Spooky season is finally here — fluorescent ghosts and crashed witches are already popping up all over the neighborhood — and people are in the spirit.
We all have our classic go-to Halloween films, such as “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “Beetlejuice,” just to name a few - but here are a handful you might not have seen yet.
“WNUF Halloween Special” (2013)
Those of us who grew up with VHS players know the feeling of fast-forwarding through commercials well, but that is the last thing you’ll want to do with this film. “WNUF Halloween Special” presents itself as an old cable broadcast of a news station’s Halloween special, where the reporters are doing a story on a local haunted house. The story, needless to say, does not go as planned.
The main draw for this film is the authentic-feeling commercials that play between the drama. In a year where we were all disappointed by the AI-assisted interstitials in the once-promising “Late Night with the Devil,” the aesthetic authenticity of “WNUF Halloween Special” is all the more refreshing.
It’s become a yearly Halloween rewatch for me. Something about the film captures the fun of the season, even as it gets dark towards the end. If you grew up with a VHS player, or if you just love retro aesthetics, this is required viewing.
“WNUF Halloween Special” is available to stream on AMC+.
“Ghostwatch” (1992)
This one garnered quite a bit of controversy upon its release. In true “War of the Worlds” style, it presents itself like an authentic news program about a local haunted house that slowly begins to infect the rest of the broadcast, complete with most of the cast being made up with real-life BBC newscasters.
Reportedly, the broadcast led to mass hysteria, furious call-ins and at least one suicide. Remember, this was years before “The Blair Witch Project” and its multiple ripoffs made docu-style shakycam a widely recognized film style.
Taken in a modern context, “Ghostwatch” is still a uniquely creepy watch, perfectly capturing that feeling of a slightly hokey late-night broadcast slowly going off the rails. Keep your eyes trained on the background for a few surprises.
“Ghostwatch” is available to stream on AMC+, Hoopla and Shudder.
“Saiko! The Large Family” (2009)
Following on from the theme of “Ghostwatch,” this horror movie is uniquely creepy mainly because…well, nothing creepy actually happens.
On the surface, this presents as a normal docudrama about a dysfunctional family, struggling to come to terms with the introduction of a new stepfather. But the more you watch it, the more you get the sense that you’re missing something. Or rather, the documentarians are missing the very real horror story unfolding right before our eyes.
The effect is uniquely maddening because you’re never sure if there is anything to actually fear. My advice: go in as blind as possible…and like with “Ghostwatch,” keep your eyes on the background.
“Saiko! The Large Family” is available for free on YouTube.
“The Gift” (2015)
This is social anxiety: the movie. What starts as an awkward movie about old acquaintances reconnecting turns into a stalker-thriller, with a twisty character study that constantly has the audience second-guessing our allegiances and assumptions.
The three lead actors - Jason Bateman, Joel Edgerton and Rebecca Hall - have never been better, and Edgerton, who also writes and directs, is excellent at toying with your expectations. When Gordo shows up and begins inserting himself in the lives of newly-married Simon and Robyn, you’re at first meant to fear this intrusive interloper, but as the film goes on questions are raised about why, exactly, he’s targeting this couple.
This is Edgerton’s directorial debut, and you would never guess. It's got a mastery of spatial mapping that harkens back to the original “Halloween,” with normal shots of suburban interiors that have never looked more menacing.
“The Gift” is available to stream on Fubo, Paramount+ and PlutoTV.
“Lake Mungo” (2008)
The best ghost stories are tragedies, and by that metric, “Lake Mungo” is one of the best ghost movies. It’s a truly sad picture, showing a family’s attempts to come to terms with the unexpected death of their daughter and revelations that cast into doubt whether or not they ever truly knew her.
Stylistically, this isn’t “found footage” so much as it is a mockumentary: this presents itself as a finished documentary, complete with talking-head interviews of the Palmer family as they reminisce over their daughter, and come to suspect that her spirit may not be departed yet.
This is a melancholic movie, but don’t go in thinking it’s all doom and gloom; this film is punctuated with one of the best jump scares ever put to screen.
“Lake Mungo” is available to stream on The Roku Channel, Vudu and Plex.
“Ginger Snaps” (2000)
Werewolves are a potent and malleable metaphor in horror movies — usually for puberty or other forms of a growing, changing body — and “Ginger Snaps,” chronicling the Fitzgerald sisters’ changing relationship after one of them is attacked by a werewolf, is an excellent example of the subgenre.
This is a movie full of gore and violent bodily transformation, but the most nerve-wracking scene is one where the teen main characters are given “the talk” by a bunch of adults who are well-meaning but don’t understand what they’re going through, albeit to a more extreme extent than usual.
“Ginger Snaps” is available to stream on Shudder.
“Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum” (2018)
“Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum” is as close as we’re ever likely to get to a good “Phasmophobia” movie. More than just a found footage movie, it is also a horror satire on brainless influencers, who break into an abandoned asylum for the clicks.
A large part of why I appreciate this movie is because I buy the livestream they’re putting on; it adds a level of immersion when you can imagine people actually watching the show they’re putting on before spooky shenanigans start going down.
“Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum” is available to stream on AMC+, Hoopla, Tubi, Shudder, Hi-Yah!, Plex and Freevee.
“Exhibit A” (2007)
There have been a couple of found footage entries on this list, and there is a reason for that; it’s to emphasize that there’s a whole world of great, varied found footage films if you look beyond the mainstream offerings like “Paranormal Activity” or “The Gallows.”
This is an atypical found footage movie in that it’s not about a ghost haunting anybody, but a totally grounded family drama that slowly gets darker and darker, like the first half of “Hereditary” if it never ended.
“Exhibit A,” like “Saiko! The Large Family,” has the feeling of a family home movie you were never supposed to see. There are scenes of characters just talking in this that are more upsetting than any ghost or demon could be.
“Exhibit A” is available to stream on Amazon Prime.
“See for Me” (2021)
“See for Me” is the type of movie that wears its influences on its sleeve. Obviously, it calls back to “Wait Until Dark,” where Audrey Hepburn famously played a blind woman who had to defend her home from intruders. But the difference is that the main character in “See for Me” is also a thief, one who has a very unexpected offer for the intruders when they finally catch up to her.
This is an excellent example of low-budget, direct-to-streaming cinema, which has a familiar premise but never feels like it’s just a ripoff. It takes the parameters of the original and very effectively spins off into its own thing.
“See for Me” is available to stream on AMC+.
“The Children” (2008)
Admittedly, this one works just as well for Yuletide as it does for the spooky season, but maybe the story of a bunch of children inexplicably turning into bloodthirsty sadists isn’t your ideal Christmastime viewing. I mean, it’s mine, but I recognize I may be an outlier here.
“The Children” is great because, on one level, it’s a movie about children turning homicidal and feral for deliberately nebulous reasons. On the other hand, it’s about what happens when a group of people are stuck together during what is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year, and end up getting on each other’s nerves so much that the entire family unit snaps.
“The Children” is available to stream on Vudu, Plex and Freevee.
“Rob Zombie’s Halloween II” (2009)
Yes, really. Rob Zombie’s “Halloween II” isn’t just the best of the modern Halloween movies, it’s my favorite in the whole series.
Whereas the 1978 original is rightly lauded for its technical excellence and suspenseful scares, Rob Zombie’s truly strange, truly artful duology is the first time during the series I came to care about the characters. Who, to be clear, are all awful and annoying and unlikable, but in a way that feels deeply human and true.
So many horror movies these days are “about trauma” in ways that feel very artificial. “Halloween II” depicts trauma in a way that’s genuinely uncomfortable in how bracingly honest it is. Sometimes, there is no healing.
Also, check out the leaked workprint of the 2007 version if you can.
“Rob Zombie’s Halloween II” is available to stream on AMC+, Tubi and Shudder.
While there are so many horror films out there, I think there’s a risk of overlooking some great movies that don’t get as much love. I get a kick out of going down these rabbit holes and seeing what else is out there, and I hope this list has something for you.
This article was edited by Alfie Pritchard, Marina Zaczkiewicz and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks and Emma Brown.
