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Halloween fun is all about getting a little bit scared, but no one is having a good time if it means kiddos are losing precious sleep to holiday creeps—and keeping you up all night with them.
Here are some favourite films to get you into the spooky holiday spirit without scaring the daylights out of the little ones. Curl up with some classics as well as under-the-radar favourites—some are more sweet than scary, while others give just the right amount of spooky.
1. Room on the Broom
Age rating: U
Best for ages: 2 to 8
Short and sweet, this story is more about magical friendship than anything too spooky. This half-hour film is based on a children's book about a kind little witch with a long ginger braid and a great big heart. She befriends a scrappy group of animals as the film tells a story of kindness, loyalty, and friendship. This movie is so good that it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and the author, who also wrote The Gruffalo, names this movie as her favourite adaptation of all her books.
Watch Room on the Broom on BBC iPlayer
2. Super Monsters Save Halloween
Age rating: U
Best for ages: 3 to 6
This movie is all about taking the tricks out of Halloween and making the holiday more of a treat for kids who scare easily. The main characters show that the spookiest parts of the holiday, like haunted houses, ghosts, and goblins, are really just pretend. This movie is a fun way to help the littlest Halloween fans feel like big kids who are in on the silliness of the holiday.
Watch Super Monsters Save Halloween on Netflix
3. It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
Age rating: U
Best for ages: 4 and up
No movie captures the anticipation—and sometimes disappointment—of Halloween night like this Peanuts-gang classic. There’s a reason why this movie has been a favourite since the mid-'60s; it holds up and it enchants kids from preschool to teen. Linus's hopefulness, Charlie Brown's misadventures, and the friendship of the Peanut gang never gets old.
Watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on Apple TV+
4. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Age rating: U
Best for ages: 7 and up
A clever, claymation reimagining of classic horror movies, but with a lot of hilarious visual gags and clever British wordplay, this is both tame and smart all in one, making for a perfect all-ages family flick.
Watch Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit on Netflix
Watch Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit on Now TV
5. Toy Story of Terror!
Age rating: U
Best for ages: 5 and up
At 21 minutes, this is a short and sweet slice of Halloween fun that is perfect for a post-candy-consumption sugar high. When Mr Potato Head goes missing at a roadside motel, Andy and the band of toys must save their friend. This leads to spooky adventures filled with all of the humour, silly gags, and feel-good warmth of the entire Toy Story cannon.
Watch Toy Story of Terror! on Disney+
6. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Age rating: U
Best for ages: 8 and up
An absolute classic and must-see for any movie lover, E.T. is more about friendship that transcends the galaxy than anything truly spooky, but it's filled with suspense and one of the most iconic scenes in the movie happens on Halloween night. Show this to them and soon enough and you just may have them begging to dress up from one of E.T.'s most memorable moments for Halloween night.
Watch E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial on Now TV
7. Frankenweenie
Age rating: PG
Best for ages: 9 and up
Like most Tim Burton movies, this one is macabre on the surface but pulls at your heartstrings. A sweet retelling of the classic story of Frankenstein, this is the story of a very young Frankenstein who reanimates his beloved pet dog. Pets are lost and there is a lot of heartbreak and grief, but overall this is a fun movie that is an excellent intro to the horror genre.
Watch Frankenweenie on Disney+
8. Casper
Age rating: PG
Best for ages: 9 and up
Casper is a sentimental little love story about a friendly ghost who develops a crush on the new girl who moves into the house that he—and his rowdy ghost uncles—haunt. While many of us remember the sweet cartoon of Casper the Friendly Ghost, the movie version talks about death quite a bit so, while not really scary, it's best for slightly older kids.
Watch Casper on Now TV
9. Coco
Age rating: PG
Best for ages: 6 and up
Dia de los Muertos is part of a celebration that spans from Oct. 31 until Nov. 2. While Coco isn’t technically a Halloween movie, it is a wildly enjoyable film about the season, and it will give kids a bit of insight into celebrations around the world that take place during this time. With themes focusing on memory, family, death, and tradition this may be one of the most meaningful Halloween-season movies your whole family can settle into.
Watch Coco on Disney+
10. The Addams Family
Age rating: PG
Best for ages: 6 and up
They’re creepy and their kooky, and they are also a lot of good-humoured fun. Kids will be more likely to laugh than scream at the campy misadventures of this tight-knit family that is simply misunderstood in their love of the twisted and macabre. More slapstick than scary, it's a good choice for a Halloween laugh.
Watch The Addams Family on Netflix
11. Coraline
Age rating: PG
Best for ages: 9 and up
If your child isn't creeped out by the black button eyes of the characters of the alternate world, they will be engrossed and enchanted by the story of Coraline. This takes a bit more of a mature viewer who won't soon become sceptical of their parents as being interlopers, but once kids have their practical thinking skills honed, this may be a favourite family movie long beyond Halloween night.
Watch Coraline on Now TV
12. Goosebumps
Age rating: PG
Best for ages: 8 and up
The Goosebumps book series, from author R.L. Stine, has been giving kids the creeps since the '90s and this movie is no different. When a teenager named Zach moves next door to the author, played by Jack Black, he unleashes all of the horrors from the book series. Parents will probably have flashbacks of being scared of such monsters as Slappy the ventriloquist's dummy, the Abominable Snowman, and garden gnomes who are woven into a whole new scary story for the film.
13. Hocus Pocus
Age rating: PG
Best for ages: 8 and up
After moving to Salem, Massachusetts, Max and his sister Dani explore a seemingly abandoned old house. After dismissing a new friend’s superstitious story of the house, they accidentally free the building’s former residents: a coven of evil—and very kooky—witches, the hilariously outlandish and campy Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy. The kids must steal the witches' book of spells to stop them from becoming immortal.
Watch Hocus Pocus on Disney+
14. Dear Dracula
Age rating: PG
Best for ages: 6 and up
When an introverted boy writes a fan letter to Dracula, he gets quite a surprise when his hero pays him a visit. Dracula is down on his luck and his self-esteem has taken a hit. He needs a buddy to give him a lift and help him get his mojo back. This 45-minute short is a buddy movie wrapped up in Halloween jokes and is fun for any kid that has an affinity for the silly.
15. ParaNorman
Age rating: PG
Best for ages: 10 and up
From the makers of Coraline and Corpse Bride, this beautiful and spooky stop-motion movie follows the story of a shy boy named Norman, who can see and talk to dead people—and rather prefers to. Learning of a town-wide curse, zombies soon rise from their graves to take over the town. Norman must summon all his courage and use his paranormal abilities to save his hometown and the people in it that he loves.
16. Halloweentown
Age rating: Not rated
Best for ages: 8 and up
Starring the legendary Debbie Reynolds, this 1998 made-for-TV Disney movie is filled with cheesy fun. When Marnie Piper discovers her grandmother is a good witch who lives in a fantasy world called Halloweentown, she gets a supernatural surprise that she has powers of her own that she must put to use immediately to fight evil.
Watch Halloweentown on Disney+
17. The Haunted Mansion
Age rating: PG
Best for ages: 10 and up
Based on the popular Disneyland attraction, Eddie Murphy stars as a work-a-holic realtor who buys a mansion that turns out to be haunted. Murphy is, as always, hilarious and his charm appeals to all ages. When his character finds himself in a world of grimacing ghosts that need his help to break a curse, lots and lots of physical comedy and silliness ensues.
Watch The Haunted Mansion on Disney+
18. Monster House
Age rating: PG
Best for ages: 10 and up
Three kids realize that something is not right with the creepy man and the creepy house across the street, discovering that the house is in fact alive—and is actually a living and breathing monster that wants to destroy their town. The three friends must figure out a way to destroy the house before it wreaks ultimate havoc on Halloween night.
Watch Monster House on Netflix
Watch Monster House on Now TV
19. The Witches
Age rating: PG
Best for ages: 10 and up
We’ll soon see this adapted with a new cast including Anne Hathaway, but the original is too good to miss. In this Roald Dahl classic, a young boy named Luke accidentally spies on a convention of witches while staying in a hotel with his grandmother and discovers that the witches have a plan to turn all the children of the world into mice. This one can get pretty scary, so it’s probably best for older kids, but Angelica Huston is phenomenal, so if your kid can handle the scare this makes for a truly hair-raising movie night for all.
20. The Adventures Of Ichabod And Mr Toad
Age rating: U
Best for ages: 6 and up
This under-the-radar Disney classic is actually two iconic stories: The Wind in the Willows and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the second of which is a perfectly spooky tale for this time of year. The hand-drawn classic animation is gorgeous and the musical numbers are maybe some of the most underrated in the Disney catalogue. The story is at once goofy and suspenseful. It does have the possibility to spook smaller kids a bit, but they will be so enamoured by Ichabod and his horse's daffy interactions and silly facial expressions that most of the potentially scary stuff will pass right over a little kid's head.
Watch The Adventures Of Ichabod And Mr Toad on Disney+
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