12 of the Spookiest (or Funniest) New Halloween 'Specials' to Watch This Year

Just due to the fact that you’re an big doesn’t mean you can’t bask a bully Halloween special. While mostly not “specials” successful the accepted sense, these 12 caller horror-themed bid and movies are streaming present and cleanable to mix-and-match to make an evening of chilling entertainment.

This moody bid from Mike Flanagan, creator of the The Haunting of Hill House and a ton of different fearfulness smashes, aims to elevate horror. Yes, it’s astir vampires, but it’s serious. It’s besides astir Catholicism, isolation, regret, and different weighty topics. Whether you person the patience for this benignant of superior fearfulness is simply a idiosyncratic thing. I deliberation fearfulness should beryllium astatine slightest a little fun, and I don’t emotion agelong monologues astir the Bible. Maybe I’m conscionable crass.

Where to watch: Netflix

Halloween fans: Have you ever wanted to spot the however the lesser-known survivors of the archetypal Halloween movie would instrumentality connected Michael Myers present that they’re middle-aged oregon geriatric? Me neither! But that’s what you’ll get successful Halloween Kills, the latest successful the long-running, oft-rebooted franchise.

You should inactive ticker it though, due to the fact that connected the affirmative side, Jamie Lee Curtis, arsenic always, is excellent, and it’s not the implicit worst Halloween movie. On the antagonistic broadside though, Halloween Kills seems disjointed and slapped together, with tonal and quality shifts that suggest competing visions for the movie.

Where to watch: Peacock

Movies and TV person been done zombies to undeath, but for me, they’re inactive not boring. They’re much similar comfortableness food. This series, based precise loosely connected George Romero’s 3rd Dead movie, is arsenic comfy arsenic it gets. Nothing is apt to astonishment you, but it moves accelerated enough, it’s comic and self-aware (the characters successful Day of the Dead person heard of “zombies” before!), and nary substance however galore times I’ve already seen it, there’s thing astir a horde of undead ghouls menacing hopeless survivors that conscionable works.

Where to watch: Hulu, SyFy

My woman insisted I see this one. She’s a fan, and this is simply a morganatic Halloween peculiar for adults—I uncertainty galore kids are funny successful this duo. For Halloween this year, Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart Dogg are judging a spooky cooking contention wherever teams of confectioners and bakers marque as-scary-as-possible spreads. I wasn’t capable to ticker this—it drops connected Oct. 21—but if you similar the opposites-attract chemistry betwixt Snoop and Martha, oregon you similar overly analyzable show-baking, I’m definite this volition person a ton of both.

Where to watch: Peacock 

Do not slumber connected Ghosts. This imported-from-the-UK supernatural drama bid is my favourite Halloween programming this year. The premise—a young mates inherits a creepy aged location and its galore ghosts—is arsenic aged arsenic an ancestral mansion, but the execution is conscionable delightful. The aged mansion is packed-to-the-decaying-rafters with precise British comedians doing the benignant of character-based, awkward drama that makes British drama truthful bloody great.

Where to watch: HBO Max 

I was hoping the American mentation of BBC’s Ghosts would beryllium similar the American Office—totally antithetic but conscionable arsenic funny. Sadly, that’s not the case. Even though Ghosts sticks intimately to its root material, there’s thing disconnected astir it, thing un-funny. It’s hard to adjacent spot what exactly, but it conscionable doesn’t work. I inactive person hope, though. Ghosts is lone connected its 3rd episode, and possibly it volition find its voice, if it tin enactment retired of the sitcom graveyard of course.

Where to watch: CBS 

If you similar your Halloween fearfulness existent and much brutal than immoderate fright flick, Peacock’s caller documentary connected the infamous Toolbox Killer, Lawrence Bittaker, volition beryllium your favorite. I emotion existent transgression documentaries and each things macabre, but the implicit brutality and remorseless evil of this murderer was excessively overmuch for me. Call maine a wimp, but I noped retired aft the archetypal fractional hour.

Where to watch: Peacock

A caller instrumentality connected the slasher genre is not an casual happening to do, but There’s Someone Inside Your House takes a stab astatine it (so to speak.) It adjacent sometimes succeeds successful its ambitions, hurling poisonous barbs astatine 2021 teenage-hood (and by extension, American culture), with audacious scenes similar a gaggle of kids making bongs retired of Nazi memorabilia and virtually getting precocious connected fascism. But adjacent with immoderate standout moments, it benignant of falls isolated and ne'er lives up to its promise. Still, decidedly worthy a try.

Where to watch: Netflix

This fascinating, evocative fearfulness movie is the other of There’s Someone Inside Your House. It’s doesn’t play connected the fears of teenagers, and it doesn’t remark connected society. Instead, it’s an uncomfortably idiosyncratic communicative that sticks its digit profoundly into the anxiousness of parents (mostly mothers) and conscionable roots astir successful there, digging things up, examining them, and mostly being wrong you, similar the parasitic worms that burrow into the main character’s kid and crook him into idiosyncratic else.

Where to watch: Netflix 

In his agelong career, the murderous doll Chucky has appeared successful 1 large fearfulness movie, and a slew of mediocre-to-bad follow-ups. Where 2021's Chucky volition onshore connected the continuum remains to beryllium seen, but judging from the archetypal episode, it looks promising. Even though it’s each set-up, the aviator works: The penning is breezy and smart, and the characters and concern are grounded successful reality, dissimilar excessively galore of the Child’s Play films. Definitely worthy a watch.

Where to watch: Hulu, SyFy

This movie straddles the enactment betwixt kid and big horror. It’s rated PG, truthful it’s not excessively extreme, but that doesn’t mean it’s without chills. Nightbooks tells the communicative of a young lad imprisoned by an evil, murderous witch. In a riff connected 1000 Arabian Nights, the originative kid bargains for his beingness with scary stories. As agelong arsenic the tales helium tells are creepy enough, she won’t termination him. But if helium slips up, it’s lights retired forever. The premise allows for tons of short, animated fearfulness sequences, the champion happening astir this movie.

Where to watch: Netflix

Barbara Hershey stars successful an assisted surviving fearfulness communicative that’s scarier than receiving your archetypal signifier missive from the AARP. Following a stroke, Hershey moves into a nursing location and rapidly discovers that thing sinister is going on. While The Manor occasionally touches connected the unsocial fearfulness of aging—it’s heartbreaking however everyone assumes she has dementia alternatively of believing her—it’s yet a suspense thriller that sticks beauteous intimately to a well-worn formula. But hey, it’s lone a look due to the fact that it works.

Where to watch: Prime