My 13 Favourite Halloween Movies

Perhaps a bit of a disclaimer is to be had. These are my favourite movies to watch at Halloween. This does not mean they are Halloween movies. In fact none of them are even scary because quite frankly I cannot deal with scary movies!!! Seriously, I can count on one hand all of the scary movies I have ever seen and I would like to keep it that way.

Having said that, I am very excited that it is now October and Halloween is quickly approaching. I am really getting into the Halloween spirit this year so without further ado let’s look at my top 13 favourite Halloween movies!

1. The Addams Family (1991)

I was pretty obsessed with the Addams Family as a kid. So much so that I used to dress up as Wednesday Addams pretty much ever year for about 6/7 years consecutively. So it is no surprise that this film is a Halloween must for me. I watch it every year and I never tire of it, it’s amazing!

2. Beetlejuice (1988)

This is not the only Tim Burton film you will see on this list. Beetlejuice is a comedy horror fantasy type film about a young couple who are recently deceased who start haunting their own home. It is then they meet Beetlejuice a bio-exorcist from the underworld  who helps scare away the new inhabitants.

This is a great movie to watch on Halloween if you like the horror stuff without the horror. Apparently they are making a sequel to this movie too. Not too sure how I feel about this. It certainly won’t match up to the original but we’ll see.

3. Clue (1985)

How many movies are based on a board game? Not that many. But yet Clue is based on the classic murder-mystery board game Cluedo. It is set in a gothic mansion where six strangers are blackmailed into coming to a dinner party. This dinner party soon turns into a murder solving party and the guests are forced to discover who the killer is before they too get murdered.

Let the description not fool you however, this film is anything but scary. It is actually a comedy. I literally grew up watching this film. There was about a year or so that I would watch this film at least once a week (if not more). I absolutely loved it – still do. When I was really young the character of Mr. Body used to scare me but that didn’t stop me from watching this film. Ugh it is so amazing you must go watch it! I actually used to make all my cousins watch it over and over whenever they would come over to my house so uh…sorry about that!

Another thing I love about this film is the amazing cast – Tim Curry, Martin Mull, Christopher Lloyd, Eileen Brennan, Lesley Ann Warren, Madeline Kahn and Micheal McKean.

Without spoiling it too much, I love the ending – or lack thereof! When this film was shown in theatres upon initial release, three different endings were shown. So you might have seen it in cinema a and your friend might have seen it in cinema b and you would both have seen different endings – I thought this was really funny and also really clever because if you play the board game it never ends the same. This film is definitely one of my favourites, and worth checking out.

4. Corpse Bride (2005)

Told you it wouldn’t be the only Tim Burton film on the list. This is classic Tim Burton characters and style. About a wedding that went wrong. It is a really great film to watch on Halloween. Plus it stars Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, what’s not to like?!

5. Ghostbusters (1984)

This is a classic. If you have not seen it yet (but let’s face it of course you have) then go to Netflix or something and watch it right now! Again saw this movie when I was little and I have loved it ever since. Amazing cast. Perfect amount of scary (for a kid I mean). Just classic.

6. The Gremlins (1984)

I had actually never seen this movie until a couple of years ago when my brother bought me the Gremlins box set for my birthday. It is a really great film about a young man who receives a strange creature called a Mogwai as a pet, which then spawns other creatures who transform into small, destructive, evil monsters. It is a black comedy and although it features Christmas, I think it is a great movie for Halloween. Plus this was written by Chris Columbus so….there’s that.

7. Hocus Pocus (1993)

This doesn’t even really need explaining. It is on everyone’s Halloween movies playlist and is a Halloween classic.

One thing I will say though is I can never look at Bette Midler in the same way again. She will always be that creepy witch Winnie to me.

8. Labyrinth (1986)

Three things about this movie:

Directed by Jim Henson

Produced by George Lucas

Starring David Bowie

I love this movie, its fun and creepy at the same time, perfect for Halloween. Plus it had David Bowie…legend…enough said!

9. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Another Tim Burton. Another Halloween classic. Again, I really don’t need to do much explaining here. This is a classic Halloween film, which has been the inspiration for many a Halloween decoration and pumpkin, etc. If you have never seen this film, I promise you, you will not be disappointed.

10. Psycho (1960)

Psycho is probably the only film on this list that has the potential to be scary, depending on your threshold scare level. I’ll admit, I was on edge the first time I watched it. It is definitely suspenseful, though I wouldn’t quite call it scary. Still, it makes for a perfect Halloween movie. If you can’t watch Hitchcock on Halloween, when can you!?

11. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

There are a lot of musicals on this list, but hey who cares right? I do love my musicals. Tim Curry appears again on my list, only this time he is not a humble butler, he is a flamboyant sweet transvestite (from Transylvania – couldn’t resist!).

I warn you, this movie is for a more mature audience so don’t let the kiddies watch it, and it’s probably not one of those films you want to watch with your parents either. It is very much a sexually driven film. Having said this, it is a classic, and it does make for a great Halloween movie.

12. Spirited Away (2001)

I know this is probably the least Halloween-y type movie on my list, but it is a fantasy film about this weird and wonderful place the protagonist has found herself in. I am not really a huge anime-manga fan, but I do really enjoy the work of Hayao Miyazaki, and this is probably his best film ever. If you aren’t interested because you don’t like anime-manga, I highly encourage you to look past that and give this film a go, because underneath all the weird and wonderful animation and characters, it is a really beautiful story.

It’s not really a Halloween-y movie as I said but I still enjoy watching it around Halloween.

13. Sweeney Todd (2007)

Last but certainly not least, this film could possibly be one of my favourite films of all time. I mean, it’s definitely in my top 20. Again it is another Tim Burton classic, another Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter collab, and another musical, but it is a very dark somber musical – after all its a story about a barber who is out to seek revenge and becomes so overwhelmed with his power that he starts slicing innocent people’s throats open and his partner in crime used their bodies to make pies (which she then sells to the public). Gruesome right? Some of the scenes in this film can be very graphic so if you don’t like the sight of blood you probably shouldn’t watch this, but having said that, the blood in this film (to me anyways) was very obviously fake. I don’t know if they did this intentionally for theatricality or what but either way the overall effect was certainly still there.

I actually dressed up as Sweeney Todd about five years ago, and I just found some photos of it recently, and it was pretty funny.

This is definitely a fantastic choice of film to watch on Halloween. Again, if you have not seen it please go watch it, it’s amazing!!!

Okay, so that is it for my list of 13 Favourite Halloween Movies. I hope you have enjoyed. Please let me know some of your favourite movies to watch around Halloween, and if there are any I should check out.

Hopefully I’ll be doing some more fun Halloween-related posts soon.

– Bee