Which Streaming Service Has The Best Halloween Haul?

Between horror films, family-friendly Halloween movies, seasonal television episodes, and thrilling TV mysteries, each major streaming service has a solid autumnal selection. But which platform has the best Halloween content for you? It depends on what you want!

Perhaps you’re in the mood for classic Halloween content, or you’re sick of nostalgia but hungry for new horror releases. Maybe you’re a scaredy cat searching for a safe series to watch or a parent looking to celebrate the season without giving your kids nightmares for the rest of their lives.

Whatever you’re hungry for, we’re sure that Netflix, Disney+, Starz, Peacock, Hulu, Prime Video, Apple TV+, Paramount+, Max, or AMC+ can satisfy your craving. To help you find the right streaming service for you this Halloween, Decider’s team of writers/professional movie and TV watchers broke down some major perks of each, so you can start planning your perfect October Stream And Scream Schedules.

Here’s some of the best seasonal streams and screams each major platform has to offer.

• Starz: Supernatural Suburbia!

  This October, Starz is putting a spotlight on one of the creepiest region known to man: The suburbs! Not only is Shining Vale returning for its sophomore season midway through the month — mark your calendars for Friday, October 13th! — but the collection of titles they’ve added this month in time for spooky szn also includes a spate of movies about the horrors that happen to urban dwellers when they leave the big city for the cozier confines known as the ‘burbs. Like, for example, The Burbs, the 1989 Tom Hanks horror-comedy where the future Oscar winner becomes convinced that his neighborhood has become overrun by Satanists. Or The Blackening, where seven Black friends leave the city for a weekend getaway to a cabin in the woods (that never ends well, does it?). You can currently get 3 months of Starz for the terrifyingly low price of just $3/month, so you can sample all of the great series and movies in their library — they’re also home to all of the Saw movies! — and still have enough to buy plenty of Halloween candy.—Mark Graham

• Hulu: Best 2023 Stream And Screams

  First of all, out of all the cutesy names given to the various streamer’s spooky content, “Huluween” is clearly the best. Hulu has a buttload of promising horror content coming this month. The streamer started off the Halloween holiday season strong with No One Will Save You, a near-silent horror film starring Kaitlyn Dever and some very scary aliens. Coming down the pipe are two more original horror movies —Appendage and The Mill. Plus, the 2023 Stephen King movie The Boogeyman, which opened in theaters in June, is coming to Hulu on October 5. Hulu is clearly the place to be for “stream and screams” this year. – Anna Menta

• Peacock: Most Universal Horror

  Whether you’re a diehard horror fan or a scaredy cat looking for a mild fright, Peacock’s library of classic Universal monster movies is a must-watch. You can trace the DNA of modern horror all the way back to these classics, all of which have runtimes tailored to modern attention spans. We love a spooky movie under 80 minutes! Check out 1933’s Invisible Man, 1935’s Bride of Frankenstein, and Dracula’s Daughter (1936) for its trailblazing queerness. And if you’re in the mood for something new, Peacock has new Blumhouse feature Five Nights at Freddy‘s and the new anthology series John Carpenter’s Suburban Screams waiting for you. — Brett White

• Prime Video: Best Streamer For New Theatrical Horror Releases

  It’s hard to truly justify Prime Video as being the home for new theatrical horror releases now that every studio has a streamer and every streamer has a studio, and every theatrical movie has a deal with a streamer or a studio, but I’m going to do it anyway. Prime Video is the best platform for new theatrical horror releases because the streamer welcomes a fun variety of them all. The streaming giant has a dedicated category for newly released theatrical movies and it isn’t just limited to big studio movies. Independent movies also frequent the section! Missed Insidious: The Red Door or Talk to Me in theaters? No fear, they’re already available to be purchased on Prime Video. Need to catch up on the Saw movies before seeing the latest installment in theaters, well, if you’re already on Prime Video, they’re there too. Want to watch Smile but don’t have Paramount Plus? It’s okay, it’s on Prime Video! Variety is key here. — Raven Brunner

• Apple TV+: High On Thrills (Low On Chills)

  As the girl who dubbed Severance, Apple TV+‘s eerie workplace thriller, a perfect Halloween binge last year it should come as no surprise that I’m penning the ode to the platform’s underrated fall watches. If you’re someone who loves thrilling mysteries but hates chilling horror, Apple TV+ has you covered. In addition to Severance, you can celebrate spooky season with spy thriller Slow Horses, high-octane thriller Hijack, dark comedic thriller Bad Sisters, psychological thrillers The Crowded Room or Surface, or other thrilling sci-fi series like Silo and The Big Door Prize. Looking for a fun thrill? Check out Apple TV+’s murder mystery The Afterparty! And if you’re brave enough to seek out some chills, the platform does dabble in horror with scarier series like Black Bird, Servant, Shining Girls, and The Changeling.

• Netflix: Best Horror Television Shows

  Netflix has built a wonderful catalog of horror television shows over the last few years after striking multi-year deals with horror masterminds Ryan Murphy and Mike Flanagan, each of whom have crafted their own universes for the streamer. While Murphy’s American Horror Story lives on FX, he has produced numerous gory true crime-inspired shows for Netflix, including The Watcher, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Series, and Ratched. On the other hand, Flanagan has a thriving Falaverse on the streamer with Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club, The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and the upcoming Edgar Allen Poe series The Fall of the House of Usher. If that’s not enough, need I remind you of one of the streaming giant’s most popular and totally creepy show Stranger Things? Or perhaps you’re looking for something lighter — no fear! Netflix houses Two-Sentence Horror Stories, Wednesday, and two older Goosebumps series. Netflix is far from perfect, but it’s surely killing the horror game! — Raven Brunner

• Disney+: Best Halloween Content For People Who Hate Horror

  There are some people (myself included) who just… don’t want to be scared all the time. And that’s okay! But when you’re trying to get into the Halloween spirit, it can be hard as a person who hates horror. That’s where Disney+ comes in, because the streamer is full of the nostalgic Disney Channel Original Movies of the late 90s and early 00s. Take, for example, the four movies in the Halloweentown franchise — the vibes are great, I’m getting into the Halloween spirit, but I’m not going to have nightmares about teenage witch Marnie Piper. That goes for a lot of the Halloween stuff currently streaming on Disney+, like both Hocus Pocus movies, Twitches and Twitches Too, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and animated specials like Toy Story of Terror (spoiler alert: not that terrifying) and Lego Star Wars: Terrifying Tales. This year, the streamer is light on new Halloween content, but a new series inspired by the R.L. Stine Goosebumps series premieres on October 13 (a Friday, of course), and The Haunted Mansion’s Disney+ release is set for October 4. — Angela Tricarico

• Max: Best For Actual, Real Ghosts

  Ever since HBO Max mashed up with Discovery+, it’s been a strange mix of Warner Bros. Discovery shows and movies, and home renovation shows. While it’s been weird the other 11 months, Max might actually be the perfect streamer for everyone this October. If you like scary movies, you’ve got Evil Dead Rise, IT, Annabelle, and The Nun. For the kids, there’s a whole slew of spooky Scooby-Doo fare. And then there’s the “real” ghosts. You’ve got oodles of series where real people wander around houses and insist they feel “a presence,” from Ghost Hunters to celebrity shows featuring Kesha or Jack Osbourne, to the appropriately named Help! My House is Haunted. Help!fully, they’ve set up a “House of Halloween” hub so you can click right there, and don’t have to worry about watching the actually scariest movie on Max: The Flash. — Alex Zalben

• Paramount+: The Sequel

  Paramount+ has never met a mountain pun it didn’t like. This year, that means “Peak Screaming,” a hub for all the streamer’s spooky shows and movies. And while your mileage may vary on how scary franchises like Yellowstone and Star Trek can get, the real draw of Paramount+ is its sequels. Love A Quiet Place? They’ve got A Quiet Place II. How about Pet Semetary? Then you’ll love Pet Semetary: Bloodlines. Plus Scream VI, Orphan: First Kill, and many more. On the TV side, we highly recommend the superb Evil (which will straight up give you nightmares). And now that Showtime is part of Paramount+, check out the buzzy teen cannibal series Yellowjackets as well. Oh yeah: they’ve got the sequel to Dexter, too. — Alex Zalben

• AMC+: The One With The Walking Dead (And Shudder!)

  All apologies to every other streaming service on this list, but if you’re a horror fan, you need AMC+. Not only does The Walking Dead Universe exist on there, with hot shows like Daryl Dixon and Dead City, but you’ve also got the insanely good and sexy Interview With The Vampire… And you’ve also got access to Shudder content. While Shudder exists as its own, standalone app, with a 24-hour streaming horror channel among other fun bells and whistles, if you’re looking for a curated best of the best of the horror-focused streaming service while flipping between episodes of A Discovery of Witches and Killing Eve, AMC+ is your best bet. — Alex Zalben