
A single mother believes she’s found the man of her dreams. But their seemingly perfect life is turned upside down when he’s arrested on suspected kidnapping charges and linked to multiple murders.
Adamant that he’s being framed, he defends himself in America’s first nationally televised trial while she struggles to come to terms with the truth.
Rotten Tomatoes Score
TOMATOMETER 54%
AUDIENCE SCORE 57%
All Time Best Halloween Movies – Scream (1996)
With its self-aware references and “Psycho” twists, “Scream” pumped new energy into the horror genre — and ushered in a film and TV franchise.
As an added bonus, it features a masked villain whose get-up would be hard to beat at the neighborhood Halloween-costume contest.
Rotten Tomatoes Score
TOMATOMETER 79%
AUDIENCE SCORE 79%
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
The monstrous spirit of a slain child murderer seeks revenge by invading the dreams of teenagers whose parents were responsible for his untimely death.
Nancy is having nightmares about a frightening, badly-scarred figure who wears a glove with razor-sharp “finger knives”.
She soon discovers that her friends are having similar dreams.
When the kids begin to die, Nancy realizes that she must stay awake to survive.
Uncovering the secret identity of the dream killer and his connection with the children of Elm Street, the girl plots to draw him out into the real world.
Rotten Tomatoes Score
TOMATOMETER 95%
AUDIENCE SCORE 84%
Watch A Nightmare on Elm Street (Bravo subscription required) >>
All Time Best Halloween Movies – Friday the 13th (1980)
Camp Crystal Lake has been shuttered for over 20 years due to several vicious and unsolved murders.
The camp’s new owner and seven young counselors are readying the property for re-opening despite warnings of a “death curse” by local residents.
Crystal Lake’s history of murder doesn’t deter counselors from setting up a summer camp in the woodsy area. Superstitious locals warn against it, but the fresh-faced young people — Jack (Kevin Bacon), Alice (Adrienne King), Bill (Harry Crosby), Marcie (Jeannine Taylor) and Ned (Mark Nelson) — pay little heed to the old-timers. Then they find themselves stalked by a brutal killer.
As they’re slashed, shot and stabbed, the counselors struggle to stay alive against a merciless opponent.
Rotten Tomatoes Score
TOMATOMETER 63%
All Time Best Halloween Movies – The Exorcist (1973)
This Oscar-winning bone-chiller about a possessed girl (played by Linda Blair) went the 1973 equivalent of viral, inspiring around-the-block lines at movie theaters.
But does “The Exorcist” hold up for Halloween viewers of the 21st century? According to Fico Cangiano of the CineXpress podcast, it does.
“Scary then, scary still,” judged the critic. “Without a doubt one of the most frightening films ever made.”
Rotten Tomatoes Score
TOMATOMETER 83%
AUDIENCE SCORE 87%
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Shot for $35,000, The Blair Witch Project doesn’t boast big stars or bloody set pieces.
But the film has something better: a killer concept. The 1999 sensation about a trio of ghost-hunting filmmakers basically invented the found-footage movie.
“The actors never put a foot wrong; the video diary form allows no artifice, so that as terror mounts, the dread is infectious,” Time Out’s Tom Charity wrote.
Rotten Tomatoes Score
TOMATOMETER 86%
AUDIENCE SCORE 56%
Watch The Blair Witch Project on Epix (subscription required)
All Time Best Halloween Movies – It (2017)
Bill Skarsgård stars as Pennywise, the ultimate scary clown (and Halloween costume favorite) in this big-screen take on the Stephen King novel of the same name.
“You’ll scream bloody murder!” Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers wrote of “It.”
Rotten Tomatoes Score
TOMATOMETER 86%
AUDIENCE SCORE 84%
The Witches (1990)
With a deliciously wicked performance from Angelica Huston and imaginative puppetry by Jim Henson’s creature shop, Nicolas Roeg’s dark and witty movie captures the spirit of Roald Dahl’s writing like few other adaptations.
In the original, big-screen version of the same-titled Road Dahl children’s novel, star Anjelica Huston has occasion to disappear under fright makeup.
The result is scary, but, as ET Online judged, “The Witches” is “scary [in a] good way.” (And that’s not unlike Halloween itself.)
Rotten Tomatoes Score
TOMATOMETER 93%
AUDIENCE SCORE 70%
Halloween (1978)
The 1978 film from John Carpenter pioneered the teen-slasher film, made a movie star of Jamie Lee Curtis, introduced audiences to iconic villain Michael Myers — and, per Vox’s Aja Romano, is “[s]till creepy as hell.”
Rotten Tomatoes Score
TOMATOMETER 79%
AUDIENCE SCORE 70%
All Time Best Halloween Movies – What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
This Halloween film is a comedy — an occasionally bloody comedy. “What We Do in the Shadows” stars Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement as vampire roommates whose workaday monster lives in the capital of New Zealand are documented by a film crew.
Waititi, the Oscar-winning moviemaker of “Jojo Rabbit,” and Clement, formerly of the musical-comedy duo Flight of the Conchords, wrote and directed — and won near-universal acclaim from critics.
“If ‘Twilight’ made you queasy and ‘Dark Shadows’ felt like a missed opportunity,” USA Today’s Claudia Puig wrote, “this pitch-perfect genre spoof is worth relishing.”
“What We Do in the Shadows” launched the same-titled TV series, which is available to stream on Hulu.
Rotten Tomatoes Score
TOMATOMETER 93%
AUDIENCE SCORE 91%
Watch What We Do in the Shadows (2014) on Kanopy (free, registration required)
The Haunting of Hill House (2018)
This modern reimagining of the Shirley Jackson novel follows siblings who, as children, grew up in what would go on to become the most famous haunted house in the country.
Now adults, they are forced back together in the face of tragedy and must finally confront the ghosts of their past.
Some of those ghosts still lurk in their minds, while others may actually be stalking the shadows of Hill House.
The ensemble cast includes Oscar winner Timothy Hutton, Carla Gugino and Henry Thomas. Mike Flanagan, a veteran of the horror genre, created the series.
Rotten Tomatoes Score
TOMATOMETER 93%
AUDIENCE SCORE 91%
All Time Best Halloween Movies – Family
All Time Best Halloween Movies – It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966)
Clocking in at only about 25 minutes, there’s no briefer work in this countdown. There’s also no more Halloween-y entry here than “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.”
Produced in 1966, the animated special features Charles M. Schulz’s “Peanuts” characters trick-or-treating, bobbing for apples — and anticipating the arrival of the Great Pumpkin.
“No matter how often we see it, we’ll still be happy to wait in the pumpkin patch with Linus,” Matt Roush wrote for TV Guide.
Rotten Tomatoes Score
TOMATOMETER 95%
Watch It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on Apple TV+ (subscription required)
Hocus Pocus (1993)
A curious youngster moves to Salem, where he struggles to fit in before awakening a trio of diabolical witches that were executed in the 17th century.
After moving to Salem, Mass., teenager Max Dennison (Omri Katz) explores an abandoned house with his sister Dani (Thora Birch) and their new friend, Allison (Vinessa Shaw).
After dismissing a story Allison tells as superstitious, Max accidentally frees a coven of evil witches (Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy) who used to live in the house.
Now, with the help of a magical cat, the kids must steal the witches’ book of spells to stop them from becoming immortal.
Rotten Tomatoes Score
TOMATOMETER 38%
AUDIENCE SCORE 71%
Halloweentown (1998)
This family-friendly, seasonal favorite premiered on the Disney Channel in 1998.
Halloweentown stars Debbie Reynolds as the spell-casting grandmother of a girl (played by Kimberly J. Brown) who learns that she, too, is a witch.
“Sharp performances, entertaining writing, and a gorgeous sense of whimsy…,” Cinema Crazed’s Felix Vasquez Jr. praised.
Rotten Tomatoes Score
TOMATOMETER 80%
AUDIENCE SCORE 72%
All Time Best Halloween Movies – Beetlejuice (1988)
The spirits of a deceased couple are harassed by an unbearable family that has moved into their home, and hire a malicious spirit to drive them out.
Brilliantly bizarre and overflowing with ideas, Beetlejuice offers some of Michael Keaton’s most deliciously manic work – and creepy, funny fun for the whole family.
Rotten Tomatoes Score
TOMATOMETER 85%
AUDIENCE SCORE 82%
Did you know? One quarter of all the candy sold annually in the U.S. is purchased for Halloween.
History.com
Did you know? More people are buying costumes for their pets. Americans spent $490 million on costumes for their pets in 2019—more than double what they spent in 2010.
History.com
