I love Halloween but I’m rubbish with scary movies – here are my 7 animated movie picks for spooky season

I adore Halloween; nan costumes, nan pumpkin carving, nan opportunity to origin nationalist upset and constitute it disconnected arsenic seasonal trickery. Everything astir nan spooky play calls to immoderate of my dearest passions – well, everything isolated from nan best scary movies, that is.

Now, don’t get maine wrong. I’m impartial to a bully shade story, fewer and acold betwixt arsenic they look to beryllium successful Hollywood these days, and I will gladly puzzle my measurement done a mind-bending sci-fi flick for illustration It’s What’s Inside. However arsenic soon arsenic things veer excessively acold into gratuitous gore aliases traumatic thrillers that deed conscionable a spot excessively adjacent to home, I’m tapping retired – I’ll time off that to my awesome workfellow Rowan Davies, who has spent overmuch of this period reporting connected nan champion scary movies to watch this Halloween from different genres.

Instead, I’m impartial to nan lightly creepy but family-friendly broadside of Halloween movies, broadly characterized by immoderate fantabulous animated movies. Here are my apical picks for TechRadar's Halloween Week.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

RT Score: 95%
Director: Henry Selick
Runtime: 76 minutes
Where to stream: Disney Plus (US, UK, AU)

Part Brothers Grimm fairytale, portion creation film, The Nightmare Before Christmas is simply a genre-defining animated Halloween movie conceived by Tim Burton – though we beryllium a batch of its accumulation and productivity to nan lesser-credited head Henry Selick. Jack Skellington, nan Pumpkin King of 'Halloween Town' feels unfulfilled by his domiciled and yearns for thing new, and stumbles upon 'Christmas Town'. What originates arsenic a somewhat well-meaning effort to stock his find pinch his loyal subjects quickly spirals into a dispute takeover of nan festive season, nan kidnapping of Santa Claus, and a frighteningly adjacent telephone pinch a bogeyman.

It’s a ocular delight, effortlessly blending its raw, scratchy and stuttering animation pinch a soft, whimsical playfulness that only stop-motion animation tin achieve. It’s macabre, it’s evocative, but astir importantly it’s besides nosy and inventive, creating a timeless world that generations since and those to travel will delight in.

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of nan Were-Rabbit

RT Score: 95%
Directors: Nick Park and Steve Box
Runtime: 85 minutes
Where to stream: Netflix (US), Prime Video (UK)

A modern classic, Aardman Animations’ iconic British stop-motion animated drama duo returns for different slapstick jaunt successful Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of nan Were-Rabbit. This time, cheese-loving inventor Wallace has turned his talents to a caller business venture; (seed) disease control. Joined arsenic ever by his long-suffering beagle, Gromit, nan duo is employed by Lady Tottington (Helena Bonham Carter) to forestall a plague of rabbits from pillaging nan town’s crops. Of course, things ne'er rather spell to scheme erstwhile there’s 1 of Wallace’s clever contraptions involved, and taking down a elephantine were-rabbit surely was not portion of nan plan.

Packed pinch plentifulness of delightful Britishisms, Wallace and Gromit’s first feature-length escapade didn’t rather instrumentality nan commercialized landing Aardman’s then-parent institution Dreamworks had hoped for. Still, nan movie has seen world acclaim and stands among nan astir celebrated family-friendly Halloween movies of each time.

Coraline

RT Score: 91%
Director: Henry Selick
Runtime: 100 minutes
Where to stream: The Roku Channel and Tubi (US), rent connected Apple TV and Amazon Video (US, UK, AU)

Another Henry Selick masterpiece and based connected Neil Gaiman’s 2002 novella, Coraline sees its eponymous characteristic observe a concealed “Other World” wrong her caller home. With her existent parents engaged pinch work, Coraline is lured to this vibrant world by her parents’ button-eyed doppelgängers. Unbeknownst to her, however, each is not arsenic it seems, and she must outsmart and outmaneuver these evil entities to prevention her family.

Featuring nan immense vocal talents of nan likes of Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French and more, it’s not conscionable a star-studded formed that makes nan magic of Coraline travel to life; Selick assembled a awesome squad of ocular artists and techniques to render nan hauntingly beautiful and unsocial artistic of nan film. It features nan talents of Japanese illustrator Tadahiro Uesugi arsenic a conception artist, credited pinch conceptualizing nan vibrant colour palette of nan “Other World” arsenic good arsenic designing sets and backgrounds, and nan unit besides 3D printed thousands of models for everything from facial expressions to group pieces. The resulting movie is simply a method and ocular masterpiece that stands nan trial of time.

Corpse Bride

RT Score: 84%
Directors: Tim Burton, Mike Johnson
Runtime: 77 minutes
Where to stream: Max (US), rent connected Apple TV and Amazon Video (US, UK, AU)

You guessed it, different stop-motion masterpiece. The movie centers astir Victor (voiced by Johnny Depp), a tense soon-to-be groom to Victoria (Emily Watson), pinch nan 2 being initially brought together successful an arranged engagement earlier falling madly successful love. Following a disastrous wedding rehearsal, Victor accidentally weds himself to a corpse while rehearsing his vows, reviving a female called Emily (Helena Bonham Carter) who was murdered connected nan nighttime of her elopement successful nan process. He’s subsequently whisked distant from his impending nuptials to nan Land of nan Dead to fulfill his responsibility arsenic her husband, and pinch Victoria waiting for him successful nan world of nan living, takes action to reunite pinch his existent bride.

Tackling immoderate much mature, tragic themes of love, loss, resentment and abandonment, Corpse Bride is simply a ocular feast that combines CGI ocular effects pinch highly elaborate and painterly group and characteristic design.

The Secret of NIMH

RT score: 93%
Director: Don Bluth
Runtime: 82 minutes
Where to stream: The Roku Channel (US), Prime Video (US, UK)

This is simply a title I only discovered while researching this article, but it’s quickly risen nan ranks of my all-time favourite animated movies. While it’s not a existent Halloween movie successful nan accepted consciousness that applies to nan movies I’ve listed above, Don Bluth’s directorial debut is simply a amazingly acheronian animated movie that tackles themes of animal testing, lodging situation and loss. Its protagonist, widowed section rodent Mrs. Brisby, must protect her ailing and bed-bound boy Timothy from nan impending demolition of their home, a cinder artifact successful a farmer’s field. To do so, she enlists nan thief of a group of highly intelligent rats who person mastered nan usage of quality exertion aft being nan taxable of quality experimentation to effort and move nan full location to safety.

Sprinkle successful a touch of betrayal, immoderate tragic deaths and a glimmer of magic, and you’ve sewage nan look for an instant classic. Despite this dourness, however, NIMH’s gutsy formed of countryside wildlife creatures sparkles successful a classical show of 1980s animation duplexity. If you bask Bluth’s other, possibly better-known classics for illustration An American Tail, The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go to Heaven and Anastasia, it’s judge to delight.

Spirited Away

RT score: 96%
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Runtime: 125 minutes
Where to stream: Max (US), Netflix (UK, AU)

OK, this 1 besides mightiness not beryllium considered a existent Halloween movie, but I situation you to reason that nan crown jewel of Ghibli animation isn’t eerie and haunting capable to beryllium considered a spooky play classic. While moving to nan countryside, 10-year-old Chihiro and her parents make a incorrect move and onshore themselves successful problem erstwhile they observe a seemingly abandoned amusement park. In truth, nan eerie shade municipality is, well, a literal shade town, done which Chihiro meets a big of whimsical characters connected her quest to reunite pinch her parents.

Poignant and poetic, Spirited Away imaginatively and hauntingly explores themes of adolescence, generational conflict, consumerism, and nostalgia done nan lens of its kid protagonist, resulting successful a splendrous and thought-provoking portion of modern animation. Oh, and that 1 segment pinch nan giant-headed crone wailing for her missing kid gave maine nightmares for astir 15 years.

Frankenweenie

RT score: 88%
Director: Tim Burton
Runtime: 87 minutes
Where to stream: Disney Plus (US, UK, AU)

If you’ve knowledgeable nan symptom of losing a pet, you’ll understand nan plight of Frankenweenie’s protagonist, a young Victor Frankenstein. Grappling pinch grief, Frankenstein turns his burgeoning technological talents to resurrect his beloved dog, Sparky. Unfortunately, his classmates aren’t precisely discerning pinch his discovery, utilizing Frankenstein’s investigation to reanimate a big of creatures and, successful their fervor, create monstrosities.

Like galore films successful this list, Frankenweenie leans connected nan earthy eeriness of stop-motion animation, but pinch nan added flair of being changeable successful achromatic and achromatic to salary homage to Burton’s original 1984 short movie of nan aforesaid name. Much for illustration Coraline, it’s a method masterpiece, pinch quality hairsbreadth being utilized to create nan eerie, uncanny puppets and Swiss watchmakers being employed to create nan mini nuts and bolts utilized successful Sparky’s model.

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