Ah, Halloween! If you’re like us, then you look forward to this time of year all year long. In celebration of the best holiday of the year, The Comic Stop brings you The 13 Days of Halloween!
Day #7 sees us taking a look at Halloween family fare. Movies that are good for most of the family to watch but are still sufficiently scary enough so as not to be seen as “kids stuff” by your older goblins and ghouls.
Halloween can be an odd time for parents. Yeah, you still want to take part in the holiday and hold your annual scary movie party with back to back showings of Evil Dead, Nightmare on Elm Street and The Thing but you find yourself asking “how can I do Halloween MY way but still have my kids involved?”
Obviously, kids change a lot of things in life and movies you may have once found fine to watch at Halloween, like the Evil Dead movies, suddenly become big no-no’s. What’s a Halloween loving guy to do?
Thankfully, there are plenty of great scary movies that most everyone in the family can watch. And I do mean great. Each of the movies I’m picking could just as easily fit in with an all adult crowd as well as the under 12 set.
I’m foregoing the classic Universal Monster movies and the great B-movies of the 40’s and 50’s and trying to keep things a bit on the modern side, so no Bela Lugosi Dracula, Bride of Frankenstein or The Blob on this list. With that in mind, here is my list of the 10 best scary movies for the family to watch this Halloween.
#10. The Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
It’s got Steve Martin, Rick Moranis, James Belushi, Christopher Guest, John Candy AND Bill Murray in it! You know it’s gonna be funny. With catchy songs, great special effects and Yoda himself, Frank Oz, directing, Little Shop of Horrors is a fun movie that the whole family should be able to get into. Pop a bag of popcorn, sit back and have fun.
#9. Arachnophobia
What’s more scary than big spiders crawling around a small country town? Why, thousands of spider! Arachnophobia is a great little movie produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by his long time producing partner Frank Marshall. Plenty of creepy crawlies and some genuine scares without resorting to blood and guts makes this a good movie to watch with the kids. Just don’t be surprised to constantly feel as if something is crawling on the back of your neck throughout the viewing.
#8. The Monster Squad
The humor can be a little crude but this one features all the big name monsters: Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Wolf-man, Gill-man and the Mummy. It’s very reminiscent of The Goonies, but with a monster movie flair.
#7. Gremlins
This one is a lot more gruesome than I remember it being as a kid but having just recently rewatched it I think it’s safe to include on a family list. Gizmo the gremlin is still as cute as ever, Stripe the gremlin is still pretty scary and Gremlins the movie is still pretty awesome.
#6. Warm Bodies
A zombie romantic comedy. “R” is a zombie who wonder if there isn’t more to the undead life than shambling and eating brains. When he encounters Julie, he is instantly smitten and sets out to prove that zombies are people too. It’s a cute movie that plays around with the zombie genre. I will caution that the “skellies” in the film can be a little intense for the younger crowd and that this being a zombie movie, there are implied scenes of people being eaten alive. Still, it’s a rom-com at it’s heart and can be a lot of fun while providing some good scares.
#5. Hocus Pocus
I’m not going to lie. I hated this movie when it first came out but like any good monster, it kept coming back until it finally grabbed hold of my heart. Endless replays on cable wore me down until, rather recently, I found myself wondering why I didn’t own the movie on blu ray. Now it’s a particular favorite of my daughter and a family tradition to watch together during this time of the year.
#4. Edward Scissorhands
Tim Burton’s early movies are just amazing! This guy set the tone for the millennial Hot Topic crowd with this one. Edward is both a classic monster but also a loveable and misunderstood guy. This one is not just a Halloween favorite of mine but a favorite, period. A wonderful modern fairy tale with just enough creepy accents to make it a must watch at Halloween.
#3. Beetlejuice
Tim Burton cracks my top 3 with Beetlejuice. Much like Edward Scissorhands, Burton crafts a crazy, wonderful, creepy atmosphere and then populates that world with loveable oddballs. In this case it’s the Maitlands, a recently deceased husband and wife who are desperate to get the Deetz family out of their beloved home. Enter Beetlejuice, the ghost with the most! Hijinks ensue as Beetlejuice turns out to not be the most helpful poltergeist around but rest assured, everything works out in the end.
#2. The Addams Family
I loved the Addams family television show as a kid. As I grew older, I discovered the Charles Adams comics on which the show was based. As much as I loved the old show I always wished that the black humor of the original comics could somehow be translated to the screen. Enter Barry Sonnenfeld. His Addams Family movie is full of the wackiness of the television show but he is also able to bring that darker humor the comic was know for into the picture. It’s never so dark that kids shouldn’t watch but many of the jokes will go over young ones heads. No problem though as there is plenty of humor that kids will get. Inspired casting in Angelica Huston and Raul Julia as Morticia and Gomez as well as a brilliant turn from Christina Ricci as Wednesday Gomez. Almost my favorite movie to watch with the family at Halloween. Almost.
#1. Ghostbusters
Of course Ghostbusters is going to be the #1 movie to watch with the family at Halloween! Everything about this movie is fantastic. Is there anything not to like about this movie? I say NO! It’s laugh out loud funny, it has a fantastic main cast, a brilliant supporting cast and you can’t help but to sing along to Ray Parker Jr’s Ghostbusters. Pop this movie in, sit back with all the candy you’ve collected and have a blast this Halloween with the Ghostbusters!
Honorable Mentions
The Witches
The Watcher In The Woods
Something Wicked This Way Comes
What do you think? Did Michael get it right or are there movies you would add or subtract from the list? Let us know in the comments below.
