Halloween Movies You Should Watch Based on Your Favorite Sub-Genre

I grew up on horror movies, so I’ve been collecting my favorites for nearly 20 years. Of all the horror/thriller movies I have watched, I’ve categorized and listed below my favorites and a few must-haves purely for their being frequently referenced in pop culture.

I have also sub-ranked them from my favorite (top) to least favorite (bottom) within each category. The categories themselves are in no particular order. Each movie’s rating (PG-13, R, etc.) is next to each one with a brief description to help you with choosing.

These need little introduction, so go ahead and pick one that sounds interesting or that you have not seen before and enjoy!

 

Classic Horror: Some universal favorites in pop culture, transcending time with their unique qualities.

Halloween (1978) – R – Classic serial killer (Michael Myers) that just won’t go away no matter what the main characters do. The first (1978) and the fourth (1988) originals are the only good ones out of the 12 installments/remakes that have been made. Also, the soundtrack theme is legendary.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) – TV-14 – A killer with literal knives on his gloves (Freddy Krueger) hunts a teenager and her group of friends, picking them off one-by-one in their nightmares.

The Shining (1980)- R – Jack Torrance (played by Jack Nicholson) takes a job as a winter caretaker for an abandoned hotel in the Colorado Rockies, bringing his wife and son along with him. As the hotel’s gruesome past comes to life and the winter grows worse, Jack spirals into madness.

The Exorcist (1973)- R – Follows the exorcism of a young girl possessed by an unknown demonic being and a priest that becomes her only hope.

Friday the 13^th (1980) – R – A gruesome slasher film set at Camp Crystal Lake as the killer Jason Voorhees picks off the camp counselors one by one.

Poltergeist (1982) – PG – the plot focuses on a family haunted by terrorizing ghosts that grow increasingly violent.

Carrie (1976) – R – Carrie White, a shy high school girl, unleashes her telekinetic powers against her classmates that have relentlessly bullied her.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)- R – Five teenagers fall prey to a bizarre, cannibalistic family in the Texas countryside, and the masked, chainsaw-wielding monster, Leatherface.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960)- R – Marion Crane stops for the night at a motel, isolated from surrounding towns, and meets a seemingly-normal, quiet young man named Norman Bates.

 

Psychological Thriller: incorporating elements of mystery, an unsettling feel, mental distortion, and emphasizes the character’s spiraling/unstable mental states. I find these to have the best plot twists as well.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)- R – Clarice Starling, an FBI trainee, interviews Hannibal Lector, who is incarcerated due to his cannibalistic murders, in an attempt to gain insight on a current serial killer on the loose. Anthony Hopkins is one of my favorite actors, so this was a no-brainer as my favorite movie to watch during the month of October.

Us (2019) – R – This film follows a family followed by a group of their menacing doppelgängers.

Split (2016) – PG-13 – A mysterious criminal with Dissociative Identity Disorder (having 23 clashing personalities) kidnaps and holds captive three teenage girls. The film follows their attempts to escape.

A Tale of Two Sisters (2003)- R – After a young girl, Su-mi, spends time in a mental institution, she returns to her younger sister, her stepmother, and her father at their isolated countryside estate. The sisters are haunted by their tense family relations and the ghosts haunting their home. The language is Korean, but English subtitles are available

The Sixth Sense (1999) – PG-13 – A young boy who can see and communicate with the dead seeks the help of a child psychologist.

Shutter Island (2010) – R – Edward “Teddy” Daniels, Deputy US Marshall, investigates a psychiatric facility on Shutter Island when one of the patients mysteriously goes missing.

Black Swan (2010) – R – A young ballerina strives for the lead role in the ballet performance of Swan Lake. As she does whatever it takes to get the role, she descends into madness.

 

Suspenseful/Survival Horror: I classified these as suspenseful, edge-of-your-seat films that focus primarily on the main character(s)’ survival. The characters typically are comparably vulnerable against the antagonist/environment, making puzzle-solving/evasion/escape their primary goal.

Train to Busan (2016) – TV-MA – This follows a surprisingly heartbreaking story of a man and his daughter taking a train to Busan just as a zombie apocalypse unfolds across the country. An infected passenger causes panic and death to spread throughout the train cars. The film language is Korean, but English subtitles are available. Also, if you like zombie movies, this is the perfect pick for you!

Misery (1990) – R – A famous author is saved from a deadly car crash by one of his biggest fans, but will she ever let him leave? Probably my favorite Stephen King movie, but there is a very specific part that I cannot watch because it physically pains me. Hint: it involves a hammer and a block of wood (if you know you know).

Hush (2018)- R – A deaf and mute writer is stalked by a masked killer

Sanctum (2011) – R – Stuck in a claustrophobic cave while also underwater? Yeah, my biggest nightmare.

Don’t Breathe (2016) – R – 3 teenaged robbers plan to rob a blind man in his home, but things don’t go as planned when they become trapped inside and in more danger than they expected.

Saw (2004) – R– Very gory and graphic; two strangers wake up in a dirtied bathroom with no recollection as to how they got there nor why. They soon discover that they are in the midst of a deadly and tortuous “game” by a sadistic killer.

 

Paranormal Horror: This subgenre involves films that use supernatural elements (ghosts, demons, The

fictional creatures, etc.).

The Grudge (2004) – R – Based on a Japanese Legend- when a person is killed in a violent manner, his or her death sets in place a curse at the place of the death. There is a Japanese original from 2002 (Ju-On: The Grudge), but I’ve only seen the 2004 version with Sarah Michelle Gellar. There is also a remake and other sequels, but I haven’t seen them.

Sinister (2015)- R – Ellison Oswalt, a famous writer, discovers a large collection of home movies that hold violent and terrifying revelations about the house’s previous owners. The same paranormal threat now hunts his own family.

Insidious (2010) – R – After a family’s young son, Dalton, falls into a coma, the family becomes increasingly haunted by unseen spirits. The family struggles to bring their son back from a place called The Further before these demonic presences can possess his body. I truly recommend all the other horror movies within this universe (The Conjuring, Annabelle, etc.).

The Babadook (2014) – TV-MA – When a sinister children’s book titled Mister Babadook manifests in the home of a single mother and her son, they both become increasingly distraught as the creature becomes more and more real.

Pumpkinhead (1988) –R- When a hit-and-run takes the life of his son, Ed Harley seeks revenge on a group of teenagers by summoning the creature, Pumpkinhead.

The Ring (2002) – PG-13 – Once you watch the video, you have seven days left to live

IT (1990 & 2017 versions) – R – A Stephen King classic, the story follows a group of friends in the small town of Derry haunted by a malevolent clown named Pennywise.

 

Found-Footage Horror: Horror films that are taken from the perspective of a character via a video camera for a substantial part of the movie. It’s meant to feel like it is “raw footage” from missing/found videos.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) – R – 3 film students disappear in the Maryland forest while trying to make a documentary on the legend of the Blair Witch. The film is their lost-now-found film footage.

As Above So Below (2014) – R – a group of people investigate the catacombs that run miles and miles underneath Paris, France.

 

Non-scary: If you are not one for scary/suspenseful movies and just want an enjoyable Halloween-themed movie to watch, these are some of my favorites.

Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

The Corpse Bride (2005)

Hocus Pocus (1993)

Beetlejuice (1988)

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

Casper (1995)

Edward Scissorhands (1990)

The Addams Family (1991)

Ghostbusters (1984)