Seasonal Guide
The Best Halloween Horror Movies
Films worth saving for Halloween night, ranked by Curator Score
Halloween 2026 falls on a Saturday this year! You know what that means, a celebration of the dead with no interfering soul sucking jobs to get in the way of (if you're working that day, I'm sorry, you can still watch at night hopefully).
This guide is the set of films in our catalog that match the Halloween vibe, some are obvious picks if the setting and story literally revolves around the day, others may exude the right feeling for it - hard to describe but you know it when you sense it.
Every film below has been watched and scored by us on fear, gore, atmosphere, and an overall.
That last part is the reason this list is shorter than it could be. We tag a film for Halloween viewing as soon as it belongs, but we only rank it here once one of us has actually sat down and watched it. Films we have tagged and not yet scored are held back rather than padded in with blank numbers. The list grows through the season as we work through them, and the classic Universal cycle and the later Halloween sequels are among the current gaps.
If you are programming a night rather than picking one film, the scores are the useful part. A high Atmosphere and a low Gore is a very different evening from the reverse.
- Curator Score 8.1
01Hokum 2026
- Fear
- 6.5
- Gore
- 2.5
- Atmosphere
- 7.7
- Intensity
- 6.0
When novelist Ohm Bauman retreats to a remote inn to scatter his parents' ashes, he is consumed by tales of a witch haunting the honeymoon suite. Disturbing visions and a shocking disappearance forces him to confront dark corners of his past.
- Curator Score 8.1
02A Nightmare on Elm Street 1984
- Fear
- 7.0
- Gore
- 8.0
- Atmosphere
- 8.0
- Intensity
- 7.8
Teenagers in a small town are dropping like flies, apparently in the grip of mass hysteria causing their suicides. A cop's daughter, Nancy Thompson, traces the cause to child molester Fred Krueger, who was burned alive by angry parents many years before. Krueger has now come back in the dreams of his killers' children, claiming their lives as his revenge. Nancy and her boyfriend, Glen, must devise a plan to lure the monster out of the realm of nightmares and into the real world...
- Curator Score 8.0
03Terrifier 2 2022
- Fear
- 2.0
- Gore
- 9.7
- Atmosphere
- 9.0
- Intensity
- 9.5
A year after the Miles County massacre, Art the Clown is resurrected by a sinister entity. Art returns home, where he must hunt down and destroy teenage Sienna and her younger brother Jonathan on Halloween. As the body count rises, the siblings fight to stay alive while uncovering the true nature of Art's evil intent.
- Curator Score 8.0
04Nosferatu 1922
- Fear
- 2.0
- Gore
- 0.5
- Atmosphere
- 6.0
- Intensity
- 4.0
The mysterious Count Orlok summons a happily married real estate agent to his castle, located up in the Transylvanian mountains, to finalise a terrifying deal.
- Curator Score 7.8
05Carrie 1976
- Fear
- 3.0
- Gore
- 2.5
- Atmosphere
- 7.8
- Intensity
- 6.5
Withdrawn and sensitive teenager Carrie White faces bullying from her classmates and abuse from her fanatically pious mother. When she begins to suspect that she has supernatural powers, things take a dark and violent turn.
- Curator Score 7.7
06Hell House LLC 2015
- Fear
- 6.8
- Gore
- 1.1
- Atmosphere
- 6.3
Five years after an unexplained malfunction causes the death of 15 tour-goers and staff on the opening night of a Halloween haunted house tour, a documentary crew travels back to the scene of the tragedy to find out what really happened.
- Curator Score 7.6
07El orfanato 2007
- Fear
- 7.0
- Gore
- 1.0
- Atmosphere
- 8.0
A woman brings her family back to her childhood home, which used to be an orphanage, intent on reopening it. Before long, her son starts to communicate with a new invisible friend.
- Curator Score 7.3
08The Guest 2014
- Fear
- 2.0
- Gore
- 6.6
- Atmosphere
- 6.8
- Intensity
- 7.5
A soldier introduces himself to the Peterson family, claiming to be a friend of their son who died in action. After the young man is welcomed into their home, a series of accidental deaths seem to be connected to his presence.
- Curator Score 7.3
09Halloween 1978
- Fear
- 6.0
- Gore
- 3.2
- Atmosphere
- 8.1
- Intensity
- 7.2
Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween Night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.
- Curator Score 7.2
10Drag Me to Hell 2009
- Fear
- 3.0
- Gore
- 2.0
- Atmosphere
- 5.5
- Intensity
- 4.5
After denying a woman the extension she needs to keep her home, loan officer Christine Brown sees her once-promising life take a startling turn for the worse. Christine is convinced she's been cursed by a Gypsy, but her boyfriend is skeptical. Her only hope seems to lie in a psychic who claims he can help her lift the curse and keep her soul from being dragged straight to hell.
- Curator Score 7.2
11Us 2019
- Fear
- 5.5
- Gore
- 3.9
- Atmosphere
- 6.5
Husband and wife Gabe and Adelaide Wilson take their kids to their beach house expecting to unplug and unwind with friends. But as night descends, their serenity turns to tension and chaos when some shocking visitors arrive uninvited.
- Curator Score 7.0
12Terrifier 2016
- Fear
- 5.0
- Gore
- 9.0
- Atmosphere
- 7.5
- Intensity
- 9.0
A maniacal clown named Art terrorizes three young women on Halloween night and everyone else who stands in his way.
- Curator Score 6.6
13Trick 'r Treat 2007
- Fear
- 1.0
- Gore
- 5.0
- Atmosphere
- 7.0
- Intensity
- 4.0
Four interwoven stories that occur on Halloween: an everyday high school principal has a secret life as a serial killer; a college virgin might have just met the one guy for her; a group of teenagers pull a mean prank, and a bitter old recluse receives an uninvited guest.
- Curator Score 6.6
14Pet Sematary 2019
- Fear
- 7.0
- Gore
- 5.0
- Atmosphere
- 7.8
Dr. Louis Creed and his wife, Rachel, move from Boston to Ludlow, in rural Maine, with their two young children. Hidden in the woods near the new family home, Ellie, their eldest daughter, discovers a mysterious cemetery where the pets of community members are buried.
- Curator Score 6.6
15Late Night with the Devil 2023
- Fear
- 6.0
- Gore
- 4.0
- Atmosphere
- 7.0
A live broadcast of a late-night talk show in 1977 goes horribly wrong, unleashing evil into the nation's living rooms.
- Curator Score 6.5
- Fear
- 6.0
- Gore
- 6.0
- Atmosphere
- 8.0
Mill Valley, Pennsylvania, Halloween night, 1968. After playing a joke on a school bully, Stella and her friends decide to sneak into a supposedly haunted house that once belonged to the powerful Bellows family, unleashing dark forces that they will be unable to control.
- Curator Score 6.5
17It Chapter Two 2019
- Fear
- 5.0
- Gore
- 5.0
- Atmosphere
- 6.5
27 years after overcoming the malevolent supernatural entity Pennywise, the former members of the Losers' Club, who have grown up and moved away from Derry, are brought back together by a devastating phone call.
- Curator Score 6.5
18Haunt 2019
- Fear
- 7.0
- Gore
- 7.0
- Atmosphere
- 7.0
On Halloween, a group of friends encounter an extreme haunted house that promises to feed on their darkest fears. The night turns deadly as they come to the horrifying realisation that some nightmares are real.
- Curator Score 6.4
19WNUF Halloween Special 2013
- Fear
- 2.0
- Gore
- 2.0
- Atmosphere
- 8.1
- Intensity
- 3.0
A local TV personality leads a team of supernatural investigators, including an exorcist, into the darkest corners of a supposedly haunted house.
- Curator Score 4.8
20Five Nights at Freddy's 2023
- Fear
- 3.0
- Gore
- 3.5
- Atmosphere
- 6.0
- Intensity
- 3.0
Recently fired and desperate for work, a troubled young man named Mike agrees to take a position as a night security guard at an abandoned theme restaurant: Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. But he soon discovers that nothing at Freddy's is what it seems.
Common questions
- What makes a film a good Halloween movie?
- Two things, and they are not the same. Some films are set on Halloween night, so watching them on the night lines up with what is happening on screen. Others have nothing to do with the holiday but carry the right "feeling" for it. Autumn leaves, crispy wind chilled nights and ominous happenings in suburbia. This guide counts both, because in practice people reach for both.
- Why are there fewer films here than you have tagged for Halloween?
- Because we only rank films we have watched. A film is tagged for Halloween viewing as soon as it belongs, but it does not appear in this ranking until one of us has sat down and scored it. We would rather show you a shorter list where every number is real than pad it out with blanks.
- What should I put on if the room is mixed (and you want everyone to enjoy the pick)?
- Look at the Gore score rather than the overall. A film can be genuinely frightening and almost bloodless, which is usually what you want with a group that did not all choose the film. The scary-but-not-gory guide linked above is that cut of the catalog.
Changelog
- — Now ranks 19 scored films, up from 15 at launch. Terrifier 2 and WNUF Halloween Special are among the additions.
- — Guide published, ranking the Halloween-tagged films we have scored so far.