13 Of Our Favorite Horror Movies Set On Halloween

Damien Leone's creation, Art the Clown, started in his Halloween-themed anthology film All Hallows Eve, in which Art is featured in the first and third stories, The 9th Circle and Terrifier. These stories are the basis of the second film in the trilogy Terrifier, released in 2016. It's a slasher film centered on Art the Clown stalking two sisters on Halloween night. The immensely popular Terrifier 2 was released in 2022 and not only hit big at the box office but received critical praise, especially for Lauren LaVera's performance as Sienna Shaw. It adds another clown character, The Little Pale Girl (Amelie McLain), and has elements of surreal comedy among the wildly gory kills. Word is that Leone is making a third Terrifier film now.

Hell Fest is set on Halloween night when a group of friends goes to a traveling horror show where a serial killer, The Other, is at work in the best hiding place ever. Think about it. Everyone expects to see bodies everywhere at a scary event. It is directed by Gregory Plotkin (Paranormal Activity: Ghost Dimension) and written by Seth M. Sherwood (Leatherface), Blair Butler, and Akela Cooper (Malignant, M3GAN). Genre stalwart Tony Todd stars in the film, along with Amy Forsyth, Reign Edwards, and Bex Taylor-Klaus. Read more: The Halloween Franchise Appears To Be Coming Back To Life Yet Again.

André Øvredal's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is based on the book series written by Alvin Schwartz. Set on Halloween in 1968, a group of teenage friends find the book written by the daughter of Bellows family, Sarah, in a secret room. One of the children, Stella, takes the book home, and as she reads the book, new stories appear and play out on the screen. Sarah is sending a message, but what is it? You have to watch the movie to find out. The film stars Zoe Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush, Gil Bellows, and Dean Norris.

Josh Hasty's Candy Corn is an independent Halloween horror film that deserves to be celebrated more. It stars Courtney Gains, Pancho Moler, P. J. Soles, Sky Elobar, and Tony Todd and concerns a young man tormented and killed by bullies but resurrected by one of the local carnies who takes pity on him. It is genuinely creepy, bloody, and clearly the work of a filmmaker who loves horror and reveres the Halloween spirit. The love of candy corn is real in this film. Read more: John Carpenter's Halloween Novelization Returns To Print After 40 Years.

Mary Lambert's sequel to Pet Sematary goes bigger than the first with multiple resurrections. Halloween night is the centerpiece of a scene where the young boys and new friends, Jeff and Drew, go to the Mi'kmaq cemetery to tell each other spooky stories, and it gets broken up by Gus, a local policeman, and Drew's stepfather. The film stars Edward Furlong, Anthony Edwards, Clancy Brown, and Jared Rushton and features a killer dog instead of a killer cat.

Chris LaMartina's WNUF Halloween Special has the set up of a Halloween special presented by the local TV station WNUF. It centers on one of the station reporters conducting a paranormal investigation at a house where an entire family was murdered brutally. The film has commercial breaks as if the film was an actual broadcast taped on video. It's an excellent frame for what initially seems to be a demonic possession story but might be a serial killer story after all. Read more: All The New Horror Movies Streaming On Shudder This Month.

Kevin S. Tenney's Night of the Demons is a fun 80s horror comedy movie set on Halloween night when friends go to a party in an abandoned mortuary. Why? Because it's spookier, that's why. It stars Cathy Powell as goth queen Amelia Kinkade, horror darling Linnea Quigley, and Hal Havins. The film is perhaps most famous for Angela Franklin's seductive dance to Bauhaus's song Stigmata Martyr as she turns into a demon. Angela is the only character appearing in the entire series; the second film is also set on Halloween.

Ghostwatch is the legendary British BBC broadcast of a horror mockumentary presented as a live television broadcast. It was hosted by an actual news presenter, Michael Parkinson, which lent the broadcast authenticity. The broadcast led to a million calls to the BBC complaining about the film and praising its quality. The plot concerns an alleged poltergeist in a family home and a paranormal investigation that goes wildly out of control. Created by Stephen Volk (Gothic, The Guardian) and directed by Lesley Manning, it starred Parkinson, Sarah Greene, Mike Smith, Craig Charles, and Gillian Bevan. It was the British television equivalent of Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast.

Jeremy Saulnier's Murder Party is a hilarious horror comedy set on Halloween about a lonely guy, Christopher Hawley, who finds an invite to a "Murder Party" and, for some reason, decides to go. Probably out of loneliness, he makes a cardboard costume, bakes raisin pumpkin bread, and bids farewell to his cat. Little does he know that the invite is to a trap where angry art students want to kill someone to create art to impress an art dealer. The film stars Chris Sharp, Sandy Barnett, and frequent Saulnier collaborator and director Macon Blair. It's funny and really quite gruesome.

Dark Night of the Scarecrow is an eerie TV movie about a gentle man, Charles Eliot "Bubba" Ritter, with the mind of a child who is friends with a young girl. When a dog attacks the young girl, the locals blame Bubba, especially the angry mailman, Otis Hazelrigg. A posse led by Otis kills Bubba, but they escape punishment in court. On Halloween, a supernatural vengeance starts to take out the men accused of the crime. This gem was created by J.D. Feigelson and directed by novelist Frank De Felitta. Because it aired on television, it's light on gore but not on atmosphere and dread. It stars Larry Drake, Charles Durning, Tonya Crowe, and Jocelyn Brando.

This Halloween anthology film is one where you definitely get your money's worth—clocking in with ten interwoven segments directed by Neil Marshall, Darren Lynn Bousman, Axelle Carolyn, Lucky McKee, Andrew Kasch and John Skipp, Paul Solet, Adam Gierasch and Jace Anderson, Mike Mendez, Ryan Schifrin, Dave Parker. The movie has an equally impressive cast list with Adrienne Barbeau, Barbara Crampton Lin Shaye, Barry Bostwick, Sam Witwer, Greg Grunberg, Pat Healy, Alex Essoe, Clare Kramer, Jose Pablo Cantillo, John Savage, and Caroline Williams.

While The Crow is usually classed as a supernatural hero film, I believe it is a horror film. It has everything: a rock musician, Eric Draven, resurrected as a revenant returning to Earth to enact supernatural vengeance on the criminals who killed him and raped and critically wounded his fiancée, Shelley, on Devil's Night, the night before Halloween. His soul is brought back by a crow who then helps him find the killers. If that's not horror, I don't know what is. Directed by Alex Proyas, it stars Brandon Lee, Ernie Hudson, David Patrick Kelly, Tony Todd, Bai Ling, and Michael Wincott. Tragically, Lee died on the set after being fatally wounded by a prop gun, but his outstanding work in this film should always be remembered.

I would be remiss if I failed to include the Halloween film series on this list. The film's name tells you that every movie in the franchise takes place on Halloween. Starting with John Carpenter's classic film in 1978, through the original series sequels, then to the Rob Zombie reboot films, and finally the trilogy of David Gordon Green movies that seemingly brought the entire franchise to an end with a film fittingly titled Halloween Ends. If you want one of the most popular Halloween movies and the prototype of Halloween horror films, with thirteen sequels or reboots to its credit, this is it.