Top 10 Halloween movies the whole family can watch
Halloween is the holiday for laughter, lollies — and brutal, blood-soaked slaughter. But if you don’t like murder, try our list of family-friendly movies with a Halloween theme.
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Halloween is the holiday for laughter, lollies — and brutal, blood-soaked slaughter.
It’s a strange contradiction. On the one hand, shops try to encourage children to dress up and enjoy a sugar-fuelled trip around their neighbours. On the other hand, popular culture associates it with an assortment of serial killers and monsters.
Much of the blame can go on the 1978 movie Halloween, introduced us to the idea of slaughtering teenagers in between trick or treating.
Of course, if you are looking for scares then Foxtel has scary movies for children on Family Movies running now, 12 Days Of Screams on Thriller Movies, Ghostober on Channel TLC and a BoxSets Fright-Fest, plus a selection of other scary shows on the Trick Or Treat playlist on FoxFlicks.
But if you want to get into the Halloween mood, how do you do so without giving your children nightmares? Well, if bloodshed isn’t your thing then The Sunday Telegraph’s Insider is here to help, with our list of family-friendly movies with a Halloween theme.
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Some of these are good for younger children, some are for older children — and some have adult themes. But you can be sure there are no screaming teenagers being disembowelled.
So sit back and relax with the family with one of these for Halloween. Assuming, that is, you can get them to sit down after they have devoured bags of lollies and chocolates …
10. BATMAN FOREVER (1995)
The Caped Crusader was taking on both The Riddler (Jim Carrey) and Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones) in this outing but, somewhat lost amid the lashings of hamminess, was how the pair of villains broke into Wayne Manor to destroy the Bat Cave.
It was on Halloween and they were pretending to be trick-or-treaters, of course. This is not the best Batman movie but it’s lighter than the first two Tim Burton ones with Val Kilmer as a strong hero and Nicole Kidman as his love interest.
Aimed at: Over 10s
Watch it on: Netflix
9. BIG DADDY (1999)
Not Adam Sandler’s best effort but he’s done plenty of movies that are far worse. In this one he’s a slacker (no, really!) who gets dumped by his girlfriend because he won’t take on any responsibility. So naturally he adopts a young boy to prove her wrong.
There won’t be any parenting lessons to take from this but it does see him take the kid trick-or-treating, which is actually one of the better jokes in the movie.
Aimed at: High school and up
Watch it on: Stan
8. AMERICAN SPLENDOR (2003)
This is a really underrated film with an impressive 94 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It is a biographical comedy-drama about Harvey Pekar (Paul Giamatti), the eccentric mind behind the comic book of the same name and how creating it turned him from a working class guy into a cult figure.
One of the best scenes to illustrate his unusual mind is one of the first, when a young Harvey goes trick-or-treating dressed as … himself.
Aimed at: High school and up
Watch it on: Hulu
7. GOOSEBUMPS 2: HAUNTED HALLOWEEN (2018)
This one is a bit more obvious. The nasty ventriloquist’s dummy from the first movie, Slappy, is back and wants to ruin Halloween.
There’s less Jack Black, less laughs and less everything than the first movie but it’s still got plenty of jokes and a few mild scares for younger viewers with its PG rating.
Aimed at: Primary school and up
Watch it on: YouTube, Google Play
6. IN AMERICA (2003)
Another somewhat underrated film with a 90 per cent approval rating. An Irish family move to New York and find the American dream isn’t quite what was promised.
But then their cheeky daughters play “trick or treat” on the weird neighbour they know as “the screaming man” — and discover he could be the key to solving their problems.
Aimed at: High school and up
Watch it on: YouTube, Google Play
5. A PERFECT WORLD (1993)
This looked like an obvious hit when released, with Kevin Costner as a criminal on the run and Clint Eastwood the lawman chasing after him. But it didn’t do well at the box office, despite the critics enjoying it.
The Halloween link? Well, Costner kidnaps a kid in a Casper the Ghost suit on Halloween and then the two form a bond while on the run.
Aimed at: High school and up
Watch it on: YouTube, Google Play
4. THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS (1993)
Wait a minute … isn’t this supposed to be a Halloween list? But don’t let the movie title fool you. Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King, is bored with running Halloween, so decides to kidnap Santa and take over Christmas.
So is it a Christmas movie or a Halloween movie? Who cares! This slightly scary but still only PG-rated stop-motion animation from Tim Burton is loads of fun.
Aimed at: Primary school and up
Watch it on: YouTube, Google Play
3. HOCUS POCUS (1993)
The critics hated it but it’s still seen as a Halloween classic. Young Max has moved from California to Salem and is naturally regretting the move when he conjures up the spirits of three dead witches on Halloween night in the form of Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy and Sarah Jessica Parker.
Naturally he has to save the town and get the girl. Predictable, yes but also plenty of fun.
Aimed at: Tweens
Watch it on: Foxtel
2. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962)
This is a classic story and one of the great movies but doesn’t usually make its way onto a list of Halloween pictures. But Halloween provides the setting for a key central scene.
Scout, dressed as a ham, is heading home after a Halloween pageant when she and brother Jem are attacked by the villainous Bob Ewell, only to be saved by Boo Radley, the reclusive neighbour the kids once feared and hated.
Aimed at: High school age
Watch it on: YouTube, Google Play
1. E.T. (1982)
This beloved movie has so many wonderful things about it that sometimes the charming Halloween scene is forgotten, where they sneak the alien out of the house so he can send a message home.
From E.T. trying to “heal” the plastic knife in Michael’s (Robert MacNaughton’s) head to greeting another reveller dressed as Yoda from Star Wars (Steven Spielberg was a close friend of George Lucas), it’s a lovely part of the film.
Aimed at: Primary school and up
Watch it on: YouTube, Google Play
Originally published as Top 10 Halloween movies the whole family can watch