The Haunting of Hill House, Wendell & Wild, and 8 other spooktacular picks that’ll make you sleep with the lights on (if you can sleep at all)!
Halloween is the greatest time of year. This is not up for debate. Suddenly, it’s time for colorful foliage, apple cider, all things pumpkin, and the best excuse to binge every spooky (and / or spoopy) TV series and film you can get your hands on.
Fortunately, if you have Netflix, you have some incredible options. Whether you want to big into a mini-series, a multi-season TV show, or just sit down for a movie; whether you want a spooky comedy or something that will really horrify you; whether you want animation or live action—here are your best bets.
Halloween (2018)
You can’t watch John Carpenter’s 1978 classic Halloween on Netflix, but you can watch the “reboot” in 2018. I say “reboot” because the events of the 1978 Halloween take place, with even Jamie Lee Curtis returning as an older version of her original character. There are simply too many Halloween movies, and this movie agrees, actively forcing most Halloween films out of the canon. In other words, you can watch it by itself and still have a good time.
All of Us Are Dead
After Squid Game became a phenomenon in 2021, it did the western world the great favor of opening the door to the wild, wonderful world of South Korean media. 2022’s All of Us Are Dead is one of the Netflix Original series which emerged from Squid Game‘s show, and it’s both wonderful and perfect for the season. The action / horror series—which will be getting a second season—focuses on a group of students left to fend for themselves when their high school become the source of a zombie outbreak. This is the kind of gory, carnage-filled series while limbs will be liberally flying.
The Haunting of Hill House
The Haunting of Hill House is not the first time Shirley Jackson’s gothic horror classic 1959 novel has been translated to the screen, but it is the first time it’s been given the luxury of time that a TV series can allow. The series follows two timelines, both of which centers around the same family who lived in an infamously haunted house. One follows the five siblings in adulthood, while the other illustrates their childhoods in the mansion.
This one’s simultaneously emotional while being really, truly scary. Mike Flanagan is Netflix’s go-to horror showrunner for good reason—we’ll see him in this list again.
Death Note
There’s actually a fair amount of Halloween-friendly anime—Hellsing, for example. But Netflix doesn’t have those anime. What it does have is Death Note—and Devilman Crybaby, if you’re looking for something more action- and gore-heavy. While Death Note isn’t classically a Halloween anime, it’s got shinigami—gods of death—hanging out everywhere while the main character, a genius high schooler, finds twisted ways to use a notebook where simply writing down the name of person will result in their death. Death Note is a thrilling, suspenseful classic.
The Babadook
Speaking of iconic non-humans, let’s move on to the world’s most unlikely LGBTQ+ icon. The Babadook has become a modern classic since its premiere in 2014. It’s a psychological horror film wrapped in the trappings of a monster film, and all because of a particularly cursed-feeling children’s book. The Babadook follows a widowed mother and her only son when someone appears to be messing with them in their own house.
Castlevania
There was a lot of discourse around the release of The Last of Us that it was the first great adaptation of a video game to a television series, but they’re clearly forgetting about Castlevania, which predated even Arcane.
Castlevania is absurdly, gloriously gory—something you rarely get in animation, especially outside of Japan (Castlevania made in the US, so it’s technically not an anime, but who cares). The series follows the various trials of vampire hunter Trevor Belmonth, priestess Sypha Belnades, and Dracula’s (very hot) son Alucard. It’s a slow burn but a damn good romp, whether you have a history with the classic Konami games or not.
Wendell & Wild
Two years ago, Jordan Peele made a film with the guy primarily responsible for Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline (Henry Selnick), which also served as a low-key Key and Peele reunion, and somehow it got shoved out of most of our algorithms. I’d bring this case to Netflix court if I could, but instead I’ll shout to you about this film’s existence here.
The film is about the titular two demon brothers, played by Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, who try to get a normal 13-year-old to help them and bring them to the Land of the Living.
Interview with The Vampire
Interview with a Vampire wrapped up its second season in 2024, but as long as you can bear the wait and the wildly unpredictable whims of however streaming works, you can watch the first season on Netflix now. And if you haven’t you should—while the Tom Cruise film from the 90s serves a nostalgic places in our hearts, AMC’s TV series adaptation of Anne Rice’s novel is truly in a league of its own. And who doesn’t want messy vampire romance in 20th-century New Orleans?
The Fall of the House of Usher
The Fall of the House of Usher is kind of like horror-genre Succession. Again coming to us courtesy of Mike Flanagan, this 2023 mini-series focuses on the family dynasty behind a pharmaceutical company. However, the heirs of the family keep mysteriously dying. As you’d expect from the title, the story is heavily influenced by the poem of the same title by Edgar Allan Poe. In fact, each episode has a parallel to a different Poe poem. But its genius lays in the ways it’s not a direct translation. It’s gory, but not really scary.
Pyscho
There are two Alfred Hitchcock movies on Netflix—The Birds and Psycho. Both are bonafide cinema classics, especially given that Hitchcock is about as classic as you get when it comes to horror directors. But if you’ve never seen Psycho, despite surely being familiar with the famous violin sting, you might as well embrace the season and take this chance.
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