- Play Hard
- 16th Oct 2026
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Halloween films and TV you’ll love – from cinema to your sofa
It’s finally October, which means two things: fright nights and film nights.
Our pick of this year’s Halloween films and TV has something for every kind of scaredy cat, whether you fancy a spooky night out at the cinema or a creepy movie night hiding behind the sofa with your favourite spooky drink and snacks.
We’ve rounded up the big cinema releases, the streaming must-watches, and a few classics guaranteed to give you chills.
NEW HORROR FILMS IN CINEMAS THIS OCTOBER
OTHER MOMMY
In cinemas from Friday 9th October
Horror heavyweight James Wan (Saw, Insidious) produces this chilling tale from director Rob Savage (Host, The Boogeyman). Eight-year-old Bela (Arabella Olivia Clark) forms a bond with a sinister entity in her home that looks uncannily like her own mother. Based on Josh Malerman’s 2024 novel Incidents Around the House, it stars Jessica Chastain as Ursula, a mother who’ll do whatever it takes to protect her daughter from the thing wearing her face.
CLAYFACE
In cinemas from Friday 23rd October
Look fear in the face! James Watkins (Eden Lake, Speak No Evil) directs this horror thriller about the tragic origin of the classic Batman villain, who first appeared in the comics back in 1940. Tom Rhys Harries stars as Matt Hagen, a rising Hollywood star left horribly disfigured after a brutal attack. Desperate, he turns to an experimental treatment to restore his face, but the side effects start transforming his body into living clay.
Written by horror favourite Mike Flanagan with Hossein Amini, it’s a dark tale of lost identity, corrosive love, and scientific ambition gone very wrong.
GHOSTS: THE POSSESSION OF BUTTON HOUSE
In cinemas from Friday 23rd October
The beloved BBC comedy Ghosts haunts the big screen this Halloween. When a séance in the abandoned Button House goes wrong, teenager Jack (Scott Ellis Watson, I Swear) finds his body taken over by the spirit of disgraced MP Julian (Simon Farnaby, Paddington), and supernatural chaos follows.
The whole gang’s back, with creators and stars Mathew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard, and Ben Willbond, joined by Lolly Adefope, Charlotte Ritchie, and Kiell Smith-Bynoe. It’s a hilarious haunting for the whole family.
HORROR MOVIES STREAMING NOW
SPEAK NO EVIL
Netflix
James Watkins (Clayface) directs this remake of the 2022 Danish horror of the same name. James McAvoy is on terrifying form as swaggering alpha male Paddy, who, along with his wife Ciara (Aisling Franciosi), slowly imposes his will on new friends Ben (Scoot McNairy) and Louise (Mackenzie Davis) when they come to stay at the couple’s remote farmhouse in Devon. Consider this your reminder that making friends on holiday is a very bad idea.
TWILIGHT
Netflix
Spooky season’s here, and apparently that means it’s time to argue about Team Edward or Team Jacob all over again. If you’re after the ultimate nostalgic, sparkly, guilty-pleasure marathon in the run-up to Halloween, the whole Twilight saga’s on Netflix.
Based on Stephenie Meyer’s bestselling novels, it follows Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), who moves to the rainy town of Forks and becomes fascinated by mysterious classmate Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). There’s just the small matter of Edward being a vampire. Get cosy and revisit the phenomenon that defined a generation.
BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE
Prime Video
Set more than three decades after the 1988 original, this sequel follows three generations of the Deetz family as they return home to Winter River. Still haunted by Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) sees her life turned upside down when her teenage daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) accidentally opens the portal to the Afterlife. Catherine O’Hara, Justin Theroux, and Willem Dafoe also star. Just don’t say his name three times.
NEW HALLOWEEN TV SHOWS TO BINGE
MONSTER: THE LIZZIE BORDEN STORY
Netflix
Ryan Murphy’s true crime anthology has already tackled Jeffrey Dahmer, the Menendez brothers, and Ed Gein, and its fourth season brings us its first female monster. Ella Beatty plays Lizzie Borden, trapped in a cruel, repressive New England household when her father and stepmother are brutally killed with an axe in 1892.
Lizzie was tried and acquitted, and the murders remain officially unsolved, but this eight-part drama leans right into the legend. Charlie Hunnam, Rebecca Hall, and Vicky Krieps co-star.
CARRIE
Prime Video
So sweet, so innocent, so dangerous. Mike Flanagan, the man behind Stephen King adaptations Gerald’s Game, Doctor Sleep, and The Life of Chuck, brings King’s 1974 debut novel to TV for the first time in this eight-part series.
Misfit Carrie White (Summer H. Howell) has spent her life shut away with her domineering mother (Samantha Sloyan). After her father’s death, she’s thrown into high school, a viral bullying scandal, and the emergence of mysterious telekinetic powers. Keep an eye out for Scream star Matthew Lillard, too.
CRYSTAL LAKE
Sky and NOW, from Monday 19th October
Friday the 13th is one of horror’s most iconic franchises, with 12 films since the 1980 original. Now this eight-part prequel tells the origin story of Pamela Voorhees (Mad Men‘s Linda Cardellini), mother of hockey-masked killer Jason.
On the surface, Pamela’s grieving her sickly young son, who drowned in the lake almost a year earlier. But when two strangers start digging into her past, a disturbing chain of events leaves the locals asking just who Pamela Voorhees really is.
YAGA
Sky and NOW
In a small coastal town, private investigator Rapp (Noah Reid) is looking into the disappearance of Henry Park (Hudson Williams), heir to a powerful fishing business. He soon crosses paths with local detective Carson (Clark Backo) and Katherine (Carrie-Anne Moss), a university professor with a taste for younger men.
Things get twisted when the case pulls him into the legend of Baba Yaga, the witch of Slavic folklore who lives deep in the forest in a hut on chicken legs. With eight half-hour episodes, it’s made for a weekend binge.
NOCTURNE
Apple TV, from Friday 30th October
Based on two novels by Lars Kepler, the pen name of a Swedish husband-and-wife writing team, this chilling crime drama has serious The Silence of the Lambs energy. Homicide detective Jonah Lynn (Liev Schreiber) swaps Philadelphia for a quiet Pennsylvania town, only for it to come under attack from cunning serial killer Jurek Walter (Stephen Graham).
Zazie Beetz plays FBI agent Saga Bauer, who goes undercover to get answers from Walter as the hunt for his last missing victim heats up. The first two episodes land on launch day, with new ones every Friday.
THE WITCH FARM
BBC One and BBC iPlayer, coming soon
Inspired by real events in South Wales in 1989, first explored in Danny Robins’s podcast of the same name on BBC Sounds, this four-part drama tells the story of Bill and Liz Rich (Michael Socha and Gabrielle Creevy). The London couple move to a remote farmhouse in the foothills of the Brecon Beacons for a fresh start, and soon wish they hadn’t.
After Liz sees a ghostly figure during a traumatic home birth, the paranormal activity starts to escalate. Sleep with the lights on.
CLASSIC HORROR FILMS TO WATCH THIS HALLOWEEN
THE OTHERS (25TH ANNIVERSARY)
Tuesday 20th October, Tyneside Cinema
Sometimes the world of the living gets mixed up with the world of the dead.
It’s 1945, and Grace (Nicole Kidman) and her two children are waiting for her husband to come home from the war, living an isolated existence behind the locked doors of a secluded mansion. When three mysterious new servants arrive, it becomes chillingly clear there’s far more to the house than meets the eye.
Alejandro Amenábar’s gothic thriller is back on the big screen in a new 4K restoration, and it’ll keep you on the edge of your seat.
SCREAM
Prime Video
What’s your favourite scary movie?
It’s 30 years since Ghostface ushered in a new era of horror. Wes Craven’s knowing slasher plays with the rules of classics like Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th (1980), and Craven’s own A Nightmare on Elm Street. When a series of mysterious deaths rocks the small town of Woodsboro, California, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) and her friends become the targets of a masked killer obsessed with scary movies.
As the body count rises, they’ll need everything they know about horror films to survive. Courteney Cox, Matthew Lillard, and Drew Barrymore also star.
HALLOWEEN (1978)
Saturday 31st October, Tyneside Cinema, plus streaming
The night he came home.
Director John Carpenter revolutionised horror with this 1978 slasher. Babysitter Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) sees her life changed forever when she crosses paths with escaped killer Michael Myers, who returns to his old hometown in his chilling mask for a Halloween night reign of terror.
With Carpenter’s own spine-tingling score, it’s one of the greatest slasher films ever made, and there’s no better night to see it on the big screen.
Chris Kingston
Entertainment Writer
Chris is Laura's brother and the font of all knowledge when it comes to anything related to TV, film and books. He provides our popular round-ups on what to watch at the cinema, the TV not to miss, and new cultural releases.
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