5 Halloween Must-sees on Netflix

Let me guess what you did this Halloween: Finished that paper you’ve been putting off for days? Slept until three in the afternoon to catch up on all the late nights you’ve spent doing homework this week? Maybe procrastinated that paper some more and started watching the new season of The Mandalorian on Disney+? Halloween in quarantine may not have been the most exciting, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still have some Halloween-themed fun on your own. From classics to modern comedic horror, here are five of the most popular scary movies on Netflix to spice up your quarantine spooky season.

Hubie Halloween

Rotten Tomatoes: 49% 

In this 2020 movie, Adam Sandler plays Hubie Dubois, the sweet, helpful townsperson of Salem, Massachusetts that no one takes seriously, not dissimilar from Sandler’s usual roles. On Halloween, Hubie finds himself entangled in a murder mystery and it becomes his duty to save Halloween. Hubie Halloween has received mixed reviews, but is definitely filled with both nail-biting horror and those classic, Adam Sandler-driven comedic moments. Aside from Sandler, the cast includes celebrities such as Shaquille O’Neal, Maya Rudolph, Kenan Thompson, and more. Hubie Halloween is dedicated to the late actor, Cameron Boyce, who was supposed to star in the movie, but passed away from an epileptic seizure in July 2019, soon before filming was set to begin. His Jessie co-star and best friend, Karan Brar, ended up being cast in the role Boyce was set to play.

The Addams Family (1991)

Rotten Tomatoes: 64%

This classic film based on the 1960s sitcom contains slightly darker themes and humor than its preceding tv series but follows the same story of the close-knit, morbid Addams family. The dad, Gomez Addams, longs for his estranged brother, Uncle Fester. Conveniently, a man soon shows up at the Addams’ home claiming to be Uncle Fester himself. Morticia, the mother of the family, feels that Uncle Fester may not be who he says he is. Eventually, Gomez Addams realizes that this man claiming to be Uncle Fester is trying to steal the Addams’ riches, and they must stop him before he can get away with it. The Addams Family stars Anjelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd, Raul Julia, Christina Ricci, and more.

The Ritual 

Rotten Tomatoes: 73%

The Ritual is a dark horror movie about four college students, reunited after the death of their friend, who decide to go on a hike in a forest in Sweden. Taking a wrong turn, they end up finding a mysterious evil existence haunting them, and it suddenly becomes unclear whether or not they will come out of the wilderness alive. The Ritual is a British movie filmed in Romania. It has received many positive reviews from film critics who praise the style of the movie, as well its use of the Scandinavian setting. 

Sleepy Hollow

Rotten Tomatoes: 69%

Academy Award-winning Sleepy Hollow is based on Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Set in 1799, New York City Detective Ichabod Crane is sent to Sleepy Hollow in order to investigate a series of decapitations in the small town. He soon realizes that those being killed are some of the most well-known in the town, and discovers from the town’s council that The Headless Horseman is suspected to be the killer. Constable Ichabod Crane, along with his young sidekick and Katrina Van Tassel, must go on a mission to figure out The Headless Horseman’s history and motives to understand what is happening. Sleepy Hollow received the Academy Award for Best Production Design and stars Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane.

Poltergeist

Rotten Tomatoes: 86%

This Steven Spielberg classic from 1982 follows a Californian family who begins seeing ghosts through their television and strange things start to happen around the house. After one of the children gets sucked into a supernatural portal in the closet, the family seeks help from parapsychologists to get their daughter back and stop the occurrences. Poltergeist is widely regarded as a classic horror film and earned three Academy Award nominations in the year it came out. It ended up losing the awards to Spielberg’s other hit movie that year, ET. Poltergeist has also become a franchise with several sequels after this first installment.