Guide Note

Celebrated annually around the world on October 31, Halloween is a secular holiday involving costumes, candy consumption and many frightening books, television shows, and films. Mahalo's Best Halloween Movies page chronicles a list of the best Halloween-themed movies for adults.

Classic Horror Films

Halloween has inspired several series of films. Among the most popular are Friday the 13th, The Howling, The Omen and John Carpenter's Halloween in which the fictional killer Michael Myers preys on young females. Following are a list of some of our other Halloween favorites.

1. Beetle Juice: A film by Tim Burton in which a recently deceased couple (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) try to repel a family (Jeffrey Jones, Catherine O'Hara and Winona Ryder) from their old New England home. After finding that their methods of scaring the family aren't working, the couple look for help in the services of "Bio-Exorcist" Betelguese (Michael Keaton).
2. Bram Stoker's Dracula: A 1992 horror/romance film based upon the 1897 classic novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. The film was directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and is often credited as one his most successful productions.
3. Carrie: The story of a socially out-casted teenage girl who realizes she has telekinetic powers after she undergoes mental and physical torment by her mother, teachers and peers.
4. Night of the Living Dead: A black-and-white horror film considered to be a defining influence on the modern pop-culture zombie archetype and one of the first films of its kind to have an African American hero.
5. Sleepy Hollow: A dramatic film based loosely on Washington Irving's short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Johnny Depp plays New York constable Ichabod Crane, investigating a series of murders in the New England village of Sleepy Hollow.
6. Hellraiser: A series of horror films based on the novel by Clive Barker entitled The Hellbound Heart. All of the films feature the now iconic character of "Pinhead," a servant of hell unlocked by a twisted puzzle called The Lament Configuration.
7. The Saw Films are a series of horror films in which a psychotic man submits innocent people to a series of tests intended to help them regain freedom and appreciate their lives.
8. Rosemary's Baby: A thriller film about a woman who fears she may be pregnant by a demonic child, based on Ira Levin's popular book, Rosemary's Baby, a horror story of modern day Satanism and other occultisms, set in Manhattan.
9. The Exorcist: Based on the William Peter Blatty novel, The Exorcist is a 1973 film starring Linda Blair as a young girl possessed by a demon of incredible power and the attempts by two priests, played by Max von Sydow and Jason Miller, to drive the demon out.
10. The Shining: The film follows struggling writer Jack Torrance, who takes his wife and son to his new job as caretaker of the mysterious Overlook Hotel. The hotel is completely isolated and free from alcohol, which instigates Torrance's descent into madness.