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Forget the usual Halloween classics — our staff is here to shine a light on the hidden gems you should be watching this spooky season! Join the WatchMojo team as they share their personal picks for underrated and overlooked Halloween movies that deserve way more attention. Which of these spooky sleepers will make it onto your watchlist this October? Let us know in the comments below!
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00:00Welcome to WatchMojo, and to the first episode of Staff Picks,
00:03the show where your friendly neighborhood list rankers tell you about all the things we couldn't fit onto our lists.
00:08In a few precious hours, it'll all be mine.
00:11Mine, the entire school, and everyone else will be under my spell.
00:17Today, we're diving into all things All Hallows' Eve,
00:20and telling you our picks for Halloween movies we love to watch every year,
00:24but we rarely hear anybody else talking about.
00:27I'll go first.
00:29First, Totally Killer.
00:40The pitch for this movie was probably Back to the Future meets Scream.
00:44And you know what?
00:45I would have been all over that, because if you know anything about me,
00:48you know that I love a good time travel movie, and I love a good meta movie.
00:51And Totally Killer is both.
00:53It follows Jamie, who lives in a small town where three girls were murdered on their 16th birthdays in 1987.
01:00Jamie takes it upon herself to travel back in time to solve the crimes and fix the future,
01:05so, you know, pretty high stakes.
01:13It's also full of fun tropes, like awkward parent encounters,
01:17time travel culture shock,
01:19obligatory scenes at a spooky carnival,
01:21just with some serial murder and a masked killer thrown in for good measure.
01:24Oh, and the time machine?
01:26It's a photo booth.
01:28So retro.
01:38Assassination Nation.
01:39Where are you?
01:43Life for a movie, this would be the obligatory girl shaves her head scene.
01:49Actually, no, that would have happened, like, last week.
01:52Assassination Nation is a lot of fun.
01:55It's a black comedy action thriller made by the creator of Euphoria,
01:59and came out one year before the show's first season.
02:01So it feels like the blueprint in a lot of ways.
02:03It follows a group of badass girls who are being hunted by their entire town
02:07for a number of data leaks that created total anarchy.
02:10Are you sorry?
02:11Are you sorry for what you did to this town?
02:15You hear me?
02:17You hear me?
02:18It has synchronized slow motion walks to iconic face-thumping music.
02:22It has vigilante justice, and it has an incredible tracking shot sequence
02:27that follows a home invasion from window to window outside of a mansion.
02:30So well shot.
02:31So well done.
02:32This movie lost a ton of money in the box office because of marketing censorship,
02:36so most people haven't even heard of it.
02:37But it is a wild ride with a lot of insightful things to say
02:41about the nature of mob mentality on the internet.
03:03I think that one of the many beauties of horror lies in how simple and straightforward it can be.
03:09And hey, it doesn't get more simple than 30 days of night.
03:13The remote Alaskan town of Barrow, all means of communication and escape, sabotaged.
03:18And as the final rays of sunshine creep away,
03:21they mark the beginning of a 30-night vampire feast.
03:26Stop! Stop!
03:29Who are you people?
03:32Josh Hartnett's Sheriff Olsen faces off against one of the best vampire ensemble casts, period, ever, period,
03:40led by Danny Houston's Marlowe.
03:46No, God.
03:47It's bloody, it's savage, even emotional,
03:49and it does a damn good job living up to its comic book origin,
03:53proving that vampires don't need to be complicated, romantic, or ethereal.
03:57They just need fangs and a thirst for human blood.
04:00You know, keep it simple.
04:08Color Out of Space
04:09Color Out of Space is a surreal sci-fi horror film starring Nick Cage
04:27based on an H.P. Lovecraft story.
04:28And it follows a family on a farm when a glowing meteor crashes nearby,
04:32covering everything in this weird otherworldly color.
04:35And over the course of a night, reality just begins to unravel.
04:38So the land warps, the animals start behaving strangely,
04:41and the family succumbs to disturbing effects.
04:45Mommy!
04:51Mommy!
04:52Mommy!
04:54Mommy!
04:54Mommy!
04:54Mommy!
04:54Mommy!
04:55I've been drawn to Lovecraft and cosmic horror
04:57because encountering phenomena beyond human comprehension
05:00that you're powerless against is just terrifying to me.
05:02And I love how the movie uses color,
05:05surreal imagery,
05:06and Colin Stenson's hypnotic, panic-inducing score
05:09to make the familiar feel increasingly strange and threatening.
05:12And Nicolas Cage's unhinged performance
05:14complements the movie's descent into madness perfectly.
05:17Watching it feels like slowly losing your grip on reality
05:20alongside this poor family.
05:23You're dead, Nathan!
05:25It's no idea.
05:26You're dead, you're dead, you're dead.
05:31The worst witch.
05:35That is a remarkable spell.
05:37If only we knew how we did it.
05:39It would be one of those stories.
05:41You know, the ones we tell our grandchildren.
05:44Spooky season is the season of the witch,
05:46as far as I'm concerned.
05:48And I think that devotion,
05:49as well as a romantic attachment to the idea of boarding school,
05:53starts right here with the worst witch.
05:55In fact, with its magical misadventure,
05:57fantastical feast,
05:59bewitching broom display,
06:00and peppery potions teacher predisposed against the protagonist,
06:04it may have primed me to appreciate certain other properties later on.
06:09You'll be inspired for this, Mildred Hubble!
06:11My father's on the board of wizards.
06:13Remember the scarlet skeletons, Ed?
06:15I'm gonna tell him what you did!
06:17If nothing else,
06:17it introduced me to the likes of Feruza Bach,
06:20my imperious queen, Dame Diana Rigg,
06:22and the bizarrely sensual,
06:24but always committed to the hilt,
06:26Tim Curry,
06:27giving the most delightfully unhinged musical performance of his career.
06:31But on Halloween,
06:33your blood begins to run.
06:37Add in those bargain special effects,
06:39and you've got a surrealist masterpiece
06:40that's disorienting and cozy all at once,
06:44in a way that feels perfectly suited for Halloween.
06:47Snakeweed and Ivy,
06:49puppy dog tails,
06:51turn these witches into snails!
06:58The Company of Wolves
07:04Your kind can't stomach hair, can you?
07:07Even if the worst wolves are hairy on the inside.
07:09What do you know about my kind?
07:11My granny told me plenty!
07:13The Company of Wolves not only deserves a spot on the list of the most underrated fantasy films,
07:18but horror movies as well.
07:20I'd say this is the most hardcore 80s PG movie ever made,
07:24but it's actually a hard R,
07:25and rightfully so.
07:27Still,
07:27I can imagine an oblivious parent putting this on,
07:30thinking to themselves,
07:31Oh, it's Red Riding Hood!
07:33Oh, it's Angela Lansbury!
07:35This'll be fun for the kiddos!
07:37Then they get to the second most emotionally scarring wolf transformation in cinema.
07:50It's pure nightmare fuel,
07:52right down to the fact that the whole movie has a dreamlike ambience to it.
07:56The kind you'd have after eating too much Halloween candy,
07:59and then somebody tells you a very messed up bedtime story.
08:02Only my companions, darling.
08:05I love the Company of Wolves.
08:07Look out of the window and you'll see them more.
08:10The Exorcist III
08:15Sworn enemy of all the human race.
08:21Taking the mantle,
08:22as the director and writer,
08:23William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist III
08:25is a big departure from what made The Exorcist
08:28one of the scariest movies of all time.
08:30And it's less about traditional possession,
08:32horror,
08:33and more of a creepy murder mystery,
08:35based on Blatty's 83 novel Legion.
08:37He is inside with us!
08:40He will never get away!
08:43The film stars George C. Scott
08:45investigating a series of brutal killings in Georgetown
08:47by the Gemini Killer,
08:49set 15 years after Reagan's possession.
08:52It echoes the airiness of the original movie,
08:54with unsettling and genuine creepiness
08:56made possible by Freakkin's effective,
08:58but quiet screenplay,
09:00and lingering camera shots
09:01that bring out the psychological dread,
09:03and what we don't see in the movie.
09:05And who can forget that one jump-scare scene
09:07at the hospital,
09:08where we're waiting for something to happen?
09:10I got caught off guard right at the last minute.
09:19The Exorcist III is the true sequel to the original.
09:22We can totally forget about The Exorcist II,
09:24The Heretic,
09:24and all the other Exorcist movies that follow.
09:27Especially you, the Exorcist believer.
09:29The Exorcist III is the true sequel to the original.
09:32Oh, Bill.
09:38My God!
09:39God!
09:41Muppet's Haunted Mansion.
09:46I shall be your host this evening.
09:48Your ghost host.
09:52You're very scary.
09:55For me, when it comes to Halloween movies,
09:57you can keep the blood and guts to yourself.
09:59I want nostalgia.
10:01I want equal parts silly and spooky,
10:03not scary,
10:04and something that I can re-watch a thousand times
10:07while giving myself a candy-induced cavity.
10:09Muppet's Haunted Mansion is that movie.
10:12The Muppets have a storied holiday filmography,
10:15yet Muppet Haunted Mansion stays underrated
10:18or forgotten about altogether.
10:20It's a more recent Muppet special, sure,
10:22but it's a gonzo-centric story
10:24and, finally,
10:26a Haunted Mansion adaptation
10:27that doesn't desecrate the spirit of the ride.
10:29Boo!
10:32Oh, we have got a great show for you tonight, folks.
10:34Guaranteed to tickle your funny bones.
10:37Miss Piggy was born to play Madame Pagoda.
10:41It is a modern Muppet story.
10:43It feels classic.
10:44It has great original songs,
10:46celebrity cameos,
10:46and, of course,
10:48a few haunted waka-waka's along the way.
10:51But, hey,
10:51don't watch it for me.
10:52Watch it for Dr. Teeth
10:54and the Electric Mayhem's cover
10:55of Dancing in the Moonlight.
10:57Everybody was dancing in the moonlight.
11:01Dancing in the moonlight.
11:05Everybody's feeling warm and bright.
11:08Flatliners.
11:13We're all professionals.
11:15Make sure this will go very smoothly.
11:18Nelson, if you die,
11:19get out of your apartment.
11:21It's a joke.
11:23Flatliners is like Frankenstein
11:24by way of The Lost Boys,
11:26and I think it's awesome.
11:27The movie follows a group of med students
11:29who run heart-stopping experiments
11:31to see what lies beyond our world.
11:32As is usually the case,
11:34playing God and cheating death
11:35bring some supernatural consequences.
11:37But the movie has this macabre sense of fun
11:40that hooks me every time.
11:41I credit this to the camera work of Jan de Bon,
11:43who brings unabashedly bold lighting choices
11:46to the characters' hallucinatory experiences.
11:56Yeah, Flatliners is a little campy,
11:58but it's also about people willing to go to extremes
12:01to find meaning in their lives.
12:02Having a very likable cast of future A-listers
12:05doesn't hurt either,
12:06but for me,
12:07it's the way Flatliners balances the otherworldly
12:09with the tangible that makes it so entertaining.
12:12Come on, Nelson, pick up the beat.
12:13Easy, easy, easy.
12:14Easy, easy, easy.
12:15Don't rush him.
12:16Oh my God.
12:17Come on, Nelson, pick up the beat.
12:18Pick up the beat.
12:19Pick up the beat.
12:20The Frighteners.
12:25Now, Frank, we gotta talk about cigars.
12:28Cigars?
12:28Damn right, you've been promising me a box
12:30for I don't know how long.
12:31Cigars, I hate to break this to you,
12:32but you're dead, you know?
12:33You can't smoke.
12:34You can light them up
12:35and blow the smoke in my face.
12:37Okay, being a 90s kid
12:39and a huge fan of Michael J. Fox,
12:421996's The Frighteners
12:44is not only a movie
12:45that I have a soft spot for,
12:46but it's also become
12:47an annual Halloween watch.
12:50And in this movie,
12:51Fox is playing this guy named Frank.
12:53He's a paranormal con artist.
12:55He can genuinely talk to ghosts,
12:57but he's found himself up against
12:59a supernatural killer.
13:13And what I like here
13:14is that our director, Peter Jackson,
13:16yes, that Peter Jackson,
13:18blends the comedy, the horror,
13:20the creep factor,
13:21but never takes itself too seriously.
13:24And the fact that he would go on
13:25to make those Lord of the Rings movies
13:27makes this an especially fascinating part
13:29of his filmography.
13:31But this movie is spooky,
13:33it's funny, it's weird,
13:35it's very 90s,
13:37and it's one that I just can't help
13:39but dust off every October.
14:04We have bookended this list
14:06with Back to the Future adjacent movies
14:07because that is how I like to do things.
14:10Anyway, have we convinced you
14:11to put any of our movies
14:12onto your Halloween watch list?
14:14What is your go-to movie
14:16during spooky season?
14:17Let us know in the comments
14:18and be sure to let us know
14:19what other staff picks
14:20you'd like to see in the future.
14:22See ya!
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