Thirty-two Monstrous Movies for Spooky Season

Posted on October 13, 2020

by Eric P

For many, Halloween is spooky season. For a lot of people, October rituals include not only apple picking and pumpkin spice tacos but also watching scary movies. A bunch of lists out there claim to tell you which scary movies are the best. So your old pal Monster Er-ICK Li-SCARE-ian figured: why not saddle the world with just one more?

Now, everyone’s tastes are different. If you love high-octane fast-zombie action movies you might not seek out a gloomy picture about gloomy people trying to evict a gloomy monster from their gloomy lives. (This synopsis applies to roughly 90% of all recent horror movies.) Meanwhile, if you prefer atmospheric ghost stories, you probably won’t enjoy watching two hours of a sadistic flight attendant meticulously eviscerating a stranger with a melon baller.

So it’s safe to say not every movie mentioned below will appeal to you. Truth be told, some of them aren’t even scary. But this is my guarantee to you: they’re movies, and they’re on a list.

Try getting yourself a better guarantee than that in this topsy-turvy world.

Cover of Carnival of Souls (1962)

Carnival of Souls (1962)

Hoopla

Just being low-budget and set at an abandoned carnival is enough to make this movie automatically creepy, even before the ghosts show up.

Cover of Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Probably among the most influential movies ever made, this canonical zombie picture goes easy on the makeup and heavy on the tension. Features a handful of scenes that will stick in your nightmares.

Cover of Halloween (1978)

Halloween (1978)

Halloween wasn’t the first slasher movie, but its atmospheric sense of menace and needling piano score set the template for most that came after.

Cover of An American Werewolf in London (1981)

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

Rick Baker won an Oscar for his werewolf transformation makeup but the real stars of the show are the film’s mordant sense of humor and the main character’s mounting sense of dread as he realizes night life will never be the same.

Cover of Poltergeist (1982)

Poltergeist (1982)

One of the few movies on this list that’s suitable for hardy children (spoiler alert: nobody dies who isn’t already dead), Poltergeist embeds its savvy scares in a skeptical portrait of 1980s suburbia.

Cover of Gremlins (1984)

Gremlins (1984)

This bratty joyride is technically more of a Christmas movie than a Halloween movie, but it’s got more monsters per square inch than just about any other title on this list.

Cover of The Fly (1986)

The Fly (1986)

The 1958 movie “The Fly” had a couple of indelible moments, but David Cronenberg’s inspired body-horror remake has a lot more mucus.

Cover of Scream (1996)

Scream (1996)

By being a slasher movie that comments relentlessly on the conventions of slasher movies, Scream manages to have its cake and slaughter it too.

Cover of The Others (2001)

The Others (2001)

A WWII-era Nicole Kidman is isolated with her kids on an island, and if that doesn’t scare you then you must not have lived through a pandemic shutdown with remote schooling.

Cover of The Ring (2002)

The Ring (2002)

Purists probably prefer the Japanese original, which I haven’t seen. I’m just glad that VCR ghost girl hasn’t figured out a way to haunt Netflix.

Cover of The Descent (2005)

The Descent (2005)

Any therapist will tell you that nothing exposes interpersonal tensions like spelunking together in a cave full of monsters.

Cover of The Orphanage (Spanish, 2007)

The Orphanage (Spanish, 2007)

The whole abandoned-orphanage-with-a-poisonous-past thing is pretty spooky, but the film folds its scares into some legitimately mournful storytelling.

Cover of Let the Right One In (2008, Swedish)

Let the Right One In (2008, Swedish)

Hoopla

Though it has the requisite explosions of vampire violence – more artfully rendered than is the norm – this terrific movie resonates for the humane and empathetic depictions of its characters, as well as its pragmatic treatment of the logistical challenges inherent in being a twelve-year-old immortal.

Cover of Drag Me to Hell (2009)

Drag Me to Hell (2009)

Anyone who watches Sam Raimi’s pulpy tale of a loan officer punished for her selfishness with a supernatural curse will themselves also be cursed – cursed with a nasty and rollicking good time, that is. (See what I did there?)

Cover of The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

Search Ohio

For people who thought Scream wasn’t meta enough.

Cover of Grave Encounters (Canadian, 2011) Cover of Grave Encounters (Canadian, 2011)

Grave Encounters (Canadian, 2011)

Hoopla

The victims of the haunting in this found-footage thriller are reality TV producers, so we don’t feel too bad for them.

Cover of Mama (2013)

Mama (2013)

Jessica Chastain tries to adopt two feral girls raised in the woods by a malevolent presence, setting off the world’s worst custody battle.

Looking for more related content?

Here are a few selections just for you!

  • US desert road

    9 Books to Read If You Like Better Call Saul

    The Breaking Bad saga is wrapping up with the final season of Better Call Saul. If you're looking to recapture the edge of your seat twists and turns that show provides, these are the books for you.

  • Arcade

    15 Films from the 1980s to Watch if You Love Stranger Things

    Celebrate the return of Stranger Things with 15 classics from the ‘80s.

  • In the Spirit of Things

    All of these books have call numbers which means it's all real, right? Right?