Double down on Halloween and make up for last year’s lacking spooky season. These classics, date night essentials, blood-curdling slashers, and childhood favorites will have you reaching for the candy corn. Dive into this categorized, beautifully curated, and RHS Film Club-approved list! Choose wisely.
Classics
Rewatch these gems and relive their greatness.
- Carrie: This unsettling movie follows a teenage girl with a sheltering religious mother as she uses her telekinetic powers to take revenge on her cruel classmates. It’s a must-see.
- The Addams Family: This movie has everything. Murder, babies, a German psychiatrist, the Bermuda Triangle summer camp, swordplay, golf balls, and toxic lemonade.
- The Rocky Horror Picture Show: A musical comedy horror film? Sing along through the tale of Brad Majors and Janet Weiss, a newlywed couple, who find themselves stranded at the annual Transylvanian convention.
- Beetlejuice: Winona Ryder plays Lydia, a goth teenager trapped in Winter River, Connecticut with awful parents, a couple of ghosts, a train set and of course, Beetlejuice (Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice).
Nostalgia
Grab some hot cocoa and a fuzzy blanket and get ready to experience some good old-fashioned childhood Halloween memories.
- The Nightmare Before Christmas: This film is a requisite for any Halloween movie-watching marathon. The Pumpkin King and other members of Halloween- town are dazzling to the viewer, regardless of age.
- Hocus Pocus: A move from Los Angeles to Salem ensures 16-year-old Max Dennison has quite the Halloween when he accidentally unleashes some witches with a three-century-long mission.
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone: Join orphaned Harry Potter as his life is flipped upside down when he’s taken to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Watching all seven movies is advised but not required.
- It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown: Quintessential nostalgia. Follow Charlie Brown and the gang as they guarantee the commemorating of many childhood memories.
Horror Flicks
Nothing screams Halloween quite like a good slasher!
- The Conjuring: Paranormal activity surrounds Roger and Carolyn Perron and their five daughters as they live in their haunted farmhouse in Maine. The torturing and possession of the family is peak horror.
- The Shining: This film can never be unseen. The horror in this film is truly psychological but well worth the torment.
- Scream: Resident damsel Casey Becker receives a flirty call that turns sadistic and then, violent. This modern slasher classic is an ideal horror night movie.
For Date Night
Whether it’s with friends or someone special, these are the perfect date night movies.
- Jennifer’s Body: Meghan Fox eats boys! This before-its-time dark comedy is required date night material. No exceptions allowed.
- The Craft: This supernatural horror film tells the story of a troubled teenage girl named Sarah Bailey who has some unusual abilities. What starts with a simple love spell ends in all kinds of hellish consequences.
- Scary Movie (1 & 2): A comedy slasher film perfect for a night in with friends. This movie will have you screaming and crying of laughter. And don’t worry, there are plenty of sequels.
The Twilight Saga: Yes, that’s right. All of them. These essential 2000s movies follow an ordinary girl who falls in love with a pale Robert Pattinson who turns out to have quite the secret identity.
