Halloween can be a tricky time of year when it comes to putting together a family movie night. You’re obviously on the hunt for scares — it’s the spookiest time of year, after all — but you don’t want to traumatise kids forever with a double bill of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Terrifier 3. It’s a tricky balance to strike, so PG (Parental Guidance) horror movies can often be the answer.

There’s a broad range of what PG horror can be. Sometimes, they’re slightly spooky animated movies with frolicking ghouls, and occasionally they’re live-action efforts where the monsters deal out bloodless carnage. But sometimes, something special happens and an instance of pure nightmare fuel somehow ends up with that permissive little triangle on its DVD cover. Kids need to see this stuff.

“Broadly, I think that horror is beneficial for children to engage with as it gives validation to feelings that they may not yet be able to voice clearly,” says Josh Saco, director of the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies. “It opens up new channels of engagement and dialogue. Fear is primal and unavoidable as an emotion or reaction. It’s easy to overlook it as something that we need to understand, but it’s as important as knowing what makes us happy or angry.”

As Saco puts it, “child-friendly horror is a wonderful way to start a variety of conversations and personal explorations”. So let’s have a look at some of the best PG horror movies you can currently stream in the UK. If you’re grabbing a handful of trick-or-treat sweets and carving a pumpkin, these are the perfect films to accompany that.

Goosebumps (2015)

Many of us grew up on the surprisingly potent chills of RL Stine’s Goosebumps books. They inspired a memorable TV series in the 1990s and, in 2015, they got an unexpectedly solid movie adaptation too. There was a meta twist to the proceedings, with Jack Black portraying Stine as a curmudgeonly man forced to team up with his young neighbours to save the world when his terrifying creations escape from his books.

Read more: Goosebumps author adapts texts to remove weight, mental health and ethnicity references (Sky News, 2 min read)

This is perfect Halloween viewing, with dozens of spooky monsters, plenty of comedy, and a brisk runtime to leave plenty of opportunity to go out trick-or-treating. That’s not to mention the nostalgia value for family members who had a few Goosebumps tales on their shelves. And there’s little chance of any lasting nightmare impact on the kids if you settle down with this one.

Disney+ also has two live-action series of Goosebumps, based on RL Stine’s books if you want to explore further.

How to watch: Goosebumps is streaming in the UK via Sky and NOW.

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

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Is it a Halloween movie? Is it a Christmas movie? Let’s face it, Henry Selick’s 90s cult classic is both of those things, so it’s only fair to watch it twice a year. The film focuses on Jack Skellington, the king of Halloweentown, who wants to break from the macabre world in which he lives and discovers something new when he stumbles into Christmastown. It’s the perfect clash between the orange-hued iconography of October and the sparkles and colour of the festive period.

The Nightmare Before Christmas is a timeless classic of the stop-motion genre, balancing Tim Burton’s and Henry Selick‘s grotesque imagery with some great musical numbers and an undercurrent of genuine heart. The movie hasn’t aged a day and, if there’s any justice, it will continue to be a Halloween favourite for generations to come. Or perhaps a Christmas favourite. Or both.

How to watch: The Nightmare Before Christmas is available on Disney+ in the UK.

Monster House (2006)

Despite earning an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature when it was first released in 2006, Gil Kenan’s animated horror-comedy Monster House has been somewhat forgotten in the years since. Made with the help of Robert Zemeckis’s ground-breaking computer animation company ImageMovers, it’s a motion-capture tale following the terrifying actions of a sentient haunted house.

Monster House is set on Halloween, and, given its status as a forgotten gem, it’s an ideal movie to enjoy over the pumpkin period. It’s sticking around on Netflix in the UK until Halloween night, so it’s just in time for you to fit in a viewing before it leaves the platform for a while.

How to watch: Monster House is available on Netflix in the UK until 31 October.

Coraline (2009)

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Stop-motion lends itself beautifully to family-friendly horror. There’s something inherently uncanny and macabre about the format, so it’s no surprise that it appears several times on this list. One of the most celebrated examples of modern stop-motion is Laika Studios’ genuinely terrifying 2009 movie Coraline, which is another Halloween classic from Nightmare Before Christmas director Henry Selick.

Read more: How Coraline gave its director some long-overdue recognition (Yahoo Entertainment, 5 min read)

The titular young girl discovers a secret doorway in her home, which allows her access to a parallel world in which everything initially seems better than reality. However, Coraline soon learns that the button-eyed Other Mother has malevolent plans for her. If that sounds scary, it is, and the fear factor for this one is very high indeed. As character-building horror for your kids, there aren’t many better examples than this one.

How to watch: Coraline is streaming for free in the UK via ITVX.

The Witches (1990)

Roald Dahl never had too many qualms about scaring children, which is a sensibility that definitely carried over to the various 20th-century screen adaptations of his work. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory has numerous nightmarish sequences, but the real terror lives in horror specialist Nicolas Roeg’s adaptation of The Witches. Roeg found truly grotesque darkness in his take on the story of a young boy who falls victim to a cabal of witches plotting to transform children into mice.

With the help of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, Roeg rendered the true forms of the witches in truly shocking fashion — most notably Anjelica Huston as the Grand High Witch. This sort of nightmare fuel can only be character-building for your kids. Probably.

How to watch: The Witches is available to stream in the UK on Sky and NOW.

Hocus Pocus (1993)

Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy were the witches who defined the 1990s for a lot of horror fans. Hocus Pocus was the perfect combination of fear, hilarity, and exquisite camp to provide a gateway into true horror for viewers who grew up around the turn of the millennium. It follows that trio of witches as they are accidentally resurrected and subsequently run riot on Halloween night.

Read more: “Brilliant” Hocus Pocus 3 gets exciting update as sequel trends again on UK streamer (Digital Spy, 2 min read)

Few movies embody Halloween viewing as much as Hocus Pocus, which, despite bombing at the box office, has become a seasonal staple for audiences young and old thanks to TV airings over the years. With that in mind, it was little surprise when a sequel arrived in 2022 and there’s talk of a third film on the way.

How to watch: In the UK, you can stream Hocus Pocus on Disney+.

ParaNorman (2012)

Just a few years after Coraline, Laika landed another entry in the family Halloween canon with ParaNorman. The movie follows a young boy who aims to use his ability to communicate with ghosts to break an ancient witch’s curse. Writer and co-director Chris Butler was inspired by the fact that zombie films often have something more to say about society, using his family-friendly horror tale to express feelings and ideas about growing up.

The film delivers on that central thesis, delivering scares and laughs while also working hard to speak directly to the kids in its audience. It’s also memorable for including a prominent gay character, which remains sadly rare in PG-rated movies even now.

How to watch: ParaNorman is streaming for free on ITVX for UK audiences, and returns to UK cinemas in 3D on 23 October.

The Dark Crystal (1982)

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The Dark Crystal isn’t technically a horror movie — it’s a dark fantasy adventure tale — but nobody told the Skeksis that they weren’t in a scary film. The bird-like villains of Jim Henson and Frank Oz’s tale are nothing short of horrifying, not least when they’re stuffing their faces gleefully at a truly grotesque feast.

More of a cult hit than box office dynamite, The Dark Crystal has grown in esteem as the kids who were terrified by it first time around have become adults. In 2019, Netflix unveiled a prequel series that sadly only ran for one season, but it will have set up another generation to be terrified by the Skeksis.

How to watch: The Dark Crystal is streaming on both ITVX and Prime Video in the UK.

Frankenweenie (2012)

There might not be a more Tim Burton film than Frankenweenie, rising to the top of a crowded field. It got Burton fired from Disney in 1984, when his original short film version was deemed an inappropriate waste of company resources. But times had changed by the mid-2000s, with Burton’s star now through the roof and Disney more open to the macabre tale of a young boy who reanimates his dead dog.

The film is a loving homage to Frankenstein and a nod to Burton’s long-term brilliance, giving him the freedom to make his movie in handsome black-and-white, as well as through the use of stop-motion animation. These are the things you can get away with when you’ve just made a billion-dollar adaptation of Alice in Wonderland.

How to watch: You can stream Frankenweenie in the UK via Disney+.

KPop Demon Hunters (2025)

KPop Demon Hunters might just be the biggest movie hit of 2025. Netflix claims the film has been viewed 325 million times on its platform, while its sing-along cinema release topped the American box office charts on its opening weekend, dethroning horror success story Weapons. Unsurprisingly, given its dark fantasy context and costume potential, it’s back in cinemas over the Halloween period — in both the US and the UK.

Read more: Why you may not see a live-action version of ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ any time soon (CNN, 2 min read)

The film follows a supernatural face-off between two K-Pop bands — a girl group made up of demon hunters and a male outfit made up of secret demons. It comes with a catchy soundtrack, stellar visuals, and enough charm to have won over the entire world. This will be a Halloween favourite for decades to come.

How to watch: KPop Demon Hunters is available on Netflix UK, including in a sing-along version.

Frankenstein (1931)

Frankenstein is back in UK cinemas this Halloween, with Guillermo del Toro’s lavish new adaptation stopping by on the big screen en route to Netflix. But that is a less than family-friendly affair, rated 15 by the BBFC for “strong violence and injury detail”. If you want to experience Mary Shelley’s definitive Gothic horror tale with the family, you could do a lot worse than heading all the way back to 1931 and Boris Karloff’s hulking portrayal of the monster.

Read more: Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein opens to nearly 15-minute standing ovation in Venice (The Independent, 3 min read)

There’s a methodical, plodding feel to James Whale’s iconic horror movie, but the monochrome cinematography gives it a uniquely unsettling vibe throughout. If you want to introduce the family to classic horror in the most accessible way, it’s well worth reaching for Whale’s memorable take on Frankenstein.

How to watch: Frankenstein is available to rent or buy on digital platforms in the UK.