Halloween Horror Alternatives

Spooky movies set on or near Halloween that don’t feature Michael Myers

I get it. You’re sick of reading about Michael Myers. I just spent the last four weeks writing about various entries in the Halloween franchise, and you’re ready for something new with Halloween just a couple of days away. I got you covered. Here are some of the best horror films set on or near Halloween that you can watch that do not feature Michael Myers.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) directed by Tommy Lee Wallace

Is this cheating? It kind of feels like cheating. Oh well. This is technically a movie set on Halloween that does not feature Michael Myers, so I’m using it. This film was infamously poorly received when it came out. That is mostly due to it being a Halloween movie that doesn’t feature Michael Myers as I just said a moment ago. The idea was to turn the Halloween series into an anthology franchise where each film would be a brand new spooky tale set on Halloween with a new filmmaker and cast each time. It turns out that people just want Michael Myers in their Halloween movies, so the film only made $14.4 million at the box office and killed the anthology direction for the franchise before it could even begin. Fortunately, the film has received a reappraisal in recent years and has become a bit of a cult classic. Had it simply been named Season of the Witch without any allusion to the slasher franchise, it likely would be more fondly remembered.

The plot is pretty simple. It’s about a company that makes novelty items and children’s Halloween masks called Silver Shamrock that is secretly run by a Druidic warlock who has assembled an army of androids disguised as humans while simultaneously making a line of children’s masks implanted with microchips made from pieces of Stonehenge that will cause children wearing the masks to have their heads explode into a bunch of snakes and bugs as a sacrifice on the Celtic holiday of Samhain, and the only person who can stop him is an alcoholic doctor played by Tom Atkins. Did I say the plot is pretty simple? What I meant is the plot is batshit insane.

If you’re looking for a completely bonkers movie that is jam packed with spooky imagery and an awesome Tom Atkins performance, then Halloween III: Season of the Witch is the movie for you.

Scream (1996) directed by Wes Craven

This one is pretty obvious. Scream is one of the most successful horror movies ever made, and it’s directed by one of the greatest horror directors of all time in Wes Craven. That said, it’s easy to forget that this movie takes place on Halloween.

This time the plot actually is fairly simple. Someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of horror movies is throwing on a cheap Halloween mask and stalking and killing high schoolers in a well off California neighborhood. It is both a traditional slasher and a whodunnit as various suspects are introduced throughout the film who could potentially be the killer. It all culminates in a big Halloween party with all of the main characters and suspects gathered in one place.

The allure of Scream is that it works as both a meta critique of the slasher subgenre and as an extremely effective slasher in its own right. You’ll get your fair share of laughs, but you’ll get some legitimate screams as well.

Trick ‘r Treat (2007) directed by Michael Dougherty

This one holds a special place in my heart. Trick ‘r Treat is an anthology film written and directed by Michael Dougherty that features different interconnected short stories that all take place in the fictional town of Warren Valley, Ohio.

These stories include a couple coming home from a night out with a decided lack of holiday spirit, a troublemaking kid’s encounter with a menacing school principal, a group of young women looking for dates for a Halloween party, a handful of kids pulling a prank that goes wrong, and a cantankerous old man being taught a lesson about what Halloween is all about. All of these stories are linked by a child in a creepy burlap sack Halloween mask named Sam who serves as the avatar of Halloween spirit.

This is easily one of my favorite horror movies, and it is a movie I watch every year on Halloween without exception. It just oozes with Halloween imagery while harkening back to 1980s anthologies like Creepshow and 1950s EC Comics publications like Tales from the Crypt. It’s the definition of a cozy horror film.

It also embodies an underdog ethos as the little film that could. Trick ‘r Treat was made in 2007, but it failed to find distribution. It languished in purgatory for two years until Warner Bros. and Legendary finally released it direct-to-DVD in 2009. This was a film I had been aware of since its debut at film festivals in 2007, and I had been dying to get my hands on it for those following two years. When it finally reached a mass audience, it almost immediately became a cult classic. Sam in particular has endured as a horror icon, and I frequently see fans cosplaying as him at horror cons and comic cons.

The House of the Devil (2009) directed by Ti West

Ti West is enjoying mainstream success as of late with the popularity of X, Pearl, and MaXXXine, but I’ll always know him best for The House of the Devil.

This little indie film is a love letter to horror movies of the 1970s and 1980s. It revolves around a college student taking a babysitting job on Halloween night. Things do not go well for her. The events of the film are set against the backdrop of a lunar eclipse and the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. It’s a slow burn of a film that ratchets up the tension to an unbearable level until finally letting loose with a horrifically violent climax in the last act. It also features a supporting role by Barbie director Greta Gerwig.

I’m a huge fan of this movie, and it made me a Ti West fan for life. It’s the kind of film that would have gotten a wider theatrical release if distributors like A24 had existed at the time. Seeing Ti West’s career reach a whole new level in recent years (with his films being distributed by A24) has been a joy for me after championing his work for the past fifteen years.

Hopefully at least one of these films catches your eye if you’ve been looking for a new movie to watch this Halloween. I’ll be watching two of them myself.