15 Best Halloween Movies for Couples
We all know that watching scary movies with your partner or date is always a guaranteed thrilling experience. Turns out our brain really likes getting scared. There’s research that explains how our brain, when put through certain stressful situations, releases dopamine when we’re watching something scary.
Halloween is almost here and you’re probably wondering what you should be watching with your date. Here’s a list of the 15 best Halloween movies for couples.
Scream (1996)
Let’s start with some of the classics, they might not be as scary as some of the movies we have coming out today, but they are always fun to watch. After its release in 1996, Scream was very well received and ultimately praised for its clever writing. This was the first time we’ve seen characters aware of different stereotypes surrounding the genre.
The film follows a high school student Sydney Prescott and her friends. Sydney is going through a rough time dealing with her mother’s passing. It’s been a year since her mother was brutally murdered and it seems like it didn’t stop there.
Eventually, she and her friends become targets of an unidentified masked killer. Writer Kevin Williamson and director Wes Craven created a franchise that lasts to this day and the most recent one, Scream 5, came out earlier this year. So if you enjoy the first movie you can count on four more movies to keep you company.
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
Another important franchise for the slasher genre. The first Halloween movie came out in 1978., the central theme of the film is that Michael Myers escapes a psychiatric hospital and this is followed by a number of murders of teenagers in the fictional suburban town of Haddonfield. Halloween H20: 20 years later is the seventh installment in the Halloween franchise.
We still follow our protagonist Laurie played by Jamie Lee Curtis. Halloween is getting closer and her brother Michael is coming back for revenge. This time, hunting her son who just turned seventeen, the same age Laurie was when he attacked her.
The Cube (1997)
The Cube is an odd one, but oddities tie in perfectly with the theme of this list. Six complete strangers with different backgrounds are trapped in a box-like space that keeps expanding. They keep finding new rooms in the Cube and seems like it never ends.
On the way they find new people trapped and the mystery keeps evolving. If you are really scared of horror movies and you can only watch the old ones with questionable acting and weird plot lines this is the film for you. Don’t take it too seriously, you and your partner will have a good laugh watching it but ultimately it has a lot of entertaining elements.
The Blaire Witch Project (1999)
Another very important classic is The Blaire Witch Project. It is a supernatural horror film about three film students who hike up their local forest which is said to be haunted by an old legend called the Blair Witch. The hunt for the Blaire Witch does not go the way they planned it and some of them go missing.
This was another one of the trend-shifting movies, an incredible story of how a low-budget film grossed nearly 250 million dollars worldwide. It premiered on Sundance at midnight building further on the marketing that was already starting to reach a lot of people, for instance, saying that the actors of the project have either died or gone missing. This would build up the excitement for the movie premier and ultimately lead to its success.
Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994)
The story is told from modern-day San Francisco by a reporter named Daniel Molloy. He interviews Louis de Pointe du Lac who claims to be a vampire. Louis says that in his previous life he was a rich plantation owner but after losing his wife and child he drowned in sadness.
One day he was attacked by a vampire named Lestat de Lioncourt. Lestat senses his sadness and offers to turn him into a vampire to which Louis agreed.
Interview with the Vampire was released in 1994. starring Brad Pitt as Louis de Pointe du Lac and Tom Cruise as Lestat de Lincourt. It received positive reviews and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Art Direction and Best Original Score.
The Conjuring (2013)
Probably one of the more interesting modern horror films has to be The Conjuring. At first glance, you would think this is another blockbuster horror movie with no depth or thought put into it. It proved all of us wrong and to this day still holds the place as one of the best horror movies of the last decade.
Carolyn and Roger Perron move into a farmhouse with their five daughters. Soon after moving in, they experience weird paranormal activities. Carolyn decides to search for help.
Ed and Lorraine are a married couple that investigates paranormal activities. Carolyn contacts the Warrens who eventually decide to help their family. This supernatural horror film was directed by James Wan and written by Chad Hayes and Carey W. Hayes.
The Cabin in the Woods (2011)
Six college students and friends decide to spend the weekend camping in the woods. Since they arrived strange things have been starting to happen. We later find out that the cabin and its surroundings are remotely controlled by someone.
They are influenced by all kinds of toxins and attacked by different creatures. Their goal is to try and escape but will they succeed and what will be waiting for them at the end?
This horror comedy film was released in 2011 and directed by Drew Goddard who wrote for TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angels, Lost, and Alias. Goddard and Joss Whedon wrote the screenplay in three days. This was his directorial debut and it starred Chris Hemsworth, Kristen Connolly, Ana Hutchinson, and more.
Escape Room (2019)
Similar to the Cube, in Escape Room we have six people from different backgrounds presented with the same task. They all had to solve a puzzle cube and after that, they were presented with an opportunity to enter an Escape Room game if they win it they get ten thousand dollars.
Escape Room is one of the more recent examples we have, this psychological puzzle-solving horror film was released in theatres in 2019 and grossed 155 million dollars worldwide.
Bird Box (2018)
The story of Bird Box follows Malorie Hayes at the start of a post-apocalyptic world. Malorie was going to the hospital for a regular pregnancy check-up when she saw a woman almost randomly commit suicide. The news show an increase in suicide rates, almost an epidemic, in Europe and Asia.
Soon after it is revealed that unknown alien entities have been infecting humans. To prevent that from happening everyone has to wear a blindfold because if they just look at them, sometime after they will commit suicide.
Bird Box was one of the most anticipated horror films in 2018., it quickly became popular, creating the trend called the Bird Box challenge where people would try to walk to places with their eyes closed like in the film. This movie was based on a novel of the same name by Josh Malerman who was first got published in the United Kingdom in 2014 through Harper Voyager.
The Open House (2018)
A regular suburban family gets hit by a tragic event. One day the father gets killed by a reckless driver. The mother, Naomi is now having to take care of her son Logan alone.
Finances eventually catch up to her and she has no choice but to leave their home. Naomi’s sister offers them a place to stay, a house that she’s selling somewhere nearby in the mountains. This is where things start to slowly become strange, Naomi and Logan have to leave the house while it’s open for potential buyers.
At that time they are not aware of what’s going on at the place but when they arrive home objects are missing or not in their regular place. Eventually the feeling of someone being in the house or watching them intensifies. This is one of the more recent Netflixes releases. Written and directed by Matt Angel and Suzanne Coot Starring Dylan Minnette and Piercey Dalton.
Get Out (2017)
Chris Washington a black photographer from New York is preparing to go meet his girlfriend’s parents for the first time. When they arrive to meet the family, everyone is acting really strange around him. Rose, his girlfriend claims that it’s because of the fact he is her first black boyfriend.
With time everything becomes even more strange, the way their housekeeping staff is acting and the fact that they are all black as well. Little by little the family reveals their ulterior motive.
Get Out is an Academy Award-winning film from 2017, it won in the category for Best Original Screenplay. The film was directed and written by Jordan Peele in his directorial debut.
It (2017)
The story of “It” is set in 1988, a little boy Georgie goes out on a rainy day to let his paper boat float on the residue rainwater on the street. His older brother Bill is sick and can’t play with him so he builds him his paper boat. While Georgie is playing his boat gets pulled into the sewer.
Georgie tries to get it back but fails to do so. Out of the sewer a weird-looking clown shows up, Georgie is scared at first but eventually, the clown charms him. The clown tells Georgie to join him in the sewer so that they will find his boat together but instead the clown pulls him in and eats him.
Some time after Georgie’s passing the story picks up and we continue to follow Bill and his friend group who try to find out what happened to Georgie.
It is a supernatural horror film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel of the same name. Andy Muschietti directed it and Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga, and Gary Dauberman wrote the screenplay. This movie is perfect for a date night because it’s not very scary it has a couple of jumpscares but overall focuses more on the character relationships and the story itself.
Zombieland (2009)
Zombieland movie is another great option if you don’t like horror movies. Zombies are essential for a good Halloween party. This zombie comedy film follows a geeky college student trying to survive a post-apocalyptic world infected with a zombie virus.
On his journey, he meets three strangers that eventually become his closest friends. Together they are trying to find a sanctuary away from zombies if it even exists.
Zombieland was released in 2009, it was directed by Ruben Fleischer and written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. It was a big success, beating Dawn of the Dead (2004) at the box office and becoming the top-grossing zombie movie in the U.S., until World War Z.
Crimson Peak (2015)
Crimson Peak is also for our readers that don’t enjoy getting scared as much. This gothic romance film will nicely set the mood for your date and hopefully get the sparks going. The story is set in 1901, we follow Edith a young aspiring author whose father is a well-known investor.
She meets a mysterious man that asks her father for a donation for his project back in the United Kingdom. Edith starts to fall in love with a mysterious man named Thomas Sharpe. The two hopelessly fall in love with each other and decide to move to England. Edith’s father disapproves.
When they finally move to England Edith starts to get sick and little by little she finds out disturbing new details about Thomas she wasn’t aware of. This gothic romance was directed by Guillermo del Toro and starred Tom Hiddlestone, Mia Wasikowska, and Jessica Chastain.
Would You Rather (2012)
Would You Rather is probably the most disturbing out of all of the movies we’ve talked about so far. It’s not on the crazy side but it definitely has some gore compared to the others we’ve mentioned. Would You Rather is a psychological horror movie based on the party game of the same name.
We follow Iris, a young woman trying to help her sick brother after he contracts leukemia. To save her brother she must partake in a life-threatening game of the elite society members. Would You Rather was directed by David Guy Levy and written by Steffen Schalchtenhaun.