October brings fall colors to the trees and spooky movies to streaming services. Finding scary movies for adults, like The Babadook, It Follows, and even black and white films like Nosferatu is easy, but finding kid-appropriate Halloween movies is a little trickier. We took it upon ourselves to weed out the best spooky movies for kids so you don’t have to.
To do this, we created a list of all the spooky movies for kids that are currently available on the popular streaming services Amazon®, Hulu®, and Netflix®. We used Google Trends data from October 2016 to compare movies against each other and dig a little deeper to find what state searched the most for a movie.
Why states? Well, why not! Your kids will be in the know for what’s popular, have something to talk about during recess or lunch, and see what other states consider to be spooky movies for kids.
Based off these findings, we’ve compiled a list of holiday-themed movies for kids by state that you can stream with your children this Halloween—stick with your state’s favorite or branch out and try something new.
As you can see, Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas is the most popular in Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire. It’s safe to say that from coast to coast, families like The Nightmare Before Christmas the most.
Fun fact from our spooky kids movie search data: New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming came out as the top three states most interested in scary movies. They differ in their preference for spooky kids movies, though. While New Mexico and Utah favor stop-motion animation, with New Mexico preferring The Corpse Bride and Utah preferring The Nightmare Before Christmas, Wyoming is all about spooky kids movies with live-action and ghosts, with Casper being the most popular.
Speaking of live-action, Steven Spielberg’s classic E.T. is the most popular spooky kids movie in Minnesota, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont.
Wyoming may be the most interested in live-action, ghost-filled movies, but North Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Ohio, Maine, and Washington, DC love kids Halloween films with furry creatures. Gremlins is the favorite among these states.
The remaining states are a mix of the following spooky kids movies available on streaming services this October:
- Coraline (California, Nevada)
- The Addams Family (Michigan, Rhode Island)
- Hotel Transylvania 2 (Alaska, Idaho, South Dakota)
- Goosebumps with Jack Black (Arkansas, Hawaii)
- Scooby-Doo (West Virginia)
- The Witches, 1990 version (Montana)
And, for faster reference, we’ve listed the spooky kids movies by streaming service:
Netflix
- Corpse Bride
- The Nightmare Before Christmas
- Goosebumps (with Jack Black)
- Scooby-Doo
- Coraline
- E.T.
- Casper
- Gremlins
- Hotel Transylvania 2
Amazon Prime
- The Witches
Hulu
- The Addams Family
Whatever your state, whatever your spooky kids movie preference, make sure you have a reliable internet connection so you can watch the movie without any interruptions or lag.