39 Classic Horror Movies Returning to Theaters in October 2025

Halloween is almost here, and that means a whole bunch of classic horror movies are heading back to your local movie theater.

Here’s a list of 39 terrifying titles that are heading to North America’s major theater chains in October 2025. Make sure to also check the schedules for your neighborhood independent theaters, especially your local drive-ins, many of which are still open long into the haunting season.

Evil Dead in Concert (On Tour)

Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell’s early ’80s horror classic is currently touring America with the help of a live ensemble performing the original musical score. You can find out when it’s visiting your town right here.

 

A Nightmare on Elm Street (Oct. 1 at AMC, Oct. 4 at Regal)

Wes Craven’s 1984 classic not only launched one of horror’s most enduring franchises, it marked the film debut of Johnny Depp. Too bad he didn’t listen to Nancy when she warned him to stay awake.

 

Candyman (Oct. 2 at Regal, Oct. 15 at AMC)

How does this guy keep coming back? Just don’t say his name FIVE times while standing in front of a mirror, how difficult is this?

 

Friday the 13th Part III (Oct. 3 at Regal) 

In the ’80s, by law the third movie in any franchise had to be shot in 3-D. Friday the 13th Part III actually made pretty good use of the format, particularly with a memorable spear gun murder. This is also where Jason finally got his famous hockey mask.

 

Scream (Oct. 5 at Regal, Oct. 22 at AMC)

After previously revolutionizing the horror world with the Nightmare on Elm Street series, Wes Craven teamed up with writer Kevin Williamson for Scream. It’s a textbook example of having your cake and eating it too, as the duo skewer the cliches of the genre while delivering well-earned scares.

 

The Strangers (Oct. 6 at Regal)

It’s easy to understand how the hidden faces and unexplained motives of the menacing, murderous villains of the original The Strangers made the 2008 movie a cult classic. Why anybody thought the 2024 remake would be an improvement is the real mystery.

 

The Devil’s Rejects (Oct. 6 and 8 at Cinemark)

So far Rob Zombie’s second directorial effort stands as his cinematic high water mark, as the well-grounded story and your unavoidable sympathy for The Devil’s Rejects‘ undeniably evil protagonists giving each plot twist and murder extra depth and meaning.

 

 Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (Oct. 7 at Regal)

After letting other directors handle the second through sixth installments of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, Wes Craven returns and flips the script in a very creative and meta way, imagining what would happen if Freddy Kreuger made the jump from joke-spewing fictional character to real-life murderous menace.

 

From Dusk till Dawn (Oct. 8 at Regal) 

Riding high as the star of television’s ER, George Clooney made his first big-screen move by appearing in the Quentin Tarantino-written, Robert Rodriquez-directed From Dusk till Dawn, which shifts from a gritty criminal story to an outrageous life and death battle against vampires. And yes, they were vampires. Pyschos do not explode when sunlight hits them.

 

Friday the 13th (Oct. 8 at AMC)

Two years after making his big-screen debut in Animal House, Kevin Bacon appeared in the first Friday the 13th movie, meaning there’s only one degree of separation between Jason Voorhees and John “Bluto” Blutarsky.

 

An American Werewolf in London (Oct. 9 at Regal)

In a nutshell: Two stupid Americans ignore simple, sound advice from friendly London pub-goers, get turned into werewolves and get lots of people killed. The message: Obey local customs!

 

It (Chapter One) (Oct. 10 at Regal)

Nearly three decades after Stephen King’s 1986 novel It was made into a successful 1990 TV miniseries, Pennywise the Clown made his big-screen debut a smashing (and biting) success in 2017.

Read More: The Best Reason to Watch Each ‘Halloween’ Movie

 

Army of Darkness (Oct. 11 at Regal)

Ash, the chainsaw-wielding kicker of undead butt, finds himself trapped in the middle ages in Bruce Campbell’s third (and over thirty years later we’re still saying hopefully not last) Evil Dead big screen adventure. Hail to the king, baby!

 

Sleepy Hollow (Oct. 12 at Regal)

Fifteen years after his A NIghtmare on Elm Street debut, Johnny Depp entered 1999 as one of the most popular and acclaimed actors of his generation. He made three horror movies that year, the best of which found him teaming up with longtime collaborator director Tim Burton for a gorgeous and haunting adaptation of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

 

Friday the 13th Part 2 (Oct. 13 at Cinemark)

Not sure why Jason Voorhees is muscling in on Michael Myers’ holiday three different times this month, but we’re not complaining about it either. It’s been 16 years since a new Friday the 13th movie was released, but a prequel TV series named Crystal Lake is currently in production.

 

Silver Bullet (Oct. 13 at Regal)

Gary Busey and Corey Haim team up to track down and stop a werewolf who is tormenting a small town in a 1985 adaption of a Stephen King novella. A New York Times critic noted that the movie’s main creature “looks less like a wolf than Smokey Bear with a terrible hangover,” but there’s fun to be had here.

 

Creepshow (Oct. 14 at Regal) 

Night of the Living Dead director George A. Romero teams up with screenwriter Stephen King to present six short stories mixing the humor and horror of ’50s comic books such as Tales From the Crypt. Look for Ted Danson, Leslie Nielsen and Richard Gere in the cast.

 

Trick ‘r Treat (Oct. 14 and 16 at Cinemark)

Serving as writer and director, Michael Dougherty delivers a fantastic series of short Halloween horror stories featuring the oddly cute but very vengeful demon Sam. In 2015 Doughterty hit it out of the park again with the Chrstmas-themed horror classic Krampus.

 

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (Oct. 15 at Cinemark)

Five years after the events of the first Nightmare on Elm Street, a new family moves into the house haunted by Freddy – and somehow decide to stay even after their pet birds viciously attack them and then spontaneously combust.

 

Prince of Darkness (Oct. 15 at Regal)

Prince of Darkness might be John Carpenter’s least impressive ’80s movie – but considering the competition is The Fog, Escape from New York, The Thing, Christine, Starman, Big Trouble in Little China and They Live, that’s not much of an insult.

It might take the award for most outlandish plot summary: “A group of quantum physics students in Los Angeles are asked to assist a Catholic priest in investigating an ancient cylinder of liquid discovered in a monastery, which they come to find is a sentient, liquid embodiment of SATAN.”

 

Final Destination (Oct. 16 at Regal)

The Final Destination franchise is built on a simple premise: What if Death didn’t like to lose? After a group of teenagers get off a doomed plane, mysterious evil forces conspire to bring them all to the grisly deaths they “unfairly” escaped.

After 14 years away, the franchise returned to theaters earlier this year with Final Destination: Bloodlines, which is well worth your time.

 

Halloween II (Oct. 17 at Cinemark)

Picking up literally the minute the original Halloween ended, this fast-paced sequel finds a still-recovering Laurie Strode attempting to hide from Michael Myers in a hospital, a location which gives our masked hero all sorts of creative new ways to kill people.

 

Hereditary (Oct. 17 at Regal)

In his first full-length movie as writer and director, Ari Aster delivers an instant horror classic. After a horrific accident fractures her family, a mother steadily becomes undone as she realizes much larger and malevolent forces have taken over her house.

 

The Exorcist (Oct. 18 at Regal)

More than fifty years after it made shocked audience members faint or throw up in the theater, The Exorcist is back. Fun fact: This was the first horror movie to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. It did not win, and to date the genre’s only trophy in that category belongs to 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs.

 

The Witch (Oct. 19 at Regal)

Three years before Hereditary introduced the horror world to Ari Aster, 2015’s The Witch marked the debut of another important new writer and director, Rogert Eggers. Although set in Puritanical New England, this movie features a similarly unsettling account of a family torn apart by forces far beyond their comprehension.

 

Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight (Oct. 20 at Regal)

Near the end of its seven-year run on HBO, the popular horror anthology series Tales From the Crypt made its big-screen debut in 1995. Sadly, after years of budget problems, rotating directors and script revisions, the movie suffered a rather inglorious death both with fans and critics.

 

Event Horizon (Oct. 21 at Regal)

While testing out an experimental spaceship designed to use wormholes to travel quickly across the galaxy, the crew of the Event Horizon instead accidentally opens the gates to hell itself. Whoopsie!

 

The Invisible Man (1933) (Oct. 22 at Regal)
The Wolf Man (1941) (Oct. 23 at Regal)
Dracula (1931) (Oct. 24 at Regal)
Frankenstein (1931) (Oct. 25 at Regal)
The Mummy (1932) (Oct. 27 at Regal)

The “Big Five” of early horror monster movie classics, with memorable and often-referenced performances by Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula, Lon Chaney Jr as the Wolf Man and Borlis Karloff as both Frankenstein’s doomed monster and the Mummy.

 

Creature from the Black Lagoon 3D (1954) (Oct. 26 at Regal)

Can we admit that we are way overdue for a remake of this movie? Check out a list of famous directors who have discussed or unsuccessfully attempted their own Creature from the Black Lagoon: John Landis, John Carpenter, Peter Jackson, Ivan Reitman, Guillermo del Toro, and most recently, James Wan.

 

The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) (Oct. 28 at Regal)

With Maggie Gyllenhaal’s rather spectacular looking The Bride! remake arriving in March 2026, this Halloween is a great time to revisit the original The Bride of Frankenstein, which finds Borlis Korloff returning as the actually-not-dead monster, who is looking for a love connection.

 

The Ring (Oct. 29 at Regal)

A cursed videotape causes anybody who watches it to die in exactly a week. Well, it wouldn’t be able to do much damage in 2025, would it? Unless somebody posted it on TikTok.

 

Terrifier (Oct. 29 at AMC)

Every generation of horror fans needs their own signature unstoppable villain, preferably one capable of even more grisly murders than the one before. In 2016 the new king arrived in the form of Art the Clown. I’m tapping out at this point, you kids have fun with him!

 

Rosemary’s Baby (1968) (Oct. 30 at Regal)

At one point or another every sleep-deprived parent of a newborn child probably has the same thought: “Have I brought the spawn of Satan himself into this world to drain me of my life force?” Well, here’s what that would really look like if you lived in an Upper West Side New York City apartment.

 

Halloween (Oct. 30 at Marcus)

After 12 sequels and remakes, some very worthy, John Carpenter’s original 1978 Halloween remains the king of holiday-themed horror movies. For nearly 90 minutes the tension builds to unbearable levels until Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode has the first of what would turn out to be many terrifying life-and-death battles with Michael Myers.

 

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (Oct. 31 at Regal)

A Halloween movie without Michael Myers? That’s exactly what the third movie in the series attempted to get away with, shifting to a completely different story about an evil mask-maker attempting to unleash supernatural forces through a television commerical by using stolen pieces of Stonehenge. It all worked about as well as you’d expect, and Halloween 4 brought Myers back from the dead.