Family Halloween Movies
A family Halloween movie has one job: be spooky enough to feel like Halloween, but not so scary that someone ends up in your bed at 2 a.m. These are ordered from not-scary-at-all to genuinely frightening, with a scare level on each, rated for kids rather than adults.
What frightens children is often not what frightens adults. Gore barely features in these films. What lands is a parent who isn't what they seem (Coraline), a house that's alive (Monster House), or a loud surprise in a quiet room (the library ghost in Ghostbusters). The notes say where those moments are. Other picks follow the same pattern: the witch in Nightbooks keeps a boy prisoner, and the scene kids remember from The Witches is a woman taking off her human face.
Two 1980s picks need a word about their ratings. Ghostbusters and Beetlejuice are both PG from a time when PG covered language and jokes that would earn a PG-13 now. Both are great with older kids, but don't treat the PG as a guarantee. For a properly scary night after the kids are asleep, see Horror Movies for Halloween Night. For under-sevens, start with Halloween Movies for Little Kids; for kids who've outgrown this page, try Halloween Movies for Tweens and Teens.
What the levels mean
- 1 Not scary: spooky decorations only
- 2 A few jumps, played for laughs
- 3 Some genuinely tense scenes
- 4 Frightening for under-tens
- 5 A real horror film (none on this list)
It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
TV special · 1966Scary for kids: 1 of 5Twenty-five minutes, no scares at all, and the most October thing ever animated. Charlie Brown gets teased and left out, as ever, but that's as dark as it gets. The right start for the youngest viewers, and a short warm-up for everyone else.
Casper
Movie · 1995Scary for kids: 1 of 5A friendly ghost and a lonely girl in a haunted Maine mansion. The scares are slapstick, but it's sadder than people remember: Casper is a boy who died, Kat is still grieving her mother, and her new classmates are cruel to her. Good from about eight.
Halloweentown
Movie · 1998Scary for kids: 1 of 5A 1998 Disney Channel movie: a girl finds out she comes from a family of witches, and Debbie Reynolds is her grandmother. Gentle and a little cheesy, which is exactly why families still rewatch it every October.
Hotel Transylvania
Movie · 2012Scary for kids: 1 of 5Dracula as an overprotective dad running a hotel for monsters. Here the monsters are the ones scared of humans, which reassures nervous kids, though a brief flashback shows a human mob killing Mavis's mother. Silly rather than clever; kids will laugh more than you.
Coco
Movie · 2017Scary for kids: 1 of 5Technically a Day of the Dead film, a holiday that starts the day after Halloween, but it belongs here: skeletons, marigolds and a land of the dead that's more colorful than creepy. It's about remembering the dead rather than fearing them, though the villain is a murderer and the ending, about a long-lost father, leaves most families in tears.
Ghostbusters
Movie · 1984Scary for kids: 2 of 5Released in June 1984 with a PG, weeks before PG-13 existed, so it carries swearing and some innuendo the rating doesn't warn you about. The scares are fun; the library ghost in the opening is the one kids remember.
Hocus Pocus
Movie · 1993Scary for kids: 2 of 5Three witches hanged in 1693 wake up in 1993 Salem on Halloween night, and Bette Midler has the time of her life. The opening shows them draining a little girl's life, bullies pick on younger kids, a talking cat is run over by a bus, and one running joke is about a teenager being a virgin. Best from about nine.
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Movie · 1993Scary for kids: 2 of 5Is it a Halloween movie or a Christmas movie? Both, so watch it now. It's stop-motion, about 75 minutes long, and the songs do most of the work. Oogie Boogie can unsettle very young children.
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Movie · 2005Scary for kids: 2 of 5Aardman's Oscar-winning feature: a giant-vegetable contest, a humane pest-control business and a monster loose in the town's vegetable gardens. It lovingly spoofs old werewolf films and plays on two levels, with puns and cheeky jokes for adults that sail over kids' heads. One transformation scene may startle the very young.
Goosebumps
Movie · 2015Scary for kids: 2 of 5Jack Black plays R. L. Stine himself, whose locked manuscripts hold every monster he ever wrote, until the boy next door opens one. The werewolf and the giant praying mantis are played for laughs; Slappy the ventriloquist's dummy is the one that gets under kids' skin. A good first step for eight to eleven.
Muppets Haunted Mansion
TV special · 2021Scary for kids: 2 of 5Gonzo takes up a challenge to last one Halloween night in Disney's Haunted Mansion, with Will Arnett as the Ghost Host and a parade of famous faces playing ghosts. It runs under an hour and the scares are theme-park scares. Reviews were mostly warm, and kids who already love the Muppets enjoy it most.
Hocus Pocus 2
Movie · 2022Scary for kids: 2 of 5Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy return as the Sanderson sisters, summoned back to present-day Salem by two teenage girls. It's sillier than the 1993 film, but the witches still plan to drain the town's children, so it suits the same nine-and-up crowd. Most grown-ups prefer the original; back to back makes a good double bill.
Sing: Thriller
TV special · 2024Scary for kids: 2 of 5An eleven-minute short with the animal cast of Sing: Buster Moon's crew go to a Halloween party where a strange ooze turns the guests into dancing ghouls, all set to Michael Jackson's Thriller. Too slight for a whole movie night, but a good warm-up while the pizza is on its way.
The Bad Guys: Haunted Heist
TV special · 2024Scary for kids: 2 of 5A short Halloween special for kids who loved The Bad Guys. Wolf and his crew break into a villain's booby-trapped mansion to steal an amulet said to haunt whoever takes it, and Wolf, the gang's Halloween prankster, starts to think it's haunting him. Quick, funny, and easy to fit into a school night.
Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom
Movie · 2026Scary for kids: 2 of 5Aardman's 2026 Halloween film, and critics loved it. A pumpkin-growing potion goes astray, the Farmer goes missing, and something shaggy starts prowling the woods. There's no dialogue, so the youngest kids miss nothing, while the horror-movie gags are aimed squarely at their parents.
Beetlejuice
Movie · 1988Scary for kids: 3 of 5For families with teenagers: Tim Burton at his most inventive. A dead couple hire a crude bio-exorcist to scare off the family who bought their house. Rated PG in 1988, but an f-word or two, groping gags and a gloomy teen's suicide note would earn a PG-13 now. Best from about thirteen.
Monster House
Movie · 2006Scary for kids: 3 of 5Three kids discover the house across the street is alive and hungry. It earns its scares honestly: the house is genuinely menacing, swallows a dog among others, and a flashback reveals the death of a woman mocked by local kids. Oscar-nominated, best from about ten, and a good test of whether a child is ready for Coraline.
ParaNorman
Movie · 2012Scary for kids: 3 of 5A boy who can see ghosts, and is bullied for it, has to save his town from a witch's curse. It's from Laika, the studio behind Coraline, and is the funniest of their films. The zombies are scary for about ten minutes; the story of a girl put to death for being different lingers far longer. Best from about ten.
Frankenweenie (2012)
Movie · 2012Scary for kids: 3 of 5Tim Burton's black-and-white stop-motion film about a boy who brings his dead dog back to life with lightning, and the classmates who try the same with worse results. The dog's death at the start is genuinely sad, and the monster-pet finale is busy and loud. Best from about eight.
The House with a Clock in Its Walls
Movie · 2018Scary for kids: 3 of 5An orphan, still grieving his parents and picked on at school, moves in with his warlock uncle (Jack Black) and the witch next door (Cate Blanchett), in a house hiding a ticking secret. Directed, surprisingly, by Eli Roth, best known for gory adult horror; here it's creepy mechanical dolls, attacking jack-o'-lanterns and frequent jump scares. Nine and up.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife
Movie · 2021Scary for kids: 3 of 5Egon Spengler's grandchildren find his old equipment on the Oklahoma farm where the opening shows him dying, and the franchise becomes a kids' adventure led by a young scientist. Rated PG-13 for supernatural action, suggestive references and a few s-words. The terror dogs are the scariest part; the finale is pitched at parents who grew up on the 1984 film.
Wednesday
Series · 2022Scary for kids: 3 of 5The pick for teenagers who've decided they're too old for everything else here: Wednesday Addams at a boarding school for outcasts, solving murders. Rated TV-14 for violence that gets genuinely bloody, with bullying, a student killed in the first episode and, in season two, a main character orphaned. Best from thirteen.
Wendell & Wild
Movie · 2022Scary for kids: 3 of 5Stop-motion from Henry Selick, who directed Coraline, co-written with Jordan Peele: two demon brothers persuade a bullied teenager, who blames herself for her parents' deaths, to summon them into the world of the living. It's rated PG-13 for violence, substance use and brief strong language, and it's angrier and sadder than most of this list. Eleven and up.
The Witches
Movie · 1990Scary for kids: 4 of 5Roald Dahl's story of a boy, orphaned in the opening minutes, who stumbles into a convention of witches plotting to turn England's children into mice. The moment Anjelica Huston's Grand High Witch removes her human face is one a generation of kids still remembers, and not fondly. Watch this 1990 version rather than the remake; best from about nine.
Coraline
Movie · 2009Scary for kids: 4 of 5The scariest film on this page, and maybe the best. A girl finds a door to a better version of her home, where a button-eyed Other Mother waits, along with the ghosts of children she took before. A parent who isn't what she seems hits young kids harder than any monster. Best from about ten; watch it first if unsure.
Nightbooks
Movie · 2021Scary for kids: 4 of 5A boy who loves scary stories is captured by a witch, played with relish by Krysten Ritter, and has to tell her a new one every night to stay alive. It's a kids' film with real menace (ghost children, a cave of skulls), and critics called it a genuinely scary gateway to horror. Ten and up, especially young writers.
Still can't decide? Let us pick →
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Picks are editorial recommendations. Streaming availability changes by region and over time — the “where to stream” links check current availability on JustWatch.