When something scares me, my eyes start to water. This is a known and observed phenomenon. Someone tells me a spooky story, and immediately, my eyes are watering. And it’s a fun thing, to be a little scared. I believe in getting spooked.
The first time I remember this happening was with a VHS tape we got from Title Wave Bookstore. If you’re not familiar, Title Wave is in a former Multnomah County Library branch, one block from Matt Dishman Community Center in North Portland.
They only sell books that were deaccessioned from the library system, so we grew up with all our owned media, from books to cassette and VHS tapes, from there. Which resulted in a lot of Saddle Club books (my sister and I aspired to be horse girls, even though we grew up off of Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and had no access to horses) and educational VHS tapes. Including one that was particularly (and kind of embarrassingly) terrifying to me.
My mom picked out this tape because it read through storybooks with the original illustrations as visuals. Which sounds (and was) tame, but the third story was different. It was the titular story from “In A Dark, Dark Room And Other Scary Stories,” a collection of horror stories for children. It’s very repetitive, in a stylistic way, and takes you further into the dark with a spooky surprise at the end (it may be a scary poem for children published in 1984, but I won’t spoil it, just in case you had been itching to read it).
Three lines in, my watering eyes had spilled over my cheeks, and I was riveted. And I have been chasing that high ever since.
Halloween is one of two holidays where I maintain that the fun in it is celebrating it like you’re a kid (the other being Halloween’s straight sister, Valentine’s Day). When you take it too seriously, it loses its magic. So over the month of October, I make space for Halloween-coded media. And most of the time, it’s stuff from my childhood (including my teen years).
I know that’s a peak millennial take, but I also don’t mean that you should go full-on late-stage capitalism and buy every adorable ghost or skeleton-bedecked trinket (or most likely, mugs, we millennials love a mug for some reason) available now at your local TJ Maxx just to try and recapture that magic. (Also sidenote for my Maxxinstas: this year, many things you find in the Halloween section are AI-generated and stolen from real artists, so shop carefully.) Or that you need to watch every “Halloweentown.” (I especially wouldn’t say that, as every film after “Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge” is a complete waste of time, in my opinion.)
Enjoy what you want to to feel festive, but I would encourage you to add some of the deeper-buried media from your youth than Hocus Pocus.
“The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad” (1949)
Okay, I am fully aware this is a weird pull, but I do watch it every October. It’s got big fall vibes, two classic tales and countless anthropomorphic animals.
It starts with a take on “The Wind In The Willows.” J. Thaddeus Toad is on his severe, undiagnosed ADHD bullshit again, and like many neurodivergent queens, he has a hyperfixation on modes of transportation. When he isn’t letting his estate fall into insolvency and absolutely ripping down the road in a cart, he’s doing psychological damage to his friend group, because he is at minimum an anti-hero (it’s no wonder he goes to hell in the forever-iconic Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride at Disneyland). It’s full of spooky stuff like an upsetting Cockney horse who exists in that freaky Disney thing where he both pulls a cart but can also testify in court, more character assassination of weasels and the manipulation you subject yourself to when you don’t set boundaries with your most chaotic friends (justice for MacBadger).
And now for the real spooky stuff. If the first story wasn’t enough of a sign that these sewn-together short films think that neurodivergent people are upsetting the equilibrium polite society is based upon, this rendition of “Sleepy Hollow” continues that energy by punishing a man for having some of the most lethal autistic rizz. God forbid a weird-looking man be able to pull a dime-piece by being insatiably hungry, a little devious and quite literally having the voice of Bing Crosby.
Also terrifying is Brom Bones, the town’s chief bully and Ichabod’s rival for the wealthy and Bo-Peep coded Katrina. And while Brom has all the hallmarks of an entitled manosphere resident, Ichabod isn’t much better. They both see a woman as a prize to win for her beauty and money, and are quite mean to an enthusiastic, fat woman with a precise bob who just wants to dance. Basically, everyone sucks here.
Oh, and Ichabod hears the tale of the Headless Horseman, who later terrorizes and possibly beheads him. There’s a spooky, dark forest and a scary man with a pumpkin head, the whole nine yards. But that’s all a bit played, don’t you think?
“Over the Garden Wall” (2014)
If you’ve seen it, this one’s more obvious. “Over the Garden Wall” has it all. It happens on Halloween (spoiler), there’s a bunch of spooky imagery, there’s an ominous antagonist called The Beast, and one episode takes place in a town filled with Pumpkin people (and one turkey), for Pete’s sake!
The episodic nature of this 10-part animated miniseries allows it to function like vignettes of two half-brothers, Wirt and Greg, searching through the Unknown to find a way home. One episode has them in a schoolhouse full of talking animals, another scamming an old, wealthy teamaker (played by John Cleese) for literally two cents, and in my favorite episode, in a tavern full of people who all fit different archetypes (including my beloved Highwayman). Maybe they will befriend a cursed bluebird who may or may not be helping or they have an encounter with Auntie Whispers (voiced beautifully by the late, great Tim Curry) and Lorna, who is not who she seems.
It’s a spooky, little tale that has fallen completely out of time (seriously, who still makes a mixtape on cassette for someone, Wirt?) and all together, it’s the same length as the average movie! Check it out and let yourself get lost a bit.
“Jennifer’s Body” (2009)
“Jennifer’s Body” was robbed. It was marketed around how hot Megan Fox is, and in a hilariously ironic turn, completely missed a story about the objectification of young women.
Directed by Karyn Kusama and written by Diablo Cody, following her Oscar win for 2007’s “Juno,” this film centers around Needy, a teen in small-town Minnesota and her best friend Jennifer. Jennifer’s definitely the dominant personality in the friendship and is definitely one of those friends you stick with because you’ve been through the majority of your lives together, rather than actual shared interests. Jennifer’s pretty, popular and a color guard flag spinner. Needy’s obsessed with her.
Jennifer convinces Needy to join her at a dive bar to see indie rock band Low Shoulder, who she describes as “so salty.” The bar is engulfed in flames, but Jennifer and Needy make it out. Jennifer is convinced to follow the band, led by a rare evil character played by Adam Brody, but Needy stays behind.
Funnily enough, I saw this movie at the house of my longest-lasting friend (we met in kindergarten) because her house was where I saw every horror film I saw prior to my age of majority. And even more than 15 years later, I do not forgive her for scaring me so thoroughly after our watch party of “Drag Me to Hell”.
At 16, this movie struck something in me that I couldn’t really name. Now, I get it, I was a nerdy, teenage (presumed) girl who was in love by way of obsession with the talented girl a year ahead of me that I spent every lunch with. And I love snappy dialogue, so sue me.
Hey Arnold! Haunted Train episode
I had to give you one that is both short (at just under 12 minutes) and actually quite difficult to find. But if you are a Paramount+ subscriber (or have access to someone else’s account, like a true patriot) or have other means, I would seek this episode out.
“Hey Arnold!” is generally a good watch, in the way that a lot of shows made in the 90s reflect the world that a Boomer-Gen X cusp-er grew up in. There were several creepy Halloween episodes with surprising scary elements, but the eighth episode of the first season, “Haunted Train” is a formative eye-waterer for me.
The titular football-head and his best friend Gerald are bored, and as often happens in this show, Arnold’s grandpa steps in to tell them a legend he heard at some point. This time, the point is when he worked for the railroad, and the legend is of engine 25, the haunted train (ooooh!).
Basically, the engineer went mad one night and drove the train into the fiery underworld, which they are careful not to call H-E-double hockey sticks, because that’s a step too far. Every year at midnight, passengers are drawn into the haunted train by a bright light and are subjected to bad smells, bad music and the train lights going dark until they are brought to the aforementioned underworld that is for sure not hell. And of course, tonight is the 40th anniversary of the disappearance of the train.
Helga, one of those bullies who actually has a crush on you that adults were always telling you about, joins the duo as the group skeptic to investigate. And these unaccompanied minors meet that night to try to see engine 25. They wait and begin to believe the train isn’t coming until it does. And wouldn’t you know it, they are pulled in by a bright light.
I won’t spoil the ending, but it ends with one of those kids-show-bangers that live on in your mind forever. I’m serious, this blues song sung by a mad engineer has been rattling around in there for decades now.
Choose your own adventure: “The Addams Family” (1991) or “Addams Family Values” (1993)
I was raised in an “Addams Family Values” family. My mom was pretty staunchly anti-sequel pre-The Matrix, but we respect Joan Cusack putting her all into a character, damnit! And that she does as a blonde, pastel-bedecked serial killer that seduces beloved Uncle Fester.
It’s filled with iconic moments and lines that are often quoted in our family. I mean, just that scene where Wednesday sets fire to a whole historically-inaccurate Thanksgiving-themed play (that is being put on at summer camp for some reason?) was gif’ed to death by all the other Smithies I was mutuals with on Tumblr. And to this day, everyone is begging me around this time to stop repeating “My name’s Fester, it means to ROT.” But I will not apologize. Christopher Lloyd read that line in a very weird way that is fun to say.
But in preparation for this column, I rewatched both. And both have their cracks from being made in the early 1990s (honestly, same, girl), but these two films are overall delightful. I still love the sequel, but I was not giving the first film its flowers.
“The Addams Family” establishes what makes “Family Values” great. Essentially, this film created the Addams as we know them. Wednesday is deadpan and murderous, Gomez and Morticia are explicitly horny for each other, Fester is both beloved by the family and also easy to cast off to create plot. And it’s fun to see the origin of those traits.
More specific reasons to love “The Addams Family”: Wednesday and Pugsley’s Shakespeare performance, the Mamoushka, Dr. Pinder-Schloss and her pronunciation of “Dees-place-munt” and most importantly, there is more magic in this one. Like the house is actually magic. Which frankly makes sense, they have a pet hand, of course, there’s magic, but it’s only used to progress the plot in the first film.
“Addams Family Values” takes the formula of kooky characters interacting with “normal” people built by the 1960’s show and perfects it in a way that is understandable for 1990’s audiences (sidenote: I cannot really figure out who the intended audience is for these movies). But it can’t exist without its predecessor building out this world, and why these folks are so kooky and lovable.
Basically, you can watch either or both and still have a great time. But one last warning: both films employ a conceptually challenging and vibe-tainting parody song during the credits, and maybe that’s the scariest thing of all.
This article appears in September 30, 2026.