While Halloween is the perfect time for scary movies, there are a few classic non-horror films that are also set on the holiday. Halloween is a time for the spooky and supernatural. The holiday is one of the few times of the year when it is acceptable to focus on ghoulish, macabre, and downright frightening subjects. This prompts many movie buffs to spend most of October celebrating Halloween by watching classic horror movies. However, it also means that the cinematic representation of the holiday is somewhat imbalanced.
Even though Christmas is a time for family, friends, and peace on earth, there are a veritable deluge of horror movies, action thrillers, and bawdy comedies that subvert this tradition. By contrast, Halloween horror movies dominate the holiday’s contributions to cinema. Almost every movie set on Halloween is a horror movie of some sort, whether it is as anodyne and family-friendly as Hocus Pocus or Halloweentown or as chilling as the classic slasher Halloween. Discounting movies with horror elements, there are surprisingly few scare-free movies set on Halloween night.
10 Song of the Sea
2014’s Song of the Sea is a poignant, funny, and inventive Irish animated adventure movie. Although it’s technically a fantasy adventure about selkies, much of Song of the Sea is a sweet cartoon dramedy about a pair of mismatched siblings getting into scrapes and coming to each other’s rescue. The most important plot points take place on Halloween night, but there is nothing horrifying about this fantasy movie’s ending. As inventive and charming as it is moving, Song of the Sea is a great animated movie that proves Disney and Studio Ghibli aren’t the only creative powerhouses in the industry.
9 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Director Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial blends family drama, science-fiction, and comedy, but the movie steers clear of horror for the most part. Admittedly, some small children were likely afraid the first time they saw the eponymous alien sprint at the camera. However, it soon becomes clear that he is one of the cutest aliens in cinema history. Despite this, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial’s entire story takes place on Halloween night, and the practice of trick-or-treating is central to the movie’s ending.
8 Boys in the Trees
The Australian drama Boys in the Trees is a lyrical fantasy movie mixed with a coming-of-age story. Although it’s far from a traditional horror movie, it is likely the most unsettling movie listed here. With a tone similar to Mike Flanagan’s Netflix shows, Boys in the Trees uses ghosts and spirits as metaphors for trauma and tragedy. However, these never feel forced or clumsy. Instead, this coming-of-age story manages to turn a tale of two friends drifting apart into something that is equal parts life-affirming and heartbreaking.
7 Grow Up Tony Philips
2013’s Grow Up Tony Philips is a fascinating non-horror Halloween movie, as the coming-of-age dramedy is also the director’s first departure from the world of horror comedy. Director Emily Hagins is best known for beginning her career with the zombie movie Pathogen, which she directed at the ripe age of 12. However, Grow Up Tony Philips is a very different proposition. A dramedy about the titular antihero coming to terms with his friends growing out of their old Halloween traditions, Grow Up Tony Philips asks viewers what it means to grow up and what teenagers should be willing to sacrifice in the name of friendship.
6 Jack Reacher: Never Go Back
While Amazon’s Jack Reacher adaptation nailed the tone of the Lee Childs novel series, there is something to be said for the enjoyable silliness of 2016’s Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. This thriller is a classic Reacher adventure as Tom Cruise’s version of the heroic drifter races against time to clear the name of a framed friend. The action-thriller makes good use of the Halloween setting during its climax. While admittedly a by-the-numbers procedural, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is elevated by Cruise’s screen presence and some stylish action sequences that prove Halloween is a holiday woefully underutilized by the genre.
5 Affliction
1997’s Affliction is an intense, emotionally moving effort from indie director and Taxi Driver scribe Paul Schrader. Nick Nolte plays a small-town cop who becomes obsessed with a hunting death that took place on Halloween. He’s convinced that it was a murder and that there is a conspiracy to cover up the truth. Like another popular movie no one talks about any more — Mystic River — this grim crime drama offers no easy answers. Dark, brutal, and believable, this soulful thriller might be a harder watch than many Halloween horror movies.
4 Ironweed
Ironweed tells the tale of a drifter suffering from an unspecified mental illness who returns to his hometown on Halloween night, but viewers shouldn’t be discouraged by this seemingly dark synopsis. Where the superficially similar Spider and Possum mine this setup for nightmarish journeys into broken psyches, Ironweed instead offers a warm, elegiac, and at times, surprisingly sweet story of love and loss. Jack Nicholson is stellar as ever as the troubled lead, but it is Meryl Streep’s spirited turn as his dying old friend that makes Ironweed essential viewing.
3 A Perfect World
While Clint Eastwood is one of the best Western movie directors of all time, he is also accomplished when it comes to smaller, more intimate stories. A Perfect World is one of these, as Eastwood’s camera follows a convict and a sheltered orphan on the run across the U.S. Surprisingly moving, A Perfect World‘s plot centers around a touching moment where the movie’s troubled anti-hero helps his shy new friend celebrate Halloween for the first time.
2 Kenny and Company
1976’s Kenny and Company was largely overshadowed by director Don Coscarelli’s next effort, Phantasm. However, as a tribute to misspent youth, this 1976 coming-of-age story is worth a watch. Kenny and Company follows a group of kids as they prank, play, and otherwise mess around during one long Halloween night. Essentially a preteen spin on Dazed and Confused or American Graffiti, this nostalgic comedy is a sweet watch for viewers of all ages.
1 Fun Size
Although 2012’s Fun Size was intended to be a launching point for Nickelodeon star Victoria Justice’s movie career, the comedy proved too raunchy for kids and too anodyne for grownups. However, Fun Size is better than its brutal reviews suggest thanks to Justice’s charming central turn and a scene-stealing role for Evil Dead remake star Jane Levy. The plot, which sees Justice’s heroine attempting to find her missing brother, is admittedly thin. Nonetheless, this non-horror Halloween movie offers a PG-13 spin on the Superbad/Booksmart template that is well worth a watch.
