LexTalk

There is a certain kind of evening that only seems to exist in September.

The sun starts slipping away a little earlier. Here in California, the summer heat finally loosens its grip just enough that I can crack open a window at night. Cool air moves through the house, carrying that first tiny promise that fall is coming.

Someone in the neighborhood has probably already put a pumpkin on their porch.

I’ve started thinking about pumpkin coffee.

The Halloween decorations are slowly finding their way out of storage.

And then, almost without warning, I feel it.

The magic is waking up.

I’ve always loved this time of year. Halloween has never been just October 31st to me. It’s an entire season—a feeling that starts creeping in sometime during September and gets a little stronger as the days grow shorter.

The nights feel darker. The moon looks prettier. Ghost stories become a little more believable. Witches don’t seem quite so far-fetched.

Although, to be fair, I’ve never thought witches were very far-fetched.

I knew I was a witch when I was around 12 years old.

Looking back, it makes perfect sense that so many of the movies I loved involved witches, magic, ghosts, monsters and girls discovering that being different might actually be something beautiful.

Maybe I was looking for pieces of myself in those movies before I completely understood what I was looking for.

But when I started making this list, I realized something else.

I wasn’t really ranking movies.

I was ranking memories.

Friday nights at home. Disney Channel movies I waited all week to watch. Mary-Kate and Ashley. Sandra Bullock. Neve Campbell. Movies that made me laugh until my stomach hurt and movies that made me afraid of my own bedroom.

There were childhood crushes.

A LOT of childhood crushes, apparently.

There were also places I could only visit through a television screen.

My family grew up poor. Disney vacations weren’t something we could afford, and I didn’t get to experience Disney for myself until I was in my twenties. But I could watch The Haunted Mansion. I could watch Tower of Terror.

For a couple of hours, I could peek through the gates at a world I couldn’t visit yet.

Eventually, I grew up.

I walked through those gates myself.

And now I’m a stepmom, and Halloween movies have changed for me all over again.

I still love Michael Myers. Ghostface will forever have a place in my spooky little heart. And Paranormal Activity has ensured that there will NEVER be a security camera watching me sleep.

But now I also love putting on something we can watch with the kids.

I love hearing everyone laugh. I love making an ordinary night at home feel a little more special just because it’s spooky season.

And sometimes I wonder whether one of these movies will attach itself to their childhood the way certain movies attached themselves to mine.

Maybe twenty years from now they’ll hear a song or see an old movie title and suddenly remember all of us piled together watching Halloween movies.

Maybe they’ll remember home.

That’s the funny thing about nostalgia.

Sometimes we’re not watching an old movie because we need to know what happens next.

We already know.

Sometimes we’re just looking for the doorway back.

So come on in.

The window is cracked open. The pumpkins are out. There’s probably a candle burning somewhere.

And if you hear something underneath the bed…

No, you didn’t.

Let’s start with the cozy stuff.

15 Movies That Wake Up My Halloween Spirit

We’ll start where spooky season feels the softest- with pumpkins, childhood memories, a little magic, and the movies that make me want to crack open the windows and welcome fall back home.

15. It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Every good ritual needs a beginning.

For me, Charlie Brown is the gentle little nudge that wakes Halloween from its summer slumber.

It’s nostalgic, family-friendly and a quick watch. You don’t have to plan an entire movie night around it. Put it on while decorating. Watch it after dinner. Curl up under a blanket on one of those first cooler September evenings.

It’s less about the movie itself and more like making an announcement to the universe:

Okay. Spooky season has officially begun.

14. Hubie Halloween

Most of the movies on this side of my list come wrapped in childhood nostalgia.

Hubie Halloween doesn’t.

Instead, it’s starting to become part of our family’s nostalgia.

I’m a sucker for Adam Sandler, so I was already an easy sell. We watched this together and ended up cracking up.

There was actually some adult humor that caught me completely off guard while sitting there watching it with the kids. You know those moments when the adults look at each other because surely they didn’t just say that?

Yep.

Somehow it made us laugh even harder.

It’s goofy and ridiculous and doesn’t take itself seriously.

Maybe twenty years from now, one of the kids will see Hubie Halloween somewhere and remember watching it with us.

That’s kind of how traditions start, isn’t it?

13. The Haunted Mansion

This one holds a different kind of nostalgia for me.

Growing up, Disney felt like another world.

My family didn’t have the money for vacations like that. I didn’t actually experience Disney until I was in my twenties.

But I could watch The Haunted Mansion.

And somehow that gave little me a tiny peek into this magical place I couldn’t visit yet.

I also grew up watching a lot of Eddie Murphy movies, so combining Eddie Murphy, ghosts, Disney and a creepy mansion made this an obvious choice.

Then years passed.

I finally went to Disney World.

And I finally rode the Haunted Mansion.

Sold.

It became my favorite ride.

Now when I watch the movie, those two versions of my life overlap.

There’s the little girl watching a movie and wondering what that ride must be like.

And there’s adult me who eventually got there.

I think little me would be pretty excited to know we made it.

12. Tower of Terror

Tower of Terror holds a similar little piece of my childhood.

Again, I couldn’t go to the theme park and experience the attraction myself.

But I could watch the movie and imagine.

Kirsten Dunst was hugely popular at the time, so of course I wanted to see it. Add an eerie old hotel, ghosts, mystery and just enough spookiness without making it too much for a family movie?

Perfect.

There’s just something wonderfully Halloween-ish about an old hotel with secrets.

Maybe the elevator is haunted.

Maybe the guests never really checked out.

Maybe…

we should just take the stairs.

11. Practical Magic

And now we’re entering the witchy portion of our evening.

Sandra Bullock was basically royalty in my childhood household.

I watched EVERYTHING Sandra Bullock.

But Practical Magic reached me somewhere different.

I knew I was a witch around the age of 12. I didn’t necessarily have all the language for what I believed yet, or understand what spirituality and magic would eventually mean in my life.

I just knew I felt connected to it.

So watching women embrace witchcraft and magic gave me this strange sense of familiarity.

It felt a little like home.

It made me curious about my own magic. It made me want to connect with that side of myself instead of wondering whether I should hide it.

Even now, Practical Magic feels like a movie that should be watched with a window cracked open, a candle flickering nearby and the faint suspicion that the moon is paying attention.

10. The Craft

If Practical Magic spoke to one side of my little witchy heart, The Craft grabbed the other side and said:

Let’s get weird.

I loved this movie as a young girl.

I believed in magic. I believed I was a witch.

Obviously I was obsessed.

And then there was Neve Campbell.

I idolized her.

There was a period of my life when I basically wanted to be Neve Campbell. I loved that dark, mysterious energy and wanted to somehow absorb it through the television.

So give young me witches, magic, darkness AND Neve Campbell?

Game over.

Unlike some of the magical movies I had grown up with, the magic in The Craft didn’t feel sparkly.

It had teeth.

And I loved it.

9. Beetlejuice

Some movies don’t need Halloween.

Beetlejuice is weird enough all year.

But once September rolls around, suddenly all the death, bizarre humor, strange characters and Winona Ryder energy feel exactly right.

It’s spooky without requiring me to sleep with the lights on.

It’s funny without losing its darkness.

It’s wonderfully and unapologetically strange.

And I think Halloween should always leave a little room for strange.

8. The Nightmare Before Christmas

Okay.

We need to settle something.

Is The Nightmare Before Christmas a Halloween movie or a Christmas movie?

Yes.

There.

Debate over.

I watch it for both.

Not watching The Nightmare Before Christmas around Halloween feels as wrong as skipping Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer at Christmas.

Nonsense.

The funny thing is that I didn’t always love this movie.

For the longest time, I was actually afraid of it.

Those creepy smiling faces freaked me out!

It wasn’t until I got older that the movie transformed from something unsettling into something I genuinely appreciated.

Now I love the darkness, the animation, the history and all the nostalgia that has grown around it.

Maybe Jack Skellington just had to wait for me to catch up.

7. Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

Before there was Neve Campbell, there were Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.

And I wasn’t casually interested in Mary-Kate and Ashley.

I was OBSESSED.

I watched the movies.

I wanted to look like them.

I drank every drop of the Mary-Kate-and-Ashley Kool-Aid and probably asked for seconds.

So naturally, give me Mary-Kate and Ashley plus witches and Halloween, and you have created a movie specifically for little me.

Watching Double, Double, Toil and Trouble now isn’t really about whether it holds up as some cinematic masterpiece.

It’s about what it unlocks.

It takes me back to happier, simpler times.

For a little while, I’m just a kid again whose biggest concern might have been deciding which Olsen twin I wanted to be.

6. Don’t Look Under the Bed

Okay.

Be honest.

Who watched this movie and then became afraid to look underneath their bed?

Because I sure did.

Disney Channel had absolutely no business making this movie feel as scary as it did when I was little.

There was no casually dangling an ankle off the side of the mattress after this one.

Absolutely not.

Whatever was underneath there could stay underneath there.

As I got older, of course, it became less and less frightening. Eventually the fear disappeared and what remained was nostalgia.

But somewhere deep inside my adult brain lives a little girl who would still prefer that we don’t check underneath the bed tonight.

You know.

Just in case.

5. Little Monsters

Another childhood classic.

Monsters. Childhood imagination. That unmistakable late-’80s movie feeling that is almost impossible to recreate now.

And apparently…

another childhood crush.

On the boy.

Not the monster.

I would like the official record to reflect that.

4. Casper

Oh, Casper.

This was one of those movies I watched on repeat.

I loved the ghosts. I loved the huge creepy house. I loved the friendship and sweetness underneath all the spooky stuff.

And then Casper became human.

Hello, Devon Sawa.

I think an entire generation of girls collectively went:

…oh.

Suddenly the friendly ghost was very friendly.

But childhood crush aside, Casper has almost everything I want from a cozy Halloween movie.

Ghosts. Magic. Friendship. Sadness. A beautiful old mansion. Just enough darkness to make it spooky without making you regret watching it before bed.

It’s basically Halloween comfort food.

3. Under Wraps

This movie comes back to me differently.

I don’t remember every scene.

I don’t remember every line.

What I remember is a feeling.

A Friday night.

Being home.

Waiting for the movie to come on.

Laughing my little butt off.

I loved the friendship the kids had with the mummy. I remember thinking the movie was absolutely hilarious.

And apparently—because consistency is important—I think I had a crush on one of the boys.

I clearly had priorities.

But this is what I mean when I talk about nostalgia.

I haven’t watched Under Wraps in years.

I don’t need to remember every detail.

I remember being happy.

Sometimes that’s enough.

2. Halloweentown

If someone had told young me there was an actual town where witches, ghosts, monsters and magical creatures could simply exist as themselves, I probably would have started packing immediately.

I loved Halloweentown.

There have been more movies in the series, and I enjoy them, but nothing will ever replace the original for me.

Maybe part of that is because I was also a young girl beginning to understand that I felt like a witch.

Here was a girl discovering something magical about herself.

And instead of learning that being different was something she needed to erase, she discovered an entire world where different belonged.

That mattered to me.

Halloweentown helped inspire that witchy part of me. It made me feel a little more comfortable with being different.

And it showed me something I’ve carried into adulthood:

There can be beauty in the things that make us different from one another.

Plus…

Have you SEEN Halloweentown?

The pumpkins. The creatures. The magic. The town.

I still want to go.

1. Hocus Pocus

There was never really another choice.

When September arrives, this is the movie I think about.

I watched Hocus Pocus on repeat as a kid.

I chanted along.

I sang along.

I twirled around the room imagining myself wearing some elaborate witchy dress that absolutely existed in my mind, even if nobody else could see it.

And Binx?

I already loved cats.

Obviously I was obsessed with Binx.

But there’s something about Hocus Pocus that goes beyond childhood nostalgia for me.

It captures the version of Halloween I’ve always loved most.

Witches.

Cats.

Old houses.

Dark skies.

Mystery.

Magic.

That delicious little possibility that maybe the world gets stranger when the sun goes down.

When September arrives and I feel that first cool evening breeze coming through an open window, this is where my mind goes.

Maybe Halloween isn’t here yet.

But the veil is starting to flutter.

And somewhere inside me, that little witch in her imaginary dress is waking up again.

But September Eventually Becomes October…

The pumpkins have faces now.

The nights are longer.

That candle flickering in the corner doesn’t seem quite as cozy as it did a few weeks ago.

And I’m pretty sure that pile of leaves outside the window just moved.

Eventually, the little witch who spent September watching Disney Channel wants something scarier.

So we turn down the lights.

We lock the doors.

We check underneath the bed—

Actually, don’t do that.

And if you find yourself driving behind a logging truck on the highway?

Change lanes.

Immediately.

We’re entering the horror half of my Halloween.

14 Horror Movies & Franchises for the Darker Side of Spooky Season

We’ll ease into the darkness before things get truly creepy. Starting with zombies, a little chaos, and a movie I almost skipped entirely…

14. Zombieland

I didn’t watch Zombieland when it first came out.

Honestly?

It looked cheesy.

I wasn’t interested.

Eventually I gave in, mostly because Woody Harrelson and Emma Stone convinced me to give it a chance.

And I ended up really liking it.

It’s funny. There’s action. There are zombies. It doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Sometimes spooky season doesn’t need to be dark and terrifying.

Sometimes you just need to laugh while the world ends.

13. The Sixth Sense

Bruce Willis was one of those actors who was simply part of my childhood.

I grew up watching him in all kinds of movies.

But The Sixth Sense felt different.

It gave me goosebumps.

Obviously, I was slightly concerned that after watching it I might suddenly start seeing dead people myself.

Because apparently childhood me believed movies could unlock new abilities.

But beneath the fear was something surprisingly sad.

The story had complexity. It had emotion. It was enthralling in a way I hadn’t expected from a scary movie.

It also helped turn me into a huge M. Night Shyamalan fan.

And thankfully…

I did not start seeing dead people.

At least not yet.

12. Sleepy Hollow

Two words.

Johnny Depp.

Do I need to continue?

Probably.

Because unfortunately Johnny Depp was accompanied by a HEADLESS HORSEMAN.

I was terrified of him.

For a while, Sleepy Hollow made walking alone outside at night considerably less appealing.

Dark road?

Trees?

Strange noise somewhere behind me?

Nope.

Whatever business I have outside can wait until morning.

11. The Lost Boys

Talk about crushes.

This movie is a classic.

I’ve stuck with the original, and there’s just something about it that works—the vampires, the style, the darkness, that unmistakable ’80s atmosphere.

Some movies age out of their era.

Others become more fun because they belong so completely to it.

The Lost Boys is one of those movies for me.

10. The Blair Witch Project

Okay.

I’m embarrassed to admit this.

I watched The Blair Witch Project so many times…

and it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that IT WASN’T REAL.

Which, as you can imagine, made the viewing experience approximately 10,000 times worse.

There were woods near my house.

Suddenly?

No.

Camping?

Also no.

You guys have fun. I’ll be at home where walls exist.

But underneath all that fear, something else happened.

I became curious about the witch.

The mythology fascinated me.

This was shortly before I started understanding my own connection with witchcraft a few years later, and there was something about the mystery that pulled me in even while the movie was convincing me never to enter the woods again.

Fear and fascination.

Maybe that’s where some of the best spooky stories live.

9. A Nightmare on Elm Street

Most horror villains have the decency to stay inside their movies.

Freddy Krueger apparently decided to move into my subconscious and sign a long-term lease.

To this day, I have a recurring nightmare about him.

I’m running through a basement.

There are furnaces everywhere.

It’s hot.

Steam hangs in the air.

And somewhere nearby I can hear metal scraping against metal.

Even writing that makes me uncomfortable.

As a kid, A Nightmare on Elm Street presented a particularly unfair problem.

Usually, if a movie scares you, you turn it off and go to sleep.

Freddy?

That’s where he’s waiting for you.

Rude.

8. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

I always thought road-tripping with friends sounded amazing.

Then I watched The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Suddenly stopping at some random place in the middle of nowhere didn’t feel adventurous anymore.

Even now, chainsaws bother me.

Haunted houses, amusement parks and fright-night attractions LOVE using them, and the second I hear that engine revving somewhere nearby, something in my nervous system immediately says:

NOPE. NOPE. NOPE.

I’ve enjoyed the different versions and remakes over the years.

My brain, however, has apparently decided Leatherface is real enough.

7. Friday the 13th

You’re walking alone at night.

There’s a lake nearby.

Trees surround you.

And then…

Ch-ch-ch… ah-ah-ah…

RUN.

I grew up poor and always thought summer camp sounded like one of those amazing childhood experiences I was missing.

Then I met Jason Voorhees.

Suddenly summer camp had some drawbacks I hadn’t previously considered.

I’m a fan of the franchise and its different versions, but I promise you this:

If I am ever walking alone near a lake at night, Jason is crossing my mind.

Immediately.

6. Final Destination

Final Destination created fears I didn’t even know I needed.

I loved these movies when I was younger.

Now that I’m older, some of the gore makes me cringe considerably more than it used to, but the scenarios have never left my brain.

And if you’ve watched these movies, you already know exactly where I’m going with this.

You’re driving down the highway.

You look ahead.

There’s a truck.

And it’s carrying logs.

There are two types of people in this world:

People who haven’t seen Final Destination 2…

and people who are already changing lanes.

I’m changing lanes.

Immediately.

5. Paranormal Activity

I believe in the paranormal.

Which means watching Paranormal Activity was probably not one of my better self-care decisions.

I love the franchise.

For me, though, the first movie is still the most unsettling because it felt the most believable.

The more movies they made, the cheesier things became.

But that first one was so simple.

A house.

A bedroom.

A camera.

Two people sleeping.

Something happening in the darkness.

No thank you.

I have security cameras at home.

I will not put one in my bedroom.

I don’t need to know.

If something paranormal happens beside my bed at 3:17 in the morning, that can remain between the ghost and God.

4. I Know What You Did Last Summer

This movie was such a classic of its time.

And let’s just acknowledge the obvious.

That cast.

Everyone was hot.

There. I said it.

But beyond the extremely attractive people running around being terrorized, I genuinely loved the movie and enjoyed the franchise.

It has that unmistakable late-’90s horror feeling—the actors, the style, the suspense.

Watching it now doesn’t just feel like watching a scary movie.

It feels like opening a little time capsule.

3. The Strangers

This one got me.

I remember walking out of the movie theater shaking.

I’d seen plenty of horror movies by then.

Ghosts.

Monsters.

Slashers.

Supernatural killers.

But The Strangers frightened me differently.

For the first time, I walked out of a horror movie thinking:

That seems like something that could actually happen.

There was something about the randomness of it.

The isolation.

Those masks.

Especially those masks.

They still freak me out.

There are horror movies that scare you while you’re watching them.

Then there are horror movies that follow you into the parking lot.

The Strangers followed me home.

2. Scream

Oh, Scream.

I am obsessed with this franchise.

And we’re back to Neve Campbell.

As a woman, I loved Sidney Prescott.

She wasn’t just someone waiting around to be rescued.

She fought.

She survived.

She was tough and complicated and carried this darkness and depth that I absolutely idolized.

I wanted that energy.

I wanted to be mysterious.

I wanted to be a badass.

Basically, I wanted to be Neve Campbell.

The franchise has gotten absolutely crazy over the years, and I love it.

There are so many movies now, but I love how they’re connected. Characters return. History matters. Old stories creep into new ones.

And somehow, underneath all the craziness, they’ve kept enough of the original formula alive that it still feels like Scream.

Ghostface isn’t just scary to me anymore.

Ghostface is nostalgic.

Which is probably a strange sentence.

But if you’re a horror fan, you get it.

1. Halloween

Come on.

What else could possibly be number one?

There is no movie that screams Halloween quite like Halloween.

It’s literally right there in the name.

Halloween night.

Dark streets.

Michael Myers.

That music.

You could play those first few notes in another room and instantly change the entire energy of the house.

And then there’s Jamie Lee Curtis.

The scream queen.

The goddess.

The ultimate badass.

I’ve loved seeing the different ways the movies have progressed over the years. I’ve followed the different stories, sequels and versions because this is one of those franchises that has simply become part of Halloween for me.

It gives me both things I want from October.

It actually feels like Halloween.

And it’s scary.

That’s it.

That’s the spell.

Maybe We’re Not Really Rewatching the Movies

When I finished putting this list together, I noticed something.

These aren’t really 29 movies I think everyone else needs to agree are the greatest Halloween movies ever made.

Honestly, I don’t care if they are.

They’re mine.

They’re pieces of different versions of me.

There’s the little girl who wanted to be a witch.

The girl who idolized Mary-Kate and Ashley.

The girl who watched everything Sandra Bullock did and eventually decided Neve Campbell was the coolest woman alive.

The kid who couldn’t afford to visit Disney but could sit in front of a television and imagine what The Haunted Mansion or Tower of Terror might feel like.

The girl who was afraid to look underneath her bed.

Who thought The Blair Witch Project was real for far too long.

Who wanted to go to summer camp until Jason Voorhees made the whole concept seem questionable.

Who became suspicious of logging trucks.

Who apparently developed a crush on half the people appearing in movies between 1989 and 2000.

And somewhere inside me, all those versions still exist.

But now there’s another one.

The stepmom.

Now I’m one of the adults creating the memory.

I’m the one putting on the movie.

I’m watching the kids laugh at jokes. I’m noticing which scenes get their attention. I’m finding the movies we all enjoy together and wondering which ones they’ll someday call classics.

Maybe Hubie Halloween will be ancient to them one day.

That’s horrifying in an entirely different way.

But maybe they’ll see it somewhere when they’re grown and remember sitting together as a family.

Maybe they’ll remember a Halloween decoration we put out every year.

Maybe they’ll remember the snacks.

Maybe they’ll remember laughing.

Maybe they won’t remember any of those little details at all.

Maybe they’ll just remember that it felt good to be home.

And perhaps that’s what I’m doing every September, too.

I can’t go back to those Friday nights when Under Wraps was coming on TV.

I can’t become the little girl twirling around the room pretending she was one of the Sanderson sisters again.

I can’t experience Casper for the first time or genuinely believe those people disappeared into the woods looking for the Blair Witch.

Time doesn’t work that way.

But memory is strange.

Sometimes all it takes is a few notes of a familiar song.

A movie poster.

A line you’ve heard a hundred times.

Cool air coming through an open window.

And suddenly the door cracks open.

For two hours, the distance between then and now doesn’t feel quite so big.

Maybe that’s the real magic of Halloween.

Not the costumes.

Not the candy.

Not even the witches.

It’s the way this season invites us to believe that the things we thought were gone might still be lingering nearby.

Old traditions.

Old memories.

Old versions of ourselves.

Not gone.

Just waiting for the right night to visit.

So crack open the window.

Light the candle.

Grab the blanket.

Call the kids into the room.

Put on the movie you’ve already seen a hundred times.

And when that familiar opening music starts, pay attention.

You might find a little piece of yourself waiting there.

Happy spooky season, friends.

The magic is waking up.