Happy October Voltage Live readers! To celebrate the beginning of the spooky season, we've compiled our favorite Halloween films, some scary, and some not. Do you agree with our picks? Are we missing your favorite? Leave us a comment and let us know!
My favorite Halloween movie has to be It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. It’s a timeless classic, with memorable lines and plot points such as Snoopy being a WWII flying ace roaming through the countryside. I have a lot of fond memories of watching this movie on TV with my family when I was younger and it’s a staple of Halloween viewing for me, no matter how old I get.
Where To Watch: Apple TV+
My favorite Halloween movie is Halloweentown! Growing up, I would watch this movie on repeat, so it holds a lot of nostalgia for me. I love that it’s a great family-friendly movie that I can watch with my little sister, and it puts us in the Halloween spirit! It’s funny and lighthearted, and I still really enjoy the plot years later! A must-watch every year for my family!
Where To Watch: Disney+
My favorite movie to watch during Halloween season (spooky szn!!) is Scooby-Doo and the Witch’s Ghost. Growing up my parents had the taped version of it and I always remember begging for it to be put on, especially during the fall season. I remember being oh so small and eating farina (almost like a rice porridge) while cozying up on the couch with my eyes sparkling as the hex girls first appeared on the screen. This movie will always entertain me no matter what age and I even hope to show my kids that movie in the future!
Where To Watch: Amazon Prime, Boomerang
My favorite Halloween movie is, somewhat unoriginally, Halloween. I live in a horror household, we watch horror movies all the time, and they’re a mainstay of our movie nights (which is most nights). Halloween (the one from 1978, not the other two movies in the same series which confusingly have the same exact name) was my introduction to horror and I think a big part of why it resonated so much with me when I first saw it as a young teen was how it represented my favorite holiday so well. It was scary, but it also felt like fall and pumpkins, and that sense of spooky joy we all have during this season that as an adult I now like to live in almost year-round.
Where To Watch: Crackle, Amazon Prime
My all-time favorite spooky movie for the Halloween season would have to be the A Nightmare On Elm Street series. As a little girl to my current days, I struggle with sleep disabilities and night terrors. When I was younger, I was afraid that Freddy Krueger would come to me in my sleep due to my vulnerability with sleep. As I grew older, I discovered that Krueger isn’t remotely scary at all. Watching the Nightmare series, I catch myself finding more comedy than horror. What’s better than a classic comical horror movie?
Where To Watch: Max, Amazon Prime
My favorite Halloween movie is Halloweentown II: Kalabar's Revenge. Growing up I watched a lot of Disney movies on TV and during this season. Every year they always had a disney halloween special that broadcasted all the Disney movies every day. They showed the Halloweentown series a lot because it was one of its most popular series, and I always watched through all of them. My favorite was the second one, which I still watch occasionally to get some nostalgia. I would bake cookies and watch it in the background to get into the halloween spirit. I used to be spooked by it because of the monsters in it, but now I just watch it for the fun-spiritedness of the movie.
Where To Watch: Disney+
My favorite Halloween movie has to be ParaNorman. Yes, I know...I know you're thinking, “Emma, this is a kid's movie.” Technically yes, but hear me out! I absolutely love this movie! It never fails to make me laugh and has adult humor in the way Shrek has adult humor. You don’t realize it’s a little more mature until you watch it back and have that “oooooh” moment. I never fail to belly laugh while watching this movie and quote it frequently. It also has a really good plot and takes a cool approach to the “outsider” trope. It has ghosts, zombies, and witches, so what more could you ask for in a Halloween movie?
Where To Watch: Amazon Prime
My favorite Halloween is hands down Friday the 13th. This was the first horror movie I saw when I was a kid and to this day it is still one of my favorites. The suspense and thrill of it all throughout the film keep you excited and anticipating the next move from Jason. It is my favorite horror movie to show people during Halloween and spooky season. It is my favorite way to have a tradition every year around Halloween. To experience watching it with different people every year and make new memories while eating ghost cookies and cozied up in blankets with the lights off.
Where To Watch: Hulu, Max