The 90s and early 2000’s were full of creepy TV shows and movies. Despite being slightly terrified of these shows as children, it brings about an odd sense of nostalgia when thinking about how some of these kept us up late at night and/or hiding under our covers. In honor of Halloween, here are a few noteworthy films and shows that many of us loved to watch this time of year.
As if the opening credits weren’t creepy enough, Nickelodeon’s Are You Afraid of the Dark episode, “The Tale of the Lonely Ghost”, was sure to give you a nightmare or two when you were younger. This episode told the tale of a girl who tries to gain the acceptance of her cousin and her cousin’s friends by spending the night in a haunted house. The little girl ghost who haunted the house spent some time tormenting the teenager who was only in the house because of a dare. Even though this wasn’t the spookiest show ever, the sight and sound of the creepy giggling ghost will send chills up your spine.
As if it even needs an introduction, the next creepy show on the list is probably one of the most popular. Originally a book series, Goosebumps had a knack for scaring the pants off of you every now and then. The creepiest if not the most annoying episodes of the show was “Night of the Living Dummy” (one, two and three plus bride of the living dummy!). This dummy was the gift that just would not stop giving and torturing unsuspecting families. Once the kids caught onto the dummy’s antics and found a way to “defeat” him, his spirit would move on to the next doll or victim like a G-rated Chucky movie. He was so evil that it took four episodes just to get rid of him…or try to.
Next, on the list is a movie that many of us probably would be scared to watch just because of the sheer terror that the subject matter provoked. Don’t Look Under the Bed was a movie about every child’s worst fear—the boogey man. As if the fact that this movie was about a creature that crawls from under beds to take misbehaving children wasn’t creepy enough, try thinking about your imaginary friend turning into this scary creature, because you stopped believing in him or her. The creepiest scene from the movie had to be when the imaginary friend, Francis, started turning into a boogeyman himself and crawls out from under a bed (yikes!).
This next TV show wasn’t more funny than it was scary, but Courage the Cowardly Dog still had a few creeptastic moments. One episode in particular was “The Demon in the Mattress” which was contained scenes that seemed likely to be straight out of The Exorcist. Muriel orders a possessed mattress (yes a mattress) and the demon inside the bed turns her into a head-spinning, mucus spewing monster.
Halloweentown, everyone’s favorite Halloween Disney movie—or at least it should be—was awesome, because while it wasn’t really scary, it embodied everything that we loved about Halloween as kids. Trick-or-treating, costumes, witches and ghosts. It was among one of the best Disney Halloween movies ever made.
Now that we’re older and hopefully not so easily frightened, these old shows and movies may not make us shake in our shoes. But, they are the perfect reminder of what Halloween was like when we were younger. If you’re in the mood to binge watch one of these spooky shows like Courage the Cowardly Dog and Goosebumps on Hulu!