Halloween has been and always will be my favorite holiday of the year, which came from my mother always going all out for Halloween and having us watch so many Halloween movies every October. Now, October doesn’t feel right without watching some of my favorites!
- Scooby Doo and the Witch’s Ghost (1999)
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This is the first movie listed because I watched it a few weeks ago with my sister on VHS when I went home to visit. In fact, there is never anything quite like watching my favorite childhood movies on VHS – having the nostalgia of forgetting to rewind the movie last time, the weird video quality issues from a wrinkle in the tape, and crackles of the audio.
But besides the nostalgia of movies on VHS, I loved the story of this Scooby Doo movie. I always loved witches, and bringing the legends of Salem, Massachusetts into the Doo lore makes my inner history buff happy. I also recently discovered that my little gay heart was very much influenced by the Hex Girls band in this movie … And I mean, come on y’all.
- Hocus Pocus (1993)
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This is literally a must-watch every year—the Sanderson Sisters are iconic and cannot be replaced in my heart. I even made my boyfriend watch it this year and wrote an article about it because he is a film studies minor and is great at commentary!
- The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
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The perks of having an older sibling is that I watched movies that I wouldn’t have usually watched as a kid, and The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of them. It has the ability to be watched anywhere between October and December, as it can be both a Halloween and Christmas movie which means that my sister and I watched it numerous times within that season. We even made a large Jack Skellington Halloween decoration with our parents that is about 10 years old and is super cool!!
- Scooby Doo and the Ghoul School (1988)
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Another iconic VHS movie, I would watch Ghoul School on a weekend afternoon, enjoying the concept of Shaggy and Scooby (and Scrappy, but he is less memorable) by themselves, running a phys-ed program at a school full of spooky girls (a deviation from character, but I digress). The idea of the daughters of Halloween creatures going to school together made me a very happy child, and I imagined myself going to school with them (as every outcast kid would do, right?).
- Monster House (2006)
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I watched this one or two times, max, but I loved this movie! It was super cool, the idea of a haunted house coming alive. I also liked that the house had a deeper reason for being sentient, rather than having it simply be a haunted house. The plot was very good for a children’s movie, and even though the animation style is kind of weird-looking it was a really fun, spooky movie from my childhood!
One of the best parts of October is watching the movies, and this is a good list of movies to pick from if you want to have a movie night with a group of friends this Halloween!