Happy Halloween month! It’s time to theme the horror watchlists accordingly. We’re jumping back to the ‘80s for some quintessential Halloween horror for the first week of October.
This week’s streaming picks are dedicated to 1980s horror movies set on or around Halloween, excluding the Halloween franchise.
Here’s where you can stream these five 1980s Halloween titles this week, from kitchen sink cult gems to made-for-TV chillers!
Cemetery of Terror – AMC+, Shudder, Tubi
Rubén Galindo Jr.’s most prominent horror feature is the American-influenced Don’t Panic (available on Shudder), but the Halloween-centric Cemetery of Terror offers the most fun. A trio of college kids decides to impress their ladies by stealing a body from a morgue for a Halloween prank and party in an abandoned house. It happens to be the body of a serial killer, and reading an incantation from a book revives it. This supernatural slasher brings bloody mayhem in the vein of Lucio Fulci and features legendary character actor Hugo Stiglitz as the occult expert.
The Changeling – AMC+, Arrow, Plex, Shudder, Tubi, Vudu
George C. Scott stars in this seminal haunted classic as a music professor attempting to start fresh after his wife and child’s death. He relocates to Seattle and moves into a historic Victorian mansion with plans to work on his music, but he experiences strange phenomena immediately. The more the paranormal activity increases, the more he’s drawn into a decades-long mystery involving a child. The Changeling is a quiet chiller grounded by a fantastic lead performance and an intriguing murder mystery. Mostly, though, it’s full of dread and creepy moments – no other horror movie will make you afraid of bouncing balls quite like this one.
Dark Night of the Scarecrow – Roku, Screambox, Tubi, Vudu
Don’t let the simplicity of this made-for-TV movie fool you; Dark Night of the Scarecrow is compelling storytelling. Set in a small Southern town over the Halloween season, a mentally challenged man is wrongfully murdered for a crime he didn’t commit. When his murderers evade justice, a mysterious scarecrow systematically takes them out. Halloween décor, scarecrows, farmland, and a fantastic performance by horror stalwart Larry Drake make for one perfect Halloween season movie. It’s streaming on Bloody Disgusting’s SCREAMBOX now!
Lady in White – AMC+, Shudder, Tubi
Based on the legend of “The Lady in White,” in which a ghost searches for her daughter in Rochester, New York, the film begins on Halloween in 1962, where 9-year-old Frankie (Lukas Haas) gets locked in the schoolroom closet by bullies and witnesses the ghost of a young girl getting murdered. This event sets off a murder mystery full of spirits that are spooky and entertaining enough for kids yet layered with complex social themes for grown-ups. Paralleling Frankie’s journey, it’s the type of film that will teach budding horror fans that perhaps ghosts aren’t so scary after all.
Night of the Demons – AMC+, Freevee, Pluto TV, Shudder
Angela Franklin (Amelia Kinkade) and her best bud Suzanne (Linnea Quigley) decide to throw their Halloween party at Hull House, an abandoned mortuary with a dark past. Sure enough, an evil presence awakens after a séance, and their group is trapped inside Hull House while demonic spirits prey on them one by one. Night of the Demons offers a spooky, fun title sequence, cool demon FX, a memorable villainess, and a wide embrace of horror iconography- right down to a bookended trick-or-treating tale. It’s a holiday cult classic.
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