31 October
Halloween 5UX
Five light-hearted Halloween films, picked so the only thing that jumps out at you is a pumpkin. No gore, no jump scares — just ghosts with better comic timing than most comedies.
Official trailer · film runtime 1 h 40 min.
The friendliest ghost in cinema shares a mansion with three uncles who would rather scare you than share the remote. Casper just wants a friend, and the film quietly detours from slapstick into a father-daughter story and then hands you a tissue without warning.
Candy for the eyes, marshmallows for the heart. Watch it with someone who claims not to cry at films, then watch them claim it was allergies.
Official trailer · film runtime 1 h 39 min.
A family that finds joy in graveyards, a disembodied hand with better comic timing than half of Hollywood, and a con artist who learns the hard way that "normal" is overrated. Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston play the most functional marriage in cinema, and it is not close.
Wednesday's smile at the end of the school play is worth the price of the ticket on its own. Warm, weird and never mean — the ideal Halloween film for a household that argues about whether the guillotine counts as a garden feature.
Official trailer · film runtime 1 h 45 min.
Four academics with a nuclear reactor in a backpack, a converted ambulance that is mostly rust, and a municipal budget that will not cover any of it. The jokes land roughly every thirty seconds and the effects have aged into charm rather than embarrassment.
And then there is the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, the only kaiju you would actually invite to a barbecue. It is a ghost story for people who would rather laugh at a ghost than hide from one.
Official trailer · film runtime 1 h 32 min.
Michael Keaton gets maybe eleven minutes of screen time and walks off with the entire afterlife. A recently deceased couple wants the insufferable new owners out of their house, so they hire a "bio-exorcist" with a business card and a plan that is mostly shouting.
The real horror in this film is the dinner-party calypso, and the real comedy is everyone else playing it completely straight. Peak Tim Burton, peak shoulder pads, and a waiting room full of ghosts who died in ways you will be quoting for a week.
Official trailer · film runtime 1 h 36 min.
Three centuries-old witches, a candle lit by a teenager, and a vacuum cleaner they immediately treat as a chariot. Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy and Sarah Jessica Parker spend the whole film being outsmarted by three kids and a cat who used to be a boy, and they seem to be enjoying it more than anyone.
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