8 Halloween Movies That Take Place On Halloween Day

With it’s mix of free candy, threats of vandalism, spooky themes, and uncomfortably inappropriate costumes, what’s not to like about Halloween? I mean, unless that is, you actually were hunted down one October 31st by a masked killer who escaped from a mental institution and systematically murdered all your friends one by one. Excepting that, however, it’s hard to be mad at a holiday based on an ancient pagan festival where the dead are said to walk the Earth. With it’s penchant for dress up and supernatural associations, it’s a natural film setting, horror or otherwise. The following are 10 movies that take place on Halloween. Some are scary, some are silly. All are worth watching as you stuff your face with candy corn and witches brew.

While no ‘70s childhood was complete without watching the animated Peanuts holiday specials, adulthood sheds a different light on perennial schlub Charlie Brown and his loser friends. Negligent old school parenting is on full display as borderline-autistic friend Linus makes up his own holiday and is allowed to sleep in a pumpkin patch overnight. Meanwhile, Brown figures out a way to screw up the simple act of trick or treating and goes home with a bag of rocks.
 Perhaps the ultimate Halloween horror movie, John Carpenter’s late ‘70s slasher flick used subtly effective scare tactics to terrify audiences and introduced one of the great characters in horror, Michael Myers. The film begins with Myers’ first person murder of his older sister, for which he is sent to a hospital for the criminally insane. He later busts out and wreaks terror on a young Jamie Lee Curtis, whom we learn in the movie’s sequel is his younger sister. The movie spawned several follow-ups and even a 2007 re-boot, however, none matched the first installment’s originality or influence.
While Halloween inspired a glut of slasher movies, fantasy horror flicks such Poltergeist and Evil Dead spawned their own ‘80s imitators. Night of the Demons is one of the best, as a pack of teenagers throw a Halloween party in an abandoned mortuary, which is cursed and end up possessed by demons and killing each other off. In other words, worst party ever.

Source: decider