The Top Ten Best Halloween Movies (Without Michael Myers)
Virtually every fan of modern horror movies is familiar with the long-running Halloween franchise. The series features everybody’s favorite masked mental hospital escapee, Michael Myers. Many horror fans will watch at least one or two Michael Myers movies during the spooky season. I ranked the installments of the Halloween series in a separate article.
Related: The Halloween Movies Ranked
There are also a wide variety of other Halloween-themed horror movies out there. Here are our top ten best Halloween movies that don’t have Michael Myers.
These movies range from relatively light fare like The Nightmare Before Christmas and fun Halloween party movies like Night of the Demons to truly sick and disturbing films like May and Terrifier.
10. The Nightmare Before Christmas
The Nightmare Before Christmas is a rare combination of genres: an animated horror musical. Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King, rules over a realm where it’s Halloween all year long. One day, Skellington discovers a strange land called Christmas Town, where everything is bright and happy.
Enchanted by this bizarre new world, Skellington decides to kidnap Christmas Town’s ruler, a mysterious man known as Santa Claus. Skellington misunderstands the point of Christmas. He assumes that it’s supposed to be scary like Halloween. After a predictably disastrous attempt to deliver Christmas gifts to Earth’s children, a chastened Skellington seeks help from Santa in order to save Christmas.
This innovative film is mostly kid-friendly, but the creepy imagery may scare small children.
9. The Houses October Built
A group of friends decides to document their road trip to find America’s most terrifying haunted house attraction. After visiting several places, they hear rumors of an underground extreme haunt group called Blue Skeleton. The group is determined to find Blue Skeleton at all costs. As they grow closer to finding out the truth about the shadowy organization, the group finally experiences true terror.
Like most found footage movies, The Houses October Built doesn’t have much explicit gore. It also suffers from the usual “why are they still filming when they should be running away” plot hole. But it does have an eerie atmosphere and a chilling ending. If you have claustrophobia, you might want to skip this one.
8. Hell House LLC
A group of entrepreneurs purchase an abandoned building and turn it into a Halloween haunted house attraction. Unfortunately, the house is already inhabited by a demon, and it is most displeased by their presence.
The demon has fun with the haunted house props that have been brought inside, especially a bloody clown statue that scares the hell out of everybody by disappearing and reappearing in random places.
As with The Houses October Built, Hell House mixes the fun spooky atmosphere of the Halloween season with genuine terror. People who enjoy visiting haunted house attractions will probably like it.
7. Haunt
Illinois university students enter a mysterious haunted house attraction on Halloween night. Unbeknownst to them, the attraction is operated by a gang of masked psychopaths. As the students make their way through the house, they are forced to endure increasingly disturbing and gruesome experiences.
Harper, the movie’s final girl, is haunted by traumatic experiences from her childhood. The horrors that she encounters inside the haunted house trigger repressed memories. Can she find the strength to survive?
Haunt is an entertaining slasher movie to watch around Halloween. It has a creepy atmosphere and the killers’ masks are genuinely eerie.
6. Terrifier
Terrifier is about a demented clown who goes on a wild rampage on Halloween night. This controversial slasher movie is light on plot but heavy on gore and sadism.
This is a dark and unapologetically mean-spirited film. Terrifier lacks subtext of any kind. Its only purpose is to sicken, disgust, and disturb viewers.
Art the Clown is one of the nastiest villains in recent memory. A sequel, Terrifier 2, was released in October 2022 and a third installment is set to be released in October 2024.
Related: Movie Review: Terrifier 2
5. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is based on a controversial kids book series that has fascinated and traumatized countless children. On Halloween 1968, a group of teenage friends break into an abandoned haunted house and find a book of spooky stories inside. To their amazement, an invisible entity keeps adding new stories to the book – and the stories are coming true.
Scary Stories to tell in the Dark features the second-tamest content of the movies on this list, behind The Nightmare Before Christmas. Still, it doesn’t feel particularly innocuous. Among other things, the film has a scene where a scarecrow comes to life and impales a guy with a pitchfork. It’s amazing what you can show and still get a PG-13 rating these days.
4. May
May is like a combination of Carrie and Frankenstein. A lonely young woman murders her enemies and uses their dismembered body parts to create a new person. May believes that this is the only way she’ll have a true friend.
On Halloween night, May completes her masterpiece after gouging one of her eyes out so that her grotesque creation can see her.
This is a bleak film about a profoundly unhappy and disturbed person. If that’s what you’re in the mood for, go for it!
3. Ginger Snaps
Ginger Fitzgerald and her younger sister Bridgette are morbid, cynical Canadian teenagers. They are determined to escape their boring small town by any means necessary, even if it means dying in the process.
Everything changes when Ginger gets bit by a mysterious monster and gradually transforms into a hairy beast. Bridgette is desperate to save her sister, but can she find a cure for lycanthropy before it’s too late? On Halloween night, Ginger fully transforms into a werewolf, and Bridgette must make an agonizing choice.
The chemistry between Katherine Isabelle and Emily Perkins makes this movie work. Their relationship is genuinely believable. The film has been interpreted as an allegory for what teenagers, especially girls, experience during puberty. It was followed by a sequel and a prequel.
2. Night of the Demons
Angela, an eccentric girl who is obsessed with the occult, invites her classmates to a Halloween party at Hull House, an old mansion that used to be a morgue. Judy, a blond goody-two-shoes who might as well have “FINAL GIRL” stamped on her forehead, reluctantly agrees to accompany her jock boyfriend Jay to the party.
Meanwhile Sal, a shady bad boy who is hoping to win Judy’s affections, also decides to attend. An evening of drinking and debauchery begins. The intoxicated partygoers conduct a séance and accidentally unleash the demons who are possessing the house. Bloodshed and carnage ensues.
It turns out that Sal genuinely cares about Judy, while the supposedly upstanding Jay is only interested in sex. Of course, it doesn’t matter in the end, because the demons slaughter both of them.
In another twist, the film has a Black character who, along with Judy, becomes the hero. This was a rarity in the ’80s, an era when minority characters were generally used as victim fodder, if they were included at all.
Night of the Demons is a perfect movie to put on at a Halloween party. It’s pure mindless entertainment. It was followed by two sequels and a remake.
1. Trick ‘r Treat
Four tales of terror are featured in this anthology set in a small town on Halloween night: a couple’s argument about when to take down their Halloween decorations turns deadly, a nerdy school principal teaches a child an unforgettable (and fatal) lesson, a quartet of college girls plan a wild Halloween party in the woods, and a group of kids investigate a local legend about a Halloween school bus massacre.
All the stories are connected by “Sam” (short for Samhain), a diminutive demon who wears a burlap sack over his head and brandishes a razor-sharp jack-o-lantern lollipop. Sam brutally punishes anyone who defies Halloween traditions. He mostly attacks “bad” people, but also slashes a woman whose only crime was taking down her Halloween decorations too early.
Trick ‘r Treat features spooky stories, a sharp sense of humor, and convincing performances by the cast. The stories are cleverly intertwined in several different ways. The movie has a circular storytelling structure, similar to Pulp Fiction. This fast-paced and stylish film is a great choice for Halloween parties.
Trick ‘r Treat was mostly ignored when it was released in 2007, but it went on to earn a significant cult following. It has become a staple of the Halloween season.
