Halloween movie marathon — Universal Pictures

a spooky stew of great horror!

October is the perfect month to watch horror movies until your eyes bleed! Even people who aren’t normally huge horror fans will gorge on a feast of scary movies during the spooky season. Here is my formula for a great Halloween movie marathon.

Think of it like a steamy dark cauldron of stew being cooked by a cackling witch. There are 31 ingredients to this brew. With classic slasher villains, vampires, werewolves, demons, ghosts, witches, zombies, killer dolls, human psychos, and evil clowns, there’s a tasty treat from nearly every corner of the horror genre. They range from creepy comedies to hardcore gorefests. Taste if you dare!

Fright Night

horror movie marathon — Columbia Pictures

First on my Halloween movie marathon list is Fright Night, a 1985 comedy horror film about Charlie, a teen who discovers that his new next door neighbor is a vampire. Chris Sarandon (Child’s Play, The Princess Bride) plays the bloodsucker, the suave and charismatic Jerry Dandridge.

Although it’s set during the Autumn, Fright Night has nothing explicitly to do with Halloween. Yet, it has been the first movie of my annual Halloween movie marathon for many, many years.

Why? Well, for one thing, it has a unique spooky vibe. The characters are quirky and unforgettable, especially Evil Ed (Stephen Geoffreys). Fright Night is deliciously entertaining, but it’s not particularly scary or disturbing. These qualities make it a great warm up for the more extreme horrors to come.

Haunt

Harper, a college student with a stalker boyfriend, goes to a mysterious haunted house attraction with her friends. The group is having a great time until they realize that the haunt is run by a gang of masked psychopaths. In this haunt, the horror is genuine.

As someone who enjoys going to haunts, I always include movies like these in my Halloween movie marathon. One of the cool things about Haunt is how it messes with our expectations, especially in the first half of the movie. Like Harper and her friends, we’re not sure what to believe about the haunt. What’s real and what’s just part of the show?

Hellhouse LLC

A group of entrepreneurs purchase a desolate abandoned hotel and transform it into a Halloween haunted house attraction. Unfortunately, the hotel is already haunted. The evil spirits lurking inside are in no mood to share their home with the crew.

Hellhouse LLC effectively captures the hell-raising spirit of Halloween attractions. I’ve been in some that are quite similar to the one depicted here. Luckily, none of the haunts I’ve been to were haunted by real spirits (as far as I know)!

The Houses October Built

A group of friends embark on a road trip to find the scariest haunted house attractions. Along the way, they document the attractions and the weird, and often menacing costumed performers that they encounter. They eventually find what they’re looking for but can they survive true terror?

We complete my haunt trilogy with The Houses October Built. Like Hellhouse LLC, this is a found footage movie. The haunts that the characters visit are based on real life attractions. The spooky atmosphere makes it a tasty Halloween treat.

Night of the Demons

Eccentric teen Angela invites her classmates over to Hull House, a cavernous abandoned mortuary, for a Halloween party. It’s all fun and games until the drunk partygoers accidentally unleash a group of demons. All hell breaks loose as people become possessed.

Other than Fright Night, no movie has been part of my Halloween horror movie marathon longer than Night of the Demons. I’ve watched it every October for as long as I can remember. The characters are dumb and there’s barely a plot, but it’s pure mindless Halloween fun. You’ll never look at lipstick the same way again!

Trick ‘r Treat

Four stories of fear are intertwined in this anthology set in a small town on Halloween night. All the stories include Sam, a little demonic rascal who wears a burlap sack over his head and brandishes a razor-sharp jack-o-lantern lollipop. Sam punishes anyone who defies Halloween traditions. Respect the season, or face his wrath!

Trick ‘r Treat is a movie that belongs on any Halloween movie marathon list. It would be downright sacrilegious to skip this one! I love the misty orange and black cinematography. Sam is deservedly one of the most popular characters at Spirit Halloween every year.

At least one Friday the 13th Movie

The Friday the 13th movies are set during the summer, but there’s no way a franchise this iconic is going to to get left out of my Halloween horror movie marathon. Countless kids (including me back in the ’90s) have dressed up as Jason for Halloween.

If you watch only one Friday the 13th movie in October, I recommend Part VI: Jason Lives. It’s the most purely fun and entertaining movie of the series. I love Jason in this movie, especially when he obliterates the obnoxious paintball coworkers. The ending, a boat battle on a fiery Crystal Lake, is truly epic.

At least one Michael Myers Movie

I don’t think this entry requires an explanation. Michael Myers has been synonymous with Halloween for well over four decades now. The franchise contains 13 movies and several alternate timelines, giving viewers an array of options to choose from.

Sometimes I’ll watch the first and second Halloween movies back to back. Since Halloween II picks up right where the first one left off, they feel like one big movie. You could pretty much do the same thing with a Halloween ’78 and Halloween ‘ 18 combo, or go for a trilogy with Halloween ’78 Halloween II (1981), and Halloween H20 (1998).

At least one Nightmare on Elm Street Movie

None of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies are set around Halloween (although there was a Halloween episode of the Freddy’s Nightmares TV series!). Still, no Halloween movie marathon would be complete without an appearance from Freddy, who, like Jason, continues to be a popular Halloween costume.

I usually choose Part 4, The Dream Master. It’s certainly not the best of the series, but it just has a fun ’80s vibe to it. Nightmare 4 was made when Krueger was at his peak popularity. It features some creative deaths (who could forget the water bed scene?), an awesome final girl played by Lisa Wilcox, and some funny one-liners.

At least one Saw Movie

Want to play a game? Although they’re not necessarily set around Halloween, the Saw movies are closely associated with the spooky season. After all, they annually ruled the October box office back in the early 2000’s.

A Saw installment was released every October from 2004 to 2010. Billy the Puppet masks and costumes are still popular to this day. The series made a comeback in 2023 with the surprisingly great Saw X. It’s set to continue in October 2025 with Saw XI.

At least one Scream Movie

Ghostface masks are ubiquitous at Halloween costume shops everywhere. There’s a bevy of little Ghostfaces running around trick or treating every Halloween night. Scream VI was the first franchise installment to be set around the holiday, and it’s definitely on my Halloween movie marathon list this season.

I also like to revisit the first Scream. Although some parts of it are dated (nobody cooks popcorn on a stove anymore, and Drew Barrymore’s cellphone is freakin’ HUGE!) it’s held up well for the most part. The movie’s story is almost mythic after being referenced in so many sequels.

At least one Terrifier Movie

Halloween movie marathon list — Cinedigm

The Terrifier series is the new kid on the block, a nascent franchise that only begun to pick up steam in the last couple of years. Art the Clown has become a new genre icon. Terrifier has a well deserved reputation for being sick and disturbing. The level of carnage exceeds any of the others on this list.

For this reason, Terrifier is something I watch very late in October, often on Halloween itself. This is for the same reason as Fright Night, but on the opposite side of the spectrum. I start with the tamest movie, then work my way up to the most extreme.

At Least One New October Theatrical Release

Nothing beats watching a brand-new horror movie in a packed theater on a dark October Friday evening! Sure, there’s tons of great options for streaming horror movies at home, especially in October.

But if you’re not getting out of the house to see at least one new horror movie this month, you’re missing out on a special experience. Terrifier 3 and Smile 2 are the movies I’m most interested in seeing. How about you?

extra ingredients!

Here are 18 more recommendations to add to the mix, giving us a total of 31 — one for each day of October! I mixed in some obscure movies along with a bunch of well-known classics. They’re in no particular order.