What to watch this Spooky Season 🎃 | cozy, gothic & terrifying Halloween Movies & Series

Hell House is my favorite.

Hubie Halloween is an absolute banger! To me it's in the same realm as Hocus Pocus. It's silly and fun but hits so hard in the Halloween vibes that they're both absolutely musts for spooky season.

The adaptations of Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree and Something This Way Comes are my favorite overlooked movies to watch on Halloween.

I have just found you and think you are so cool. I hope you’re not going to be just for the season of Halloween. I would like to see you continue all year long. I would like to be to know what kind of books to read after I finish one. Or to just be excited about wanting to get the book reading finished because there’s a spooky one that you mentioned that I am about ready to read.

Muppets Haunted Mansion bothered me because it felt cheap and rushed. Mostly composed of green screen backgrounds, it served as a stark reminder of how neglected the Muppets have been by Disney for decades compared to the Muppet movies of the 90s.

Charlie Brown, The Others, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

My all time favorite comfy horror/Halloween movies are Hocus Pocus, The Witches, and Practical Magic. Good all year ‘round, and double in October!

Garfield's Halloween special, and both the Disney and Brett Carver versions of Sleepy Hollow are must sees for me every October. The Lady in White is a good one. Trick 'R Treat and Crimson Peak are good choices too.

The tv shows Community and Psych both have great Halloween episodes (and Psych as a whole is the best show for Gen X humor). My family watches them every year. I loved The Craft, too! And Signs is one of the best horror movies ever. Truly terrifying!

Does anyone remember an old Disney movie called Watcher in the Woods? The one from the 80s or 90s. It was so creepy and strange!

Practical magic is the ultimate cozy Halloween movie!! Surprised it's not on the list.

I watched "Pay The Ghost" starring Nicolas Cage tonight. He plays a college professor who takes his son to a Halloween carnival. His son is kidnapped by an evil spirit. Nicolas Cage's character spends most of the movie trying to locate his son with the evil spirit trying to stop him. Lots of twists and turns plus jump scares. It is really good.

Scary Stories etc scared the every living piss out of me. It's HORROR. Fully and unapologetically. Not light, young adult horror. Horror.

And Hitchcock!!!!! He must be in this list!!!!!

Grimm is a great series to watch in October.

Have you watched "Weapons"? I think you'd like it :)

The Haunting (classic b/w)
Halloween
Ghost Stories for Christmas
Event Horizon
Paranormal activity
The Devil rides out
Quatermass and the pit

My husband and I watch 61 nights of Horror starting September 1st. We do a mix of annual musts, rewatches and first watches. The Cabin in the Woods is my favorite movie. I watch it at least once a year during during the season. Its such a comfort watch. I also watch Hocus Pocus and Over the Garden Wall by myself each season. I will usually watch The Shining and Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum on nights where we had late plans, my husband is just going to go to bed, but I want to at least watch part of something. And then there's the two that are not only an annual must but have an assigned day: Trick 'r Treat on Halloween and The Nightmare Before Christmas on November 1st as the transition between Halloween and Christmas (we're a Christmas starts November 1 house).

You single-handedly brought flooding back to my mind a thoroughly repressed memory of the wheelers and all of Return to Oz. I had seriously repressed that due to trauma I think lol.

The 1979 film, The Changeling, with George C. Scott

Salem is an amazing series, I think you will love it.

Roseanne, Black-ish and The Office have great Halloween episodes!

You forgot Practical Magic with Sandra Bullek & Nichole Kidman for the middle category 😊

I have a question....why does Hallmark not put out any cute, spooky Halloween romances? The small town, local girl who owns the coffee shop that's going under. She can't make enough pumpkin spice scones to pay the bills. The big development conglomerate who wants to bulldoze the town and put in an alpine horse lodge, send out the lumberjack snack to convince her to sell, but he is haunted by the ghosts of his ex's for not listening to their matching costume preferences. And who can see ghosts due to a horrible cinnamon accident while roasting coffee beans? That's right. She is his only hope for peace and love. Where is THAT movie???

Love that you have included Inside No 9. Just saw the theatre show - totally recommended.

Beautiful Smile😉

I do very highly recommend The Exorcist TV series. it only got 2 seasons, which I will forever be salty about, but they're good.

I dont think anyone has mentioned When Good Gh-ouls Go Bad 2001 and has Christopher Loyd in it. I dont think its easy to find streaming - i have the dvd - well because i am old! Its a great kid friendly movie and very Halloweeny. I love love love you book recommendations i have read so many and still have so many more i want to read. Love Rachel Harrison and Sarah Waters Little Stranger!!! Keep up the great recomendations and i want to hear more about your Halloween traditions

Brooklyn Nine Nine Halloween Heist episodes

If anyone like Hubby Halloween, I would recommend The Curse of Bridge Hallow. Loved it! 🍿

A Night With The Devil is becoming a yearly Halloween ritual. Gem of a wee movie.

Who doesn’t love spooky charcuterie?

Every October 1st I like to start it off with Shaun of the dead. It’s such a fun movie. It’s a light hearted one to get the month rolling. I look forward to watching it every time (:

With my Halloween essentials, I'm pretty basic and old-school: the Frankenstein films with Boris Karloff as the Monster, the Val Lewton films of the 1940s (especially The Body Snatcher and I Walked with a Zombie), 1945's Dead of Night, 1958's Night of the Demon, a couple of Karloff films that aren't as well known but that I love nonetheless (The Black Room, The Walking Dead), Roger Corman's The Masque of the Red Death, 1922's Nosferatu and The Phantom Carriage.
Perhaps the most mature of my Halloween favorites is 1980's The Changeling, starring George C. Scott as a grieving widower who unwittingly moves into a haunted house. It may be a bit too "slow burn" for those who need a jump-scare a minute, but that's what I like about it. I also adore "period drama horror" like Sleepy Hollow and Crimson Peak and I only wish there were more such films.
What I simply and flat-out do not like are slasher films. Even the well-made ones like Scream and Nightmare on Elm Street do nothing for me. When characters take several gruesome minutes to die, that's an automatic turn-off for me.

Has anyone seen " The Midnight Hour " a 1985 flick. Campy as hell. A teen monster movie that takes place on Halloween. Not the best of scripts, but kind of a warm, family Halloween vibe for sure.

"Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" is underrated big time; great adaptation and amalgamation of the original books, as well as some legitimately terrifying moments straight out of our childhood nightmares.

I love your voice, it’s mysterious and creepy, ideal for macabre stories and tales and gives a beautiful cozy and terrifying atmosphere to your videos.

Wanda Vision on Disney amazing vibes and story and has a specific Halloween episode. Also what are your thoughts on Witches of Eastwick

The Burbs with Tom Hanks

I generally get instantaneously bored with most sequels - but if ya need a "micro-dose" of GREAT Halloween "atmosphere" just watch the first 5 minutes of Halloween 4 (1988). It's probably free on several streaming platforms. I was already past my mid twenties by 1988 and the whole Hollywood sequel-machine had gotten completely out of control, so I skipped it (Tho I'll always LOVE most of Carpenter's work and will never forget watching the 1978 original with a girlfriend in the beautiful Keith Albee theatre in Huntington, WV).
When I got around to renting it in the 90's one Halloween I literally watched the opening about 15 times!
Perfection if ya dig Halloween.