Horror Movie Wheel: Spin 150 Films by Sub-Genre or Decade
Spin 150 horror and Halloween films across nine sub-genres, a family group, a Halloween group and eight eras. Each result shows the year and a one-line premise.
Horror Movie Wheel: Spin 150 Films by Sub-Genre or Decade: how it works
This horror movie wheel holds 150 horror and Halloween films from 1920 to 2025. Tap a chip to narrow it: nine sub-genres from Slasher to Found footage, a Family spooky group, films set around Halloween, or one of eight eras. Each result shows the title, its year and a one-line premise. The full list is printed under the wheel.
Choose a sub-genre before you spin
On All, 150 slices are too thin to read, so tap a chip first. Demons, witches and the occult is the largest sub-genre with 35 films and Found footage the smallest with nine. Ghosts and haunted houses and Monsters and creatures have 34 each, and Vampires, zombies and werewolves 24.
A horror movie spin the wheel plan for October
The wheel forgets Elimination picks once the tab closes, so plan the month in one go: choose Elimination, spin 31 times and press Copy for a numbered list with no repeats. Horror comedy (26 films) makes a lighter week. Five Family spooky entries are television specials or shorts for a school night.
Tips
Using it as a scary movie wheel with children? Tap Family spooky first: 20 titles, 15 rated U or PG by the BBFC and 5 with no BBFC record, so check those yourself. On All, the wheel can land on The Exorcist (1973).
Seen the pick already? In Elimination, a second horror movie wheel spin can never land on the same film.
Got your own shortlist? Paste it into My list, one film per line, up to 100, and the wheel spins only those titles.
Questions and answers
Can I use it as a Halloween movie wheel?
Yes. Tap Set around Halloween for 33 titles from Wikipedia's List of films set around Halloween, from the 1937 cartoon short Lonesome Ghosts to Late Night with the Devil (2023). Seventeen are Family spooky titles; the other sixteen include adult horror such as Halloween (1978), so check the rating first.
Where do the 150 films and 19 groups come from?
Titles and years come from Wikipedia's lists of horror films by decade and its List of films set around Halloween, read on 18 September 2026. Sub-genre chips follow the categories on each film's own article, so Slasher means filed under slasher films. Six films, among them Carrie (1976) and Midsommar (2019), carry none of the nine tags and sit under their decade only.
Why are there two films called Halloween?
Remakes and sequels often reuse the original title, so the year is part of every slice. Nosferatu (1922 and 2024), The Invisible Man (1933 and 2020), The Fly (1958 and 1986), Halloween (1978 and 2018) and Scream (1996 and 2022) each appear twice.
As Above, So Below (2014)Directed by John Erick Dowdle. Found footage: a documentary team goes down into the Paris catacombs hunting for the philosopher's stone.
The Blair Witch Project (1999)Directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez. Found footage: three students go into the Maryland hills to make a film about the Blair Witch legend.
Cloverfield (2008)Directed by Matt Reeves. Found footage: a monster is loose in New York City, and six friends try to get away from it.
Host (2020)Directed by Rob Savage. A British film that plays out entirely on a video call, where friends holding an online séance let in a demon by mistake.
Late Night with the Devil (2023)Directed by Colin and Cameron Cairnes. Halloween 1977: chasing ratings, a talk show host brings a girl said to be possessed on air, live.
Paranormal Activity (2007)Directed by Oren Peli. Something is haunting a young couple's home, so they leave a camera running to catch it. Found footage.
Rec (2007)Directed by Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza. Spanish found footage: a TV reporter follows a fire crew into a Barcelona block, which is then sealed off.
Trollhunter (2010)Directed by André Øvredal. A Norwegian dark fantasy, shot as a mock documentary from found footage. The comedian Otto Jespersen stars.
The Visit (2015)Found footage from M. Night Shyamalan: a girl and her younger brother go to stay with estranged grandparents, and the old couple start acting oddly.
1960s 9
The Birds (1963)Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Loosely from a Daphne du Maurier story: birds start attacking people in Bodega Bay, California, and nobody knows why.
Carnival of Souls (1962)Directed by Herk Harvey, his only credit as director. After a car accident Mary Henry moves to a new city and feels pulled toward a deserted carnival.
The Haunting (1963)Directed by Robert Wise. Shirley Jackson's 1959 novel, filmed: a paranormal investigator gathers a few guests in a house said to be haunted.
The Innocents (1961)Directed by Jack Clayton. Henry James's The Turn of the Screw: Deborah Kerr is a governess who fears the house is haunted and the children possessed.
It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966)Animated Peanuts special directed by Bill Melendez. Linus sits out Halloween in a pumpkin patch, waiting for the Great Pumpkin. Music by Vince Guaraldi.
Kwaidan (1964)Directed by Masaki Kobayashi. Four separate Japanese ghost stories in one film, taken from Lafcadio Hearn's books of folktales.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)Directed by George A. Romero. A group trapped in a rural Pennsylvania farmhouse is besieged by reanimated corpses.
Psycho (1960)Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. An embezzler on the run stops at a motel kept by shy Norman Bates and his mother.
Rosemary's Baby (1968)Directed by Roman Polanski. A pregnant newlywed in Manhattan suspects her neighbors have sinister plans for her baby. From Ira Levin's novel.
1970s 15
Alien (1979)Directed by Ridley Scott. A commercial starship crew investigates a derelict vessel and is hunted by an extraterrestrial creature.
The Amityville Horror (1979)Directed by Stuart Rosenberg. Jay Anson's 1977 book, filmed: the house George and Kathy Lutz buy is haunted by hostile forces.
Black Christmas (1974)Directed by Bob Clark. A Canadian slasher set at Christmas: threatening phone calls reach a sorority house, and then a stalker does.
Carrie (1976)Directed by Brian De Palma. Stephen King's 1974 novel: Sissy Spacek is Carrie White, mocked at school, who finds she can move things with her mind.
Dawn of the Dead (1978)Directed by George A. Romero. With zombies spreading, a few survivors shut themselves up in a shopping mall in the suburbs.
Don't Look Now (1973)Directed by Nicolas Roeg. After their daughter dies, a couple travel to Venice, where one of two sisters they meet says she is psychic.
The Exorcist (1973)Directed by William Friedkin. Two Catholic priests attempt an exorcism to rescue a possessed young girl.
Halloween (1978)Directed by John Carpenter. Fifteen years after a Halloween murder, Michael Myers returns to Haddonfield, Illinois, and stalks a babysitter.
Jaws (1975)Directed by Steven Spielberg. A great white attacks swimmers off a New England resort town; a police chief, a biologist and a shark hunter go after it.
The Omen (1976)Directed by Richard Donner. Mysterious events gather around Damien, a child secretly swapped in at birth. With Gregory Peck and Lee Remick.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)Directed by Jim Sharman. Richard O'Brien's stage musical, a salute to horror and sci-fi B movies. A couple's car breaks down near a castle.
Suspiria (1977)Directed by Dario Argento. An Italian film: after several murders, an American ballet student learns what her famous European dance academy is hiding.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)Directed by Tobe Hooper. A group of friends heading for an old homestead fall into the hands of a murderous family.
The Wicker Man (1973)Directed by Robin Hardy. A police sergeant searches an isolated Scottish island, Summerisle, for a missing girl. With Christopher Lee.
Young Frankenstein (1974)Directed by Mel Brooks. Gene Wilder plays a descendant of Victor Frankenstein and Peter Boyle plays the monster.
Before 1960 18
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)Directed by Charles Barton. Count Dracula needs a brain to revive Frankenstein's monster and settles on Lou Costello's character.
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)Two Disney cartoons in one film: Basil Rathbone narrates the Mr. Toad story and Bing Crosby the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, with its Halloween party and Headless Horseman.
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)Directed by James Whale. First sequel to the 1931 Frankenstein. Boris Karloff is the Monster again; Elsa Lanchester plays Mary Shelley and the bride.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)Directed by Robert Wiene. A silent German film in which a hypnotist uses a sleepwalker to commit murders.
Cat People (1942)Directed by Jacques Tourneur. A newlywed illustrator believes she descends from a tribe of people who turn into black panthers.
Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)Directed by Jack Arnold. Shot in black-and-white 3D: scientists on the Amazon come across the Gill-man, a fish-like amphibious humanoid.
Dracula (1931)Directed by Tod Browning. Bela Lugosi is the Count, the vampire who moves from Transylvania to England. The script comes from a 1924 stage version.
The Fly (1958)Directed by Kurt Neumann. A house fly slips into a scientist's molecular transporter and he becomes a human-fly hybrid. With Vincent Price.
Frankenstein (1931)Directed by James Whale. Colin Clive is the scientist who assembles a living being, and Boris Karloff plays the creature.
Godzilla (1954)Directed by Ishirō Honda. Japan has to deal with a giant monster that nuclear bomb tests have mutated. Toho's film started the whole series.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)Directed by Don Siegel. Jack Finney's 1954 novel, filmed: an invasion from space starts in an invented California town.
The Invisible Man (1933)Directed by James Whale, loosely from H. G. Wells. Claude Rains is Dr Jack Griffin, who turns up in Iping in bandages, having made himself invisible.
Lonesome Ghosts (1937)Disney cartoon short directed by Burt Gillett. Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy hunt ghosts for a living, and four bored ghosts call them in for fun.
The Mummy (1932)Directed by Karl Freund. Boris Karloff is Imhotep, a mummy from ancient Egypt, killed long ago for trying to raise his dead love.
Nosferatu (1922)Directed by F. W. Murnau. Silent German Expressionist film: Max Schreck is Count Orlok, the vampire who brings plague to his estate agent's home town.
The Phantom of the Opera (1925)Directed by Rupert Julian. A silent film of Gaston Leroux's novel. Lon Chaney, in make-up he devised himself, is the Phantom of the Paris Opera.
The Uninvited (1944)Directed by Lewis Allen. The house in Cornwall that a brother and sister buy turns out to be the scene of paranormal events. With Ray Milland.
The Wolf Man (1941)George Waggner produced and directed, from Curt Siodmak's script. Lon Chaney Jr. has the title role; Claude Rains and Bela Lugosi support.
1990s 17
The Addams Family (1991)Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld. A macabre, aristocratic family welcome a man they believe is Gomez's long-lost brother Fester.
Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Gary Oldman is the Count, in love with Mina Murray, who is engaged to his solicitor.
Candyman (1992)Directed by Bernard Rose. Researching urban legends for her thesis, a Chicago graduate student is led to the story of the Candyman.
Casper (1995)Directed by Brad Silberling. The friendly ghost of Whipstaff Manor befriends Kat, whose father has been hired to clear the house of ghosts. Her class holds its Halloween party there.
The Craft (1996)Directed by Andrew Fleming. Four outsiders at a Los Angeles high school take up witchcraft to get what they want, and pay for it.
The Halloween Tree (1993)Animated television film from Ray Bradbury's 1972 novel. Trick-or-treaters learn the origins of Halloween. Bradbury narrates.
Halloweentown (1998)Directed by Duwayne Dunham. A television film with Debbie Reynolds: Marnie turns out to be a witch, as she finds out on her 13th Halloween.
Hocus Pocus (1993)Directed by Kenny Ortega. One Halloween in Salem, a teenage boy brings three comically wicked witches back to life by mistake. With Bette Midler.
I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)Directed by Jim Gillespie. Four teenage friends hid a road accident; a year later someone with a hook comes after them.
Interview with the Vampire (1994)Directed by Neil Jordan. Anne Rice scripted her own 1976 novel: Lestat, played by Tom Cruise, turns Brad Pitt's Louis into a vampire in 1791.
Misery (1990)Directed by Rob Reiner. Stephen King's 1987 novel: James Caan is novelist Paul Sheldon and Kathy Bates is Annie Wilkes, the fan who locks him away.
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)Directed by Henry Selick. Stop-motion musical: Jack Skellington, who rules Halloween Town, discovers Christmas Town and wants the holiday for himself.
Ring (1998)Directed by Hideo Nakata. Japanese film: a reporter investigates a cursed video tape said to kill its viewers after seven days.
Scream (1996)Directed by Wes Craven from Kevin Williamson's script. In Woodsboro, California, a killer in costume stalks Sidney Prescott and her friends.
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)Directed by Jonathan Demme. To find one killer, FBI trainee Clarice Starling asks another, the jailed Hannibal Lecter, for help.
Sleepy Hollow (1999)Directed by Tim Burton. Johnny Depp is Ichabod Crane, a New York City constable sent upstate to look into killings in Sleepy Hollow village.
Tremors (1990)Directed by Ron Underwood. Two handymen and the residents of Perfection, Nevada, confront giant underground worms. With Kevin Bacon.
2000s 15
28 Days Later (2002)Directed by Danny Boyle. A bicycle courier wakes from a coma to find a contagious virus has broken society down. With Cillian Murphy.
Coraline (2009)Directed by Henry Selick. From Neil Gaiman's 2002 novella: a hidden door in a girl's new home opens onto another world that seems better than her own.
Corpse Bride (2005)Stop-motion fantasy by Mike Johnson and Tim Burton. Victor has Johnny Depp's voice, and Emily, the bride of the title, has Helena Bonham Carter's.
The Descent (2005)Directed by Neil Marshall. A British film: a caving trip goes wrong for six women when the unmapped system they enter turns out to be inhabited.
Drag Me to Hell (2009)Directed by Sam Raimi. To impress her boss, a loan officer turns down an old woman's plea for more time on her mortgage. A curse follows.
Final Destination (2000)Directed by James Wong. A teenager's premonition gets him and his classmates off a doomed plane, but Death comes for them later.
Let the Right One In (2008)Directed by Tomas Alfredson. Sweden, early 1980s: a boy of 12 who is bullied makes friends with an odd child in a Stockholm suburb.
Monster House (2006)Directed by Gil Kenan. Animated: it is Halloween, and the haunted house terrorizing the neighborhood has a mind of its own.
The Orphanage (2007)Directed by J. A. Bayona. Spanish-language: Laura returns to her childhood orphanage to open a home for disabled children, and her son Simón vanishes.
The Others (2001)Directed by Alejandro Amenábar. Jersey, 1945: Nicole Kidman is a mother whose two children cannot bear light. Odd things begin once new servants arrive.
The Ring (2002)Directed by Gore Verbinski. Naomi Watts plays a journalist who finds a cursed videotape. The American version of the Japanese film Ring (1998).
Saw (2004)Directed by James Wan, his first feature. Told out of order: the Jigsaw Killer tests his captives with deadly games.
Shaun of the Dead (2004)Directed by Edgar Wright. A London salesman and his loved ones are caught in a zombie apocalypse. With Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
Trick 'r Treat (2007)Directed by Michael Dougherty. Four Halloween tales share one figure: Sam, a trick-or-treater who appears when anyone breaks the night's traditions.
Zombieland (2009)Directed by Ruben Fleischer. Zombies have overrun America, and four survivors drive across the country looking for somewhere safe.
Slasher 11
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)Directed by Wes Craven. Robert Englund is Freddy Krueger, who hunts teenagers inside their dreams. Johnny Depp's first film.
Child's Play (1988)Directed by Tom Holland. A widowed mother buys her son a doll. Neither knows that the soul of a murderer lives in it.
The Fog (1980)Directed by John Carpenter, who also wrote the score. An eerie, glowing fog rolls into a small town on the Northern California coast.
Freaky (2020)Directed by Christopher Landon. Freaky Friday with a killer: a teenage girl and a middle-aged murderer swap bodies by accident. With Vince Vaughn.
Friday the 13th (1980)Directed by Sean S. Cunningham. Teenage counselors getting an abandoned summer camp ready to reopen are killed off by someone unseen.
Halloween (2018)Directed by David Gordon Green. A direct sequel to the 1978 film that ignores the rest: Jamie Lee Curtis is Laurie Strode again, forty years on.
Happy Death Day (2017)Directed by Christopher Landon. College student Tree Gelbman relives the day of her murder again and again until she can find the killer.
My Bloody Valentine (1981)Directed by George Mihalka. A Canadian slasher: a mining town's young people go ahead with their Valentine's Day party, legend of a killer miner or not.
Scream (2022)Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. The fifth film in the series, the first that Wes Craven did not direct, and dedicated to him.
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010)Directed by Eli Craig. Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk play two kindly hillbillies whom a party of college students take for murderers.
You're Next (2011)Directed by Adam Wingard. A family that does not get on meets for a reunion and comes under attack from a gang in masks.
Family spooky 10
Coco (2017)Directed by Lee Unkrich. A Pixar film set in Mexico: twelve-year-old Miguel finds himself by accident in the Land of the Dead.
Frankenweenie (2012)Directed by Tim Burton. Animated: young Victor Frankenstein uses electricity to bring his dog Sparky back, and his classmates find out.
Garfield's Halloween Adventure (1985)Animated television special. Phil Roman directed and Jim Davis wrote it. Garfield's pirate-themed ghost story first aired on 30 October 1985.
Goosebumps (2015)Directed by Rob Letterman. Jack Black plays a version of author R. L. Stine, whose monsters escape from his books and overrun the town.
Happy Halloween, Scooby-Doo! (2020)An animated Scooby-Doo comedy that went straight to home video in October 2020, number 34 in that long line of films.
Hocus Pocus 2 (2022)Directed by Anne Fletcher. Twenty-nine years on, it is Halloween in Salem again, and Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy are back as the witches.
ParaNorman (2012)Directed by Sam Fell and Chris Butler. Laika stop-motion: Norman, who talks to ghosts, has to lift a witch's 300-year-old curse from his town.
Room on the Broom (2012)Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler's picture book as a short animated television film, directed by Max Lang and Jan Lachauer.
Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)Directed by Jack Clayton. Dark fantasy from Ray Bradbury's screenplay of his own novel, with Jason Robards and Jonathan Pryce. Its two boys were born a minute apart on Halloween.
Toy Story of Terror! (2013)Halloween television special by Angus MacLane. A flat tire sends Bonnie, her mother and the toys to a roadside motel, where Mr. Potato Head disappears.
2020s 14
Barbarian (2022)Directed by Zach Cregger. A woman books a short-term rental house and finds that it hides a dark secret.
The Black Phone (2021)Directed by Scott Derrickson. Abducted teenager Finney uses a mystical black phone to talk to ghosts and plan his escape.
The Curse of Bridge Hollow (2022)Directed by Jeff Wadlow. A father who scorns Halloween moves his family to a town obsessed with it, and the decorations come to life. With Marlon Wayans and Priah Ferguson.
Haunted Mansion (2023)Directed by Justin Simien. To clear their new house of ghosts, a mother and son call in a former astrophysicist, a psychic, a priest and a historian.
The Invisible Man (2020)Directed by Leigh Whannell. A woman believes her abusive ex is stalking her after he finds a way to become invisible. With Elisabeth Moss.
Longlegs (2024)Directed by Osgood Perkins. The 1990s: an FBI agent tracks an Oregon killer who is obsessed with the occult. With Maika Monroe and Nicolas Cage.
M3GAN (2022)Directed by Gerard Johnstone. A doll with artificial intelligence grows self-aware, then hostile to whoever threatens her tie to her human companion.
Nightbooks (2021)Directed by David Yarovesky. A dark fantasy based on J. A. White's children's book of 2018, with Krysten Ritter.
Nope (2022)Directed by Jordan Peele. A brother and sister who wrangle horses set out to get a UFO on camera in Agua Dulce, California.
Nosferatu (2024)Directed by Robert Eggers. A new version of the 1922 silent film, itself inspired by Bram Stoker's Dracula. Bill Skarsgård and Lily-Rose Depp star.
Sinners (2025)Directed by Ryan Coogler. Mississippi Delta, 1932: twin brothers, both played by Michael B. Jordan, come home and meet a supernatural evil.
Smile (2022)Directed by Parker Finn. After a patient dies in front of her, a therapist is overwhelmed by increasingly disturbing visions.
Talk to Me (2022)Directed by Danny and Michael Philippou. An Australian film: a group of teenagers find that an embalmed hand lets them speak to the dead.
Weapons (2025)Directed by Zach Cregger. A mystery: one night, all at the same moment, seventeen children from a single school class run off.
Psychological 5
The Changeling (1980)Directed by Peter Medak. George C. Scott plays a composer from New York who suspects that the Seattle mansion he has moved into is haunted.
Get Out (2017)Directed by Jordan Peele, his first film. Meeting his white girlfriend's family, a young Black man finds they are hiding shocking secrets.
Hereditary (2018)Directed by Ari Aster. Toni Collette plays Annie Graham, a maker of miniatures, who learns disturbing things about her mother once she has died.
Insidious (2010)Directed by James Wan. A boy slips into a coma nobody can explain, and his parents learn that spirits from an astral plane are using his body.
The Shining (1980)Directed by Stanley Kubrick. A would-be novelist takes his wife and their clairvoyant son to a mountain hotel he will look after for the winter.
1980s 13
An American Werewolf in London (1981)Directed by John Landis. David and Jack, backpackers from the United States, are set upon by a werewolf on a trip through England.
Creepshow (1982)Directed by George A. Romero. Five short tales in one film, and the first screenplay Stephen King ever wrote.
The Evil Dead (1981)Directed by Sam Raimi, his first feature. College students on holiday in a lonely cabin play an audio tape they find, and demons get loose.
Evil Dead II (1987)Directed by Sam Raimi. Bruce Campbell returns as Ash Williams, who plays a tape of readings from an ancient book in a woodland cabin. Demons follow.
The Fly (1986)Directed by David Cronenberg. Jeff Goldblum plays an eccentric scientist whose experiment misfires, and who bit by bit becomes part fly.
Gremlins (1984)Directed by Joe Dante. Billy is given a pet, Gizmo, which spawns creatures that wreak havoc on his hometown on Christmas Eve.
Hellraiser (1987)Clive Barker wrote and directed, from his 1986 novella The Hellbound Heart. A puzzle box calls up the Cenobites, who come from another dimension.
Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)Directed by Stephen Chiodo. Extraterrestrials that look like clowns arrive on Earth and invade a small town.
The Lost Boys (1987)Directed by Joel Schumacher. Two teenage brothers and their divorced mother move to Santa Carla, a California town that proves to be full of vampires.
The Monster Squad (1987)Directed by Fred Dekker, who wrote it with Shane Black. Count Dracula leads a band of classic monsters, and some sharp children set out to stop them.
Poltergeist (1982)Directed by Tobe Hooper. Ghosts invade a suburban family's home and abduct the youngest daughter. Story by Steven Spielberg.
The Return of the Living Dead (1985)Directed by Dan O'Bannon. A satirical comedy: zombies get loose by accident, and a warehouse crew and some teenage punks have to cope.
The Thing (1982)Directed by John Carpenter. At an Antarctic research station, an alien that copies the living things it absorbs could be passing as anyone.
Vampires, zombies and werewolves 2
Train to Busan (2016)Directed by Yeon Sang-ho. A South Korean film: zombies break out while a high-speed train is on its way to Busan, and most of the story stays aboard.
What We Do in the Shadows (2014)Directed by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi. A New Zealand mock documentary about vampire flatmates in Wellington.
Science fiction horror 2
A Quiet Place (2018)Directed by John Krasinski. Blind creatures from space with very sharp hearing have overrun the world, and one family tries to stay alive.
Us (2019)Directed by Jordan Peele. Lupita Nyong'o plays Adelaide Wilson, whose family come under attack from menacing doubles of themselves.
Horror comedy 1
Ready or Not (2019)Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. On her wedding night a bride becomes the quarry in a ritual hunt run by her rich in-laws.
2010s 9
The Babadook (2014)Directed by Jennifer Kent. An Australian film: a widow raising her son alone has to face a strange, human-shaped monster inside their house.
The Conjuring (2013)Directed by James Wan. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson are the Warrens, a couple who investigate hauntings and answer the Perron family's call.
The House with a Clock in Its Walls (2018)Directed by Eli Roth. From John Bellairs's 1973 book: a boy is sent to his uncle's creaky old house, once a wicked warlock's. A spell he tries on Halloween night goes badly wrong.
It (2017)Directed by Andy Muschietti. Part one of Stephen King's 1986 novel: in Derry, Maine, the seven children of the Losers' Club face Pennywise the clown.
It Follows (2014)Directed by David Robert Mitchell. Maika Monroe plays a young woman with something supernatural on her trail.
Midsommar (2019)Directed by Ari Aster. Florence Pugh and Jack Reynor play an American couple who get caught up with a cult in the Swedish countryside.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)Directed by André Øvredal. Alvin Schwartz's scary tales for children, with Guillermo del Toro as producer. On Halloween night in 1968, teenagers visit a house said to be haunted.
Sinister (2012)Directed by Scott Derrickson. Ethan Hawke plays a true-crime writer. Disturbing films he finds in his new house put his whole family at risk.
The Witch (2015)Directed by Robert Eggers. New England in the 1630s: something evil in the forest past their farm stalks a Puritan family.
How this list was compiled: All 150 titles and years come from Wikipedia's lists of horror films by decade and by year, indexed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_horror_films, and from its List of films set around Halloween (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_set_around_Halloween), all read on 2026-09-18. Those lists run to several thousand entries; we chose 150 and spelled each title the way its Wikipedia article does. Two films were left out because the list and the film's own article give different years. Groups follow tags the source carries. The nine sub-genre groups use the categories on each film's own Wikipedia article, read on the same date: a slasher films category puts a title in Slasher, a ghost films or haunted house films category in Ghosts and haunted houses, a demon, Devil, Satanism, exorcism, possession or witchcraft category in Demons, witches and the occult, a vampire, zombie or werewolf category in Vampires, zombies and werewolves, a monster movies or natural horror category in Monsters and creatures, and likewise for Science fiction horror, Psychological, Horror comedy and Found footage. Categories that only sort films by language were ignored. Set around Halloween means the film is on Wikipedia's list of that name. Family spooky needs two things. The film is in that list's Children's and family section or carries the Children's horror films category, and the British Board of Film Classification does not rate it 12, 12A or higher. We searched every tagged title at https://www.bbfc.co.uk/ on 2026-09-19. Fifteen of the twenty Family spooky titles are rated U or PG there. Five have no BBFC record and rest on the Wikipedia tag alone: Lonesome Ghosts; Garfield's Halloween Adventure; Halloweentown; Happy Halloween, Scooby-Doo!; and Hocus Pocus 2. Seven tagged titles are rated 12, 12A or 15 by the BBFC, so they sit in the sub-genre groups their categories earn and not in Family spooky: The Monster Squad (15), The Addams Family (12), Casper (12A on its 2023 re-release, PG in 1995), The House with a Clock in Its Walls (12), Nightbooks (12), The Curse of Bridge Hollow (12) and Haunted Mansion (12). The twenty Family spooky titles are kept out of the nine sub-genre groups. A certificate is a guide and ratings differ by country, so check the rating where you live before showing a film to children. The remaining groups sort every title by release year. Each one-line description is a sentence we wrote ourselves and then checked against the opening of the film's own Wikipedia article, read on 2026-09-18, or, for seven Halloween details, its plot section, read on 2026-09-19: the facts are the article's, the wording is ours, and a credit such as a director's name is given as the article gives it. No line carries a rating, a review or a box office figure. Licence: own work