The Best Spooky Season Movie From Each Decade From The 1930s To Today

Spooky season is officially here and we’re already rattling in fear. From seeing Beetlejuice Beetlejuice in the theaters to watching classic Halloween favorites at home, there’s no shortage of films to celebrate the scariest time of year. While horror movies are an entertaining watch all year long, there’s no better time to go back in the expansive catalogue of terrifying thrills than spooky season.

Luckily for us, horror happens to be one of the most timeless genres. Today, we still celebrate and revere films like Dracula and Frankenstein for creating a tone and setting the blueprint for what a scary movie entails from camera angles to suspenseful music. Because the genre has remained so prolific throughout the decades, we’re compiling a list of the best spooky season movies from each decade, dating all the way back to the 1930s.

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

The 1930s were full of groundbreaking horror, from Boris Karloff’s original portrayl of Frankenstein in 1931 to Bela Lugosi’s Dracula the same year. The decade also housed numerous classics, including Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), King Kong (1933), The Mummy (1932), Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), and The Invisible Man (1933). But the best is Bride of Frankenstein, which is often considered one of cinema’s best sequels. It captures a poignant sadness and romanticism beyond Frankenstein while maintaining the original film’s scare tactics. 

Cat People (1942)

The next decade in our history of horror is full of Frankenstein sequels and more films in the horror monster collection, including Wolf Man (1941), Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), Son of Dracula (1943), and more. But Cat People takes the cake as the best (and perhaps one of the most underrated) films of the 1940s. Anyone familiar with Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Bastett storyline might find some similarities with Cat People, in which an American marine engineer’s new Serbian wife believes she may be descended from a tribe of hybrid panther people. But underneath the film’s spooky surface is an apt commentary about female sexuality, a highly taboo topic in the 1940s.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Although the 1950s brought us the king of horror with the introduction of Vincent Price, the best movie of the decade is easily Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Marvel fans will recognize the idea of an extraterrestrial species replacing loved ones as carbon copies, but in this horror film, the outcome is much more terrifying and all-encompassing. Just imagine … the ones you love are unknowingly replaced by nefarious aliens — that’s the fear that comes through Invasion of the Body Snatchers. However, the 1950s still brought more monster classics like Them!, a film about giant killer ants, and Godzilla, which follows the titular monster as he destroys a world that created him in the first place. 

The Birds (1963)

As we enter the 1960s, we find our way to the era of Alfred Hitchock, whose horror films top all the Top Ten lists of the decade. While many laud Psycho as the best and most iconic film of the decade, The Birds captures a different type of almost more realistic fear. It’s pretty unlikely we’ll be attacked by a “psycho,” but we see birds everyday. Plus, thanks to birds’ dinosaur ancestors, many of us have a visceral fear of birds. As the tension builds, Tippi Hedron’s performance will keep our hearts racing thorughout the film. The 1960s are also responsible for iconic films like Night of the Living Dead, which is the zombie film that started it all, and Rosemary’s Baby, considered one of the scariest films in cinema to this day.

Halloween (1978)

Naturally, Halloween has to make the list of the best spooky season movies. The 1970s popularized slasher films, making the time rife for Michael Meyers’ introduction into the cultural hivemind. A true psychopath, Michael is known as “The Shape.” His lurking presence throughout the films (and the rest of the franchise), indestructibility, and violent outbursts constantly build and puncture the tension as he stalks Jamie Lee Curtis’s debut film character. The decade also houses Hollywood favorites, such as Jaws (1975), the hilarious Young Frankenstein (1974), Alien (1979), Carrie (1976), and of course, Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), so there’s no shortage of 1970s gems.

Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

It’s easy to get bogged down in picking traditional horror films for each decade, but spooky season isn’t always about fear — it’s also about fun camp and extravagant reenactments. So what better film to encapsulate this than Little Shop of Horrors? The musical, which features music by Disney favorite Alan Menken, stars Ellen Greene, Rick Moranis, Steve Martin, and Billy Murray in the tale of a man-eating plant sent by a distant planet to take over the Earth. With dark themes and songs worth belting out in the shower, there’s no better spooky season of the 1980s than Little Shop, even if films like A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), The Fly (1986), An American Werewolf in London (1981), and Beetlejuice (1988) joined the catalogue.

Hocus Pocus (1993)

Hocus Pocus is another lighter pick on the least (tied closely with Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas), veering away from horror and towards the fun of Halloween we all crave during spooky season. With an all-star cast of witches—Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica-Parker, and Kathy Nigini—Hocus Pocus encapsulates the ‘90s and its attitude towards All Hallow’s Eve. With trick or treating, a drunken adults-only party, a reanimated corpse, a talking black cat, a coven of musically talented witches, and of course, lighting the virginal black flame, Hocus Pocus is one of the best spooky season films. But for something a little scarier, The Silence of the Lambs (199TK), The Blair Witch Project (1999), and The Sixth Sense (1999) are all worth a watch.

Final Destination (2000)

For the perfect movie night watch, nothing is better than Final Destination. Grab a bowl of popcorn and hold your friends’ hands as you watch one gruesome and horrifying murder after another. The early 2000s vibes ground us in the era of the film as we relate to the young adults who face a strange predicament when they were ‘due to die’ in a plane crash. While it’s definitely scary, Final Destination also has quirky elements of camp, jokes, and more that makes it top the decade.

The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

It’s easy to forget that Chris Hemsworth once starred in a science fiction comedy horror like The Cabin in the Woods before he became synonymous with Thor, but it happened. The film follows a group of college students who decide to stay in a cabin in the woods and get attacked by monsters, with nods back to classic horror films like Friday the 13th and the Saw franchise. By honoring the films before it while satirizing the horror genre with laughs and jump scares, The Cabin in the Woods is the perfect spooky season movie.

M3GAN (2022)

Everyone knows that the scariest possible thing is a killer doll, but in the 2020s, M3GAN isn’t just any doll. She was created using artificial intelligence, bringing some of our greatest fears to life. But the film’s impact traveled beyond horror — it became a meme sensation with Allison Williams as the “maternal” figure in M3GAN. It has everything a good spooky season needs from jump scares, psychological horror, and of course, dancing.