13 Creepy Movies That Take Place on Halloween Night
Scary movies are a must during the spooky season, but with Halloween approaching, it’s important to really narrow your focus. If you, like me, have a very compulsive need to organize your movie viewing experience more consciously, this may mean avoiding films that are simply scary in favor of those that explicitly celebrate the time of year, taking place on Halloween itself.
Halloween (which I will, of course, attend) has been the reason for a lot of holiday viewing thanks to the fact that it is, yes, a great slasher film… but also because it’s called Halloween , and because it takes place on Halloween. But it’s not the only one: here are 13 spooky (or spooky-related) movies that take place exclusively (or mostly) on Halloween.
Hell’s House LLC (2015)
An eerie and sweet entry in the canon of found footage horror, Hell House is a documentary that chronicles the deaths of 15 people on Halloween night 2009 at the opening of the titular Hunt House attraction. The pop-up event’s location, the Abaddon Hotel, has been rumored to be haunted, but the group organizing the event is ready, and the obnoxious CEO isn’t about to let a few early setbacks and mysterious injuries keep him from opening. schedule. It adds a bit of appeal to Halloween haunted houses, suggesting that not all scares may be fake. It’s a solid idea, well executed, with a few decent sequels if you’re interested.
Where to watch: Prime Video , Shudder, Tubi
Late Night with the Devil (2023)
Late Night has a lot of fun recreating the atmosphere and aesthetic of the 1970s by recreating a Johnny Carson-style talk show called Nite Owls with Jack Delroy (played with charming arrogance by the always reliable David Dastmalchian). It’s 1977 and the show is hosting a Halloween pageant featuring a psychic, a skeptic, and a parapsychologist. With the typical corny shtick, it’s all a lot of fun—until it isn’t. It turns out Delroy has some secrets in his past and a dead wife who may not be resting so peacefully after all.
Where to watch: Hulu , AMC+, Shudder.
Horror (2016)
Having debuted his scary clown in several short films, writer-director Damien Leone gives him the proper treatment here. Over the years, 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 costs next to nothing to make, takes us to Halloween night 2017 and sees Art stalking a pair of young women and killing anyone who gets in his way. It all started on Halloween night, and there’s no end in sight to his reign of terror.
Where to watch: Prime Video , Peacock , Tubi
Halloween (1978)
Halloween more than deserves its name, celebrating not one, but two Halloween nights, 15 years apart but linked by the murderous impulses of one Michael Myers. The iconic opening sequence finds us in Haddonfield, Illinois, where a seemingly harmless 6-year-old boy kills his older sister and is then rather quickly apprehended and taken to a mental hospital, where he is placed under the care of the stern Dr. Kelly. Loomis (Donald Pleasence). Then it’s 1978, when Jamie Lee Curtis’s resourceful teenager Laurie Strode (who may or may not be Michael’s sister, depending on your personal sequel canon) finds herself pursued by a recent fugitive. The smaller, but still interesting first sequel picks up right after the end of the film and takes place on the same night.
Where to watch: Shudder, AMC+, digital rental.
Night of the Demons (1988)
It’s 1988 in America, and where better to throw a Halloween party than at an abandoned funeral home, especially one with a particularly grisly past? Goth girl Angela Franklin (Amelia Kincaid) definitely thinks it’s a good idea and that they might as well have a seance while they’re there, just for laughs. As you might have guessed from the title, the morgue is not entirely abandoned and demons are rising to possess the children and kill them in gruesome ways. The most indelible image is that of demonic possession in the form of a seductive dance to a Bauhaus song. The first sequel and the 2009 remake also take place on Halloween.
Where to watch: Prime Video , Peacock , Tubi, Shudder, AMC+
Phantom Watch (1992)
Ghost Watch descended on the unsuspecting British public back in 1992, presenting itself as a live Halloween television special filmed on location at a supposed haunted house (based on the “true” story of the Enfield Poltergeist, which was also the subject of the second film). Magic film). There’s real-life TV presenter Sarah Greene, as well as comedian and Red Dwarf star Craig Charles, each playing themselves, and it looks like it’s going to be a night of spooky fun. This was before our presence, always referred to only as “The Trumpets”, made itself known and all hell broke loose (almost literally). It’s all so convincingly presented as a silly holiday TV show that you’ll almost believe it’s legit, as some of the alarmed viewers did.
Where to watch: Shudder, Tubi, AMC+, digital rental.
Houses built in October (2014)
The fairly good double feature with Hell House, LLC October (released a year earlier) takes on a similar set of fears (this haunted house is actually going to kill me) from a different perspective. Here the threat is not supernatural, but much more human and mundane. Having grown up to more mundane fears, a group of friends from Ohio set out on a journey to find the most extreme haunted houses. Good news: they find what they are looking for! The bad news is they find what they’re looking for.
Where to watch: Hoopla, digital rental.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
Almost all Halloween movies take place on the major holiday (obviously), but I’m calling Season of the Witch only because it’s the only sequel in a long-running series that has absolutely nothing to do with any of the others. , not even the original. The idea was to turn Halloween into a horror anthology franchise, but everyone involved almost immediately abandoned the idea and returned to making Michael Myers films. But it has a premise that is just as terrible, but much sillier—in a funny way. It’s about a plot by a Halloween mask manufacturer to kill millions of children (the ruse involves using part of Stonehenge as part of an ancient ritual). If your child is wearing a Silver Shamrock mask and happens to be in front of the TV when that ringing sound is heard, it’s too late.
Where to watch: Peacock , AMC+, digital rental.
Scream VI (2023)
The sixth Scream movie (and the second of what could have been a trilogy, except the studio fired the lead actor for stupid reasons) heads to Manhattan during the Halloween season. The latest version of the Ghostface killer uses the hustle and bustle of New York City to cover up and escape his various murders. In an unforgettably meta twist, we find ourselves trapped on a subway train full of revelers dressed as Ghostface, star of the Stab film series, next to horror icons from films like Hellraiser , Ready or not ” and “Texas Chainsaw” . Massacre .
Where to watch: Paramount+ , digital rental.
Hocus Pocus (1993)
While exploring a haunted house on Halloween, three teenagers in Salem, Massachusetts accidentally unleash three evil witches from the 1600s: the Sanderson sisters (Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy). Critics called it crap in 1993, but it quickly became a silly cult classic and one of the most popular family Halloween watches . The witch sisters returned decades later for a sequel, and another one is reportedly on the way. I’m not usually a fan of stories where the Salem witches actually deserve to be punished, but this is all a lot of fun.
Where to watch: Disney+ , digital rental.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)
Taken from the 1980s book trilogy, Penny Dreadful is a solid entry-level teen horror film that combines tried-and-true genre elements with real visual flair. On Halloween 1968, a group of children stole a book from a supposedly haunted house, filled with stories written by a young woman who was accused of witchcraft and tortured a hundred years ago. Five teenagers discover that the book is still being written, and new stories are leaping from the pages to threaten them. Elements of classic stories from the book series, from “Harold” to “Big Toe” to “The Red Spot,” permeate the narrative. Trollhunter is directed by Andre Øvredal and supported by producer and co-writer Guillermo del Toro, and neither is a stranger to creepy themes.
Where to watch: Netflix, digital rental.
Trick or treat (2007)
A direct-to-video Halloween anthology that’s quickly become a seasonal favorite, Trick & Treat takes us to the lovely, charming town of Warren Valley, Ohio, where we meet Sam, an adorable magician in his football pajamas. …who will kill you in the most brutal way possible if you disobey the rules of Halloween, including blowing out your jack-o’-lantern before midnight. Sam brings together the film’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 watch: Max , digital rental
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)
Tim Burton returns to Winter River, Connecticut, thirty years later for a pretty good sequel, reuniting several members of the original cast (Winona Ryder, Michael Keaton and Catherine O’Hara). Ex-goth girlfriend Lydia Dietz (Ryder) returns home for her father’s funeral, where she is reunited with her stepmother (O’Hara) and estranged daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega). Lydia is there with her boyfriend Rory, who is obsessed with the idea of a Halloween wedding but has dark motives. Astrid also meets a guy who hopes to share Halloween with her—and both events ultimately coincide with the return of a certain scruffy ghost.
Where to watch: digital rental