SEASONAL · HALLOWEEN 2026
Halloween, at your own fright level
Twenty-four horror and spooky picks across movies, TV, anime, games, books and music, sorted by how scared you want to be, with a plan for every kind of Halloween night.
Halloween recommendations tend to assume one kind of person: someone who already loves horror and wants the scariest thing available. Most of us aren't that person every year. Some Octobers you want a proper fright with the lights off. Others you want a ghost story you can watch with a nine-year-old, or something loud and silly for a room full of friends who will talk over it anyway.
So this hub is sorted by mood first. There are four shelves, and each has one pick in every format OmniTrackr tracks: a film, a series, an anime, a game, a book and an album. Every pick has a fright level from one to five, a note on how much time it takes, and a caveat that lists what is actually in it. Find the shelf that fits the night you're planning. Then pick a format.
For the slower, stranger side of October, where nothing jumps out at you and the unease stays with you anyway, see this month's Discover edition. None of its six picks appear here.
THE FRIGHT SCALE
How scary is it?
Fright 1 of 5 · Spooky, not scary
Atmosphere and costumes. Fine for most children and for anyone who avoids horror.Fright 2 of 5 · A few jolts
Some tension and the odd shock. Nothing that follows you to bed.Fright 3 of 5 · Unsettling
Dread that builds and a few disturbing images, the kind you find yourself thinking about in the shower.Fright 4 of 5 · Properly frightening
Made to scare, with long stretches of tension. Best when you know what you signed up for.Fright 5 of 5 · Lights on afterwards
The strongest material here. Read the caveat before you start.
Save any pick to a list as you go, no account needed. Your list moves into a free library when you sign up.
FRIGHT 1 TO 3
Start gently
For people who think they don't like horror.
Most people who say they hate horror actually hate one part of it: gore, jump scares, or the feeling of being trapped with something cruel. These six keep the atmosphere and the mystery (a house with rules you don't understand yet, a voice on the other side of a door) and go easy on the rest.
None of them goes above three on the fright scale, and most sit at one or two. If one of them works for you, try the next shelf.
Movie · 2001 · Alejandro Amenábar
The Others
Fright 2 of 5 · A few jolts
One film, about an hour and three quarters
A mother keeps her two children in a fog-bound house on Jersey with the curtains drawn, because the children cannot bear sunlight. Then the new servants arrive and the house starts to feel crowded. Almost all of the fear comes from sound and shadow, and you spend most of the film staring at the edges of the frame, waiting for something to move.
Watch it without reading anything about it first. The whole story turns on one reveal, and it works better the less you expect. Keep a lamp on somewhere in the room.
Before you start: A handful of loud shocks and a grieving, sometimes harsh mother. No gore. Its central turn may upset anyone recently bereaved.
TV show · 2020 · Mike Flanagan
The Haunting of Bly Manor
Fright 2 of 5 · A few jolts
Nine episodes, a long weekend
A young American au pair takes a job at an English country house in the 1980s, caring for two orphaned children who are a little too polite. Loosely drawn from Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, it plays more like a gothic romance than a horror series, and most of its ghosts are sad, lost figures. For a genre that usually wants you to flinch, it is a gentle way in.
The first two episodes are the slowest. The eighth, told almost entirely in black and white as an old story, is where the series explains itself, so give it until then before deciding.
Before you start: Some unsettling images of faceless figures, a death by drowning and grief throughout. The story has no link to the earlier Hill House series, so you can start here.
Anime · 2016 · ONE
Mob Psycho 100
Fright 1 of 5 · Spooky, not scary
Twelve episodes for the first season
Mob is a shy middle-schooler with enormous psychic power who works for a fraudulent exorcist for pocket money. The spirits they deal with are sometimes grotesque and often ridiculous, and the animation goes wildly expressive whenever Mob's emotions boil over. Underneath it all is a story about a boy trying to be kind, which suits Halloween better than you'd think.
The art style is deliberately scrappy for the first episode or two. Stick with it until the first big fight, when the animation shows what it can do.
Before you start: Cartoonish monsters and some bloody fights. Three seasons in total; the first stands well alone.
Video game · 2021 · Daniel Mullins Games
Inscryption
Fright 3 of 5 · Unsettling
A weekend-length game
You wake in a dark cabin across a table from a figure you can only see by his eyes, and he wants to play cards. The deck-building is excellent, and then you stand up from the table and start searching the room, which is where the game really begins. Each layer you uncover is stranger than the one before.
Go in knowing as little as possible and do not look anything up when it seems to change shape. You do not need to know other card games; it teaches everything it needs.
Before you start: More creepy than frightening. It does ask you to sacrifice creatures, and some self-harm imagery is played for unease (an eye, a tooth).
Book · 2020 · Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Mexican Gothic
Fright 3 of 5 · Unsettling
A novel of around three hundred pages
In 1950s Mexico, a glamorous socialite drives into the mountains to check on her newly married cousin, who has written a frantic letter from her husband's crumbling English-built mansion. Noemí is witty, stubborn and very hard to frighten, which makes her the ideal guide through a house whose family has something wrong at its root.
The first half is slow, mannered gothic, all dinners and rules. The final third accelerates hard, so leave yourself an evening to finish it in one go.
Before you start: Contains eugenics and racism as themes, sexual coercion, incest and body horror in the last act.
Album · 1981 · Siouxsie and the Banshees
Juju
Fright 1 of 5 · Spooky, not scary
Nine songs, well under an hour
One of the records that taught goth what it sounded like: chiming, needling guitars, tom-heavy drums and Siouxsie singing about voodoo dolls, night shifts and Halloween itself. Nothing on it is horror in the strict sense. Put it on while you carve pumpkins, and take it off before you try to sleep.
Start with Spellbound and Arabian Knights to hear the band at full tilt, then go back to the beginning and play it through.
Before you start: Night Shift is sung from the point of view of a killer. Otherwise the darkness is all mood.
FRIGHT 3 TO 5
Lights off
For when you want to be properly scared.
This shelf is for people who already know what they like and want it done well. Every pick here is meant to frighten you, and each goes about it differently: grief that turns into something worse, cold and isolation, a village that keeps repeating the same June, a creature that hunts by sound.
Read the caveats. Two of these sit at five on the fright scale, and they earned it. One asks for a lot of your time. Nobody wins anything by finishing a film they are not enjoying.
Movie · 2018 · Ari Aster
Hereditary
Fright 5 of 5 · Lights on afterwards
One film, just over two hours
After her secretive mother dies, a miniature artist and her family begin to come apart, first in the ordinary ways grief breaks people and then in ways that are not ordinary at all. Toni Collette's performance drives the whole thing. The film scares you as much as it does because it treats the family's pain seriously before anything supernatural happens.
This is a slow film until it very suddenly is not. Watch it with someone, and plan a short walk or a sillier episode of something afterwards.
Before you start: Graphic death, including the death of a child, self-harm, decapitation, occult imagery and intense family conflict. Not for a casual night in.
TV show · 2018 · David Kajganich and Soo Hugh
The Terror
Fright 4 of 5 · Properly frightening
Ten episodes for the first season
In 1845 two Royal Navy ships set out to find the Northwest Passage and become locked in Arctic ice. Based on Dan Simmons's novel about the real lost Franklin expedition, the first season builds horror from cold, scurvy, bad leadership and dwindling food long before you see what is hunting the crew. It is a historical drama with something in the dark.
The first season is a complete story; the second is an unrelated tale with a new cast. Watch with subtitles on, because the ships are full of accents and wind.
Before you start: Graphic injuries, amputation, cannibalism, disease and death in large numbers. The pacing is slow and bleak on purpose.
Anime · 2006 · Studio Deen
Higurashi: When They Cry
Fright 4 of 5 · Properly frightening
Twenty-six episodes for the first season
A boy moves to Hinamizawa, a sleepy rural village in June 1983, and makes friends with a cheerful group of girls. Then he learns about the annual festival and the deaths that follow it, and the story starts over from the beginning with something slightly different. Each arc is a new attempt at the same few weeks. The cute art style makes the violence hit harder.
The early episodes play like a slice-of-life comedy on purpose. The structure only makes sense after the first two or three arcs, so trust it. The answer arcs come in the second season.
Before you start: Graphic violence, torture, child abuse, suicide and paranoia. The art and animation are dated and uneven.
Video game · 2014 · Creative Assembly
Alien: Isolation
Fright 5 of 5 · Lights on afterwards
A long game, around fifteen to twenty hours
Fifteen years after the first film, Ellen Ripley's daughter Amanda boards a failing space station looking for answers and finds a single alien that cannot be killed. It hunts by sound, learns your habits and can appear from any vent. Few games have ever made a locker feel like such a fragile place to hide.
Play with headphones. The motion tracker beeps, and that is the point: using it can give you away. Medium difficulty is tense enough for most players.
Before you start: Hours of tension with long stretches of hiding, and frequent deaths that send you back to the last save point. Some gore. Saving is manual, at wall terminals.
Book · 1977 · Stephen King
The Shining
Fright 4 of 5 · Properly frightening
A long novel, best over a week of evenings
Jack Torrance, a recovering alcoholic with a temper, takes a job as winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel in the Colorado Rockies and brings his wife and his psychic five-year-old son. The novel is much more interested in Jack than Kubrick's film is, which makes it sadder and, in places, more frightening. You watch a man who loves his family lose the fight with himself.
Read it even if you know the film by heart. The hotel's topiary animals and room 217 are scarier on the page, and the ending is entirely different.
Before you start: Domestic violence, alcoholism, child endangerment and a ghost in a bathtub you will not forget. Some dated language.
Album · 1977 · Goblin
Suspiria
Fright 3 of 5 · Unsettling
A short soundtrack album
The Italian prog-rock band Goblin scored Dario Argento's film about an American ballet student at a German dance academy run by witches. The title theme pairs a music-box melody with whispered voices, a bouzouki and pounding drums, and it is genuinely upsetting to listen to alone in the dark. It is also, inconveniently, very catchy.
Play it loud while the rest of your night is getting ready, then turn it off before you start the film.
Before you start: Instrumental, with unsettling whispers and screams. The film is far more violent than the music, and this pick is only the album.
FRIGHT 1 TO 3
Spooky, not scary
For a Halloween with the whole family.
Children like being a little frightened in the same way adults do, as long as they know the story is on their side. These six are made for that: witches, ghosts and haunted woods with a warm centre, pitched so that the adults in the room have a good time too.
Fright levels here are judged for children roughly seven and up. Younger children vary a great deal, so each caveat says exactly what might be too much.
Movie · 2012 · Sam Fell and Chris Butler
ParaNorman
Fright 2 of 5 · A few jolts
One film, about an hour and a half
Norman can see and talk to the dead, which makes him a weirdo at school and a disappointment at home. When his small New England town's three-hundred-year-old witch's curse comes due, he is the only one who can stop it. Laika's stop-motion is beautiful and funny, and the ending is braver and kinder than most family films dare.
A good bridge between little-kid Halloween and the real thing. Talk afterwards about who the witch really was.
Before you start: Zombies, a frightening storm sequence, mild crude humour and a scene about a child's death. Probably too intense for under-sevens.
TV show · 2014 · Patrick McHale
Over the Garden Wall
Fright 1 of 5 · Spooky, not scary
Ten short episodes, under two hours in all
Two half-brothers, anxious Wirt and cheerful Greg, are lost in a strange autumnal forest called the Unknown, trying to get home with the help of a grumpy bluebird. It looks like an old picture book and sounds like a vintage radio show. The eeriness is mild and very autumnal, and the whole series runs shorter than a lot of films.
Watch it in order over one evening with the lights low. Adults tend to love it as much as children do, sometimes more.
Before you start: A few frightening images of the Beast, a creature in the woods, and themes of being lost. Mild by Halloween standards.
Anime · 2008 · Brain's Base
Natsume's Book of Friends
Fright 1 of 5 · Spooky, not scary
Thirteen episodes for the first season, each a complete story
Natsume, an orphaned teenager who has always seen spirits, inherits his grandmother's book of names: the yokai she beat in contests and bound to her. Now they keep turning up to ask for their names back. He has a bodyguard spirit who looks like a lucky cat, and each episode is a small, often tender ghost story about loneliness and letting go.
Each episode stands alone, so one makes a good bedtime ghost story. There are many seasons if it becomes a family habit.
Before you start: Some spirits look grotesque and a few episodes are sad. Pick the subtitled or dubbed version that suits your children's reading.
Video game · 2019 · Next Level Games
Luigi's Mansion 3
Fright 1 of 5 · Spooky, not scary
A game of about a dozen hours, easy to play in short sessions
Luigi wins a free stay at a luxury hotel that turns out to be haunted, and has to rescue Mario and friends floor by floor with a ghost-sucking vacuum. Each floor has its own theme, from a film studio to a pirate ship, and the slapstick is pure cartoon. A second player can join as Gooigi, a gooey copy of Luigi who can slip through grates.
Made for a parent and child playing side by side. The second player can drop in and out at any time, so a younger partner can join for the fun bits.
Before you start: Nintendo Switch only. Some boss fights are tricky for small hands. Ghosts pop out, but it is far more silly than scary.
Book · 1981 · Alvin Schwartz
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Fright 3 of 5 · Unsettling
Short tales, a few minutes each
Alvin Schwartz collected American folklore and urban legends into very short stories meant to be read aloud, complete with notes on when to jump at your listener. Children have been delighted and properly frightened by them for generations, and they still work by torchlight.
Look for an edition with Stephen Gammell's original illustrations, which are the most frightening part. Pre-read a few before you read them aloud, so you know which ones suit which age.
Before you start: The illustrations are genuinely disturbing for younger children. Some stories involve death and corpses. There are three volumes.
Album · 1993 · Danny Elfman
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Fright 1 of 5 · Spooky, not scary
A soundtrack album, under an hour
Danny Elfman wrote the songs for Henry Selick's stop-motion film and sang Jack Skellington's parts himself. This Is Halloween is the obvious opener for any party, but the album is full of real songs, from Jack's restless Lament to Sally's softer one, and most of them are funny as well as spooky.
Put it on while you decorate or carve pumpkins, and it will be playing in your house until December.
Before you start: Mild menace from Oogie Boogie. Otherwise suitable for any age.
FRIGHT 1 TO 4
Bring friends
For horror that is better with a crowd.
Some horror is best shared. Comedy, co-op games and very silly ghosts work in a room full of people because the jokes and the shrieks become part of the night. We picked these six to survive a party: you can talk over them, arrive late, or play in a group without losing the thread.
The fright levels vary. Every pick here is funny, either on purpose or because you're not alone.
Movie · 2004 · Edgar Wright
Shaun of the Dead
Fright 2 of 5 · A few jolts
One film, about an hour and forty minutes
Shaun is a London electronics salesman whose life revolves around his flatmate and his local pub. He is so stuck in his routine that he fails to notice the zombie apocalypse for the first morning. Edgar Wright packs the film with visual jokes and sets up nearly every gag early, so second viewings are even better.
Expect a crowd who will quote along. If your group has seen it, try spotting the setups in the first twenty minutes.
Before you start: Gory deaths played for laughs, one sad death that is not, and plenty of swearing.
TV show · 2019 · Jemaine Clement
What We Do in the Shadows
Fright 1 of 5 · Spooky, not scary
Six seasons; any episode works on its own
Four vampire housemates in Staten Island, and their put-upon familiar Guillermo, try to conquer the New World while struggling with modern life. Shot as a mock documentary and spun off from the 2014 film, it is one of the funniest sitcoms of its time.
Drop in anywhere for a party. For a binge, start at the beginning; the energy vampire Colin Robinson gets better every season.
Before you start: Lots of blood played for laughs, sexual humour and strong language.
Anime · 2000 · Studio Pierrot
Ghost Stories
Fright 2 of 5 · A few jolts
Twenty episodes, each a short ghost of the week
In Japanese, this is a straightforward children's series about kids fighting ghosts haunting their old school. The English dub is another thing entirely: the voice cast was told they could improvise, and they turned it into a gleefully rude comedy that keeps breaking the fourth wall. That is why it has a cult following, and why it suits a group with a taste for bad taste.
For a party, choose the English dub. For a genuinely spooky children's series, choose the original Japanese with subtitles. They are almost different shows.
Before you start: The dub's humour is crude and frequently offensive, including jokes about religion, race and disability. Not for children, whatever it looks like.
Video game · 2020 · Kinetic Games
Phasmophobia
Fright 4 of 5 · Properly frightening
Short investigations, played as long as you like
Up to four players are paranormal investigators with flashlights, thermometers and spirit boxes, trying to work out which kind of ghost haunts a house before it gets angry. The game listens to your microphone, so the ghost can hear you say its name. Hearing your friends' voices go quiet over the radio is half the fun.
Best with three or four friends on voice chat. Have one person read the ghost guide while the others explore. It stays funny until it suddenly isn't.
Before you start: PC and consoles, with optional VR. Expect jump scares, chase sequences and a lot of swearing once friends are involved. Some players find the voice recognition quite unsettling.
Book · 2014 · Grady Hendrix
Horrorstör
Fright 3 of 5 · Unsettling
A short novel, one or two evenings
Strange things are happening overnight at Orsk, a flat-pack furniture superstore suspiciously like a certain Swedish one, so a few employees agree to stay after closing to find out why. The book is laid out like a furniture catalogue. It is very funny about retail jobs before it gets properly creepy about them.
Pass it around a group. The catalogue pages at the start of each chapter are worth showing off, and anyone who has worked retail will recognise the managers.
Before you start: Torture and body horror in the second half. Get the physical edition if you can; the design loses a lot as an e-book.
Album · 1982 · Michael Jackson
Thriller
Fright 1 of 5 · Spooky, not scary
Nine songs, about three quarters of an hour
The best-selling album ever made is here for one song. The title track's werewolf funk, creaking doors and Vincent Price's closing rap make it the most played Halloween record on earth, and the rest of the album keeps a party dancing long after the costumes come off.
Save the title track for when everyone has arrived. If anyone knows the choreography, that is your entertainment sorted.
Before you start: None for content. Thriller is a party staple, so it is the least surprising pick in this hub.
PLAN YOUR NIGHT
Five kinds of Halloween night
A quiet night in, a little nervous
Start with The Others, the lights low and a blanket over your knees. If you enjoyed being uneasy, read the first chapters of Mexican Gothic in bed; if you did not, Mob Psycho 100 will put you back together.
Friends round, nobody wants nightmares
Shaun of the Dead first, Thriller during the food, then two episodes of the Ghost Stories dub once everyone is loud enough to enjoy it. Keep What We Do in the Shadows ready for when the room goes quiet.
Children under ten
Over the Garden Wall in one sitting, before trick-or-treating. Afterwards, The Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack and a floor of Luigi's Mansion 3 together. Keep ParaNorman and Scary Stories for next year.
A horror fan who wants to be scared again
Hereditary, with the lights off and your phone in another room. Or make it a long weekend: the first season of The Terror, or Alien: Isolation with headphones on hard difficulty.
Online with friends far away
A few rounds of Phasmophobia on voice chat, then agree on one film to start at the same moment. Shaun of the Dead is easy to sync and easy to talk over.
Questions
What should I watch on Halloween if I don't like horror?
Start with The Others or The Haunting of Bly Manor. Both have ghosts and atmosphere but very little gore, and both rate two out of five on our fright scale. If you would rather laugh, What We Do in the Shadows and Shaun of the Dead are comedies first.
What are good scary games to play with friends?
Phasmophobia is the best-known co-op ghost hunting game, for up to four players. For a family with a younger player, Luigi's Mansion 3 has a two-player mode where the second player controls Gooigi.
Which Halloween picks are suitable for kids?
The Spooky, not scary shelf is chosen for children roughly seven and up. Over the Garden Wall, Natsume's Book of Friends, Luigi's Mansion 3 and The Nightmare Before Christmas are gentle; ParaNorman and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark are a step more frightening. Each pick's caveat says exactly what might be too much.
How does the fright scale work?
It runs from one, spooky but not scary, to five, where you may want the lights on afterwards. We set each level ourselves, judging how frightening the pick is for a typical adult, or on the family shelf for a typical child of seven or more. Official age ratings are separate and may disagree with us.
Where are the quieter, stranger October picks?
This month's Discover edition, Stay with the strange, collects unsettling stories with no jump scares, from A Ghost Story to The Haunting of Hill House. None of its picks are repeated here.
How we chose
Prepared by OmniTrackr and reviewed by the site owner before publishing. We started from the kinds of night people actually plan around Halloween, then chose one pick per format for each. We wanted a spread of tone, age range and length, so this is not a ranking of the scariest titles. Several famous picks are missing on purpose because they appear in our other October guides.
Fright levels and caveats are our own judgements, checked against the works themselves and public sources. They are not official ratings. Runtimes, editions and platforms vary by region. Every link goes to an OmniTrackr title page and none go to shops. Nothing here is sponsored.
First published October 19, 2026. Checked October 19, 2026. Suggest a pick or send a correction · Editorial standards