Watch · NostalgiaNo. 3561 · The 2026 edition
The ’90s Halloween movies we grew up watching.
Halloweentown, Twitches, Don’t Look Under the Bed and the rest of the ’90s Halloween movies made for TV — plus the 2000s sequels that kept October going.
If you were a kid in the late ’90s or the 2000s, October on television meant a grandmother witch, twins with matching powers and a bogeyman under the bed. These are the ’90s Halloween movies made for TV, plus the 2000s sequels and specials that followed, ordered by how many viewers have rated them.
Nineteen of the twenty are rated mildly spooky: made for kids, built for reruns, safe with the lights off. The exception is Pumpkin Man, the one pick with a scary label. Disney Channel originals make up more than half the list, and the rest come from elsewhere on the dial, down to a few deep cuts even superfans may have missed.
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01
Halloweentown
The one that started the franchise: Marnie learns she’s a witch, and Debbie Reynolds makes Grandma Aggie the grandmother everyone wanted. Still the Disney Channel Halloween movie to beat.
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02
Halloweentown II: Kalabar's Revenge
Marnie and Aggie against Kalabar’s son, who arrives with a grudge and some very powerful spells. The rare sequel that keeps the charm of the first.
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03
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04
Halloweentown High
Halloweentown kids enroll at a mortal high school, and Marnie bets the family magic that nothing goes wrong. You can guess how that bet plays out.
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05
Return to Halloweentown
Marnie heads off to Witch University for the series finale, with a new actress in the role — a recast fans still bring up. The lowest-rated Halloweentown film, but it completes the set.
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06
Twitches Too
The Mowry twins return and try normal life, until word arrives that their father may not be dead after all. Softer than the first, and a natural second feature.
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07
Mom's Got a Date with a Vampire
Two kids play matchmaker for their mom and pick, of all people, a vampire. The title does the pitch; the Disney Channel movie plays it for laughs first.
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08
Tower of Terror
Disney turned its theme-park ride into a TV movie: Steve Guttenberg as a disgraced reporter, Kirsten Dunst tagging along, and a hotel where five people vanished sixty years earlier.
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09
Phantom of the Megaplex
Premiere night at the multiplex, and something is making the screenings eerie. A Disney Channel original for anyone who ever worked a concession stand — or wanted to.
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10
Don't Look Under the Bed
A prank-playing bogeyman frames a teenager, and only an imaginary friend named Larry Houdini can help. The Disney Channel movie with a reputation for genuinely scaring its audience.
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11
Double, Double Toil and Trouble
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen try to save their parents from a greedy aunt on Halloween night. Peak Olsen-twins television, with actual magic on the menu.
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12
Under Wraps
Three kids and a very confused mummy race to reunite him with a love from 4,500 years ago. Officially the first Disney Channel Original Movie, and sweeter than its bandages suggest.
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13
The Halloween Tree
Ray Bradbury narrates his own story and Leonard Nimoy voices the guide as four kids race through Halloween history to save a friend. One of the best-rated films here, and the most thoughtful.
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14
The Scream Team
Two kids discover a depot where spirits wait to cross over — and learn their grandfather never arrived. An early-2000s Disney Channel ghost story with a proper villain.
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15
When Good Ghouls Go Bad
Twenty years after creepy Curtis Danko died warning Walker Falls never to hold another Halloween, the Walker men come home and set off a chain of events. Zombies follow, more goofy than grisly.
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16
Underfist: Halloween Bash
A Cartoon Network spin-off of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, in which the show’s oddball supporting players team up as a ragtag squad for Halloween. Loud, absurd and barely spooky.
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17
Roxy Hunter and the Horrific Halloween
Mr. Tibers tells the story of Roxy’s first Halloween in Serenity Falls, where the new kid in class turns out to be hiding a supernatural secret. A small-town mystery, gently spooky.
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18
Pumpkin Man
The odd one out: a little-seen 1998 TV movie, and the only pick here with a scary label rather than a mildly spooky one. Details are scarce; the title does the talking.
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19
Pumpkin Moon
A 2005 animated rarity with barely fifty ratings and a remarkably high average. Pumpkins feature, as promised; much else is a mystery, which is half the fun.
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20
3-D Halloween
The deepest cut here: a 2000 oddity filed under documentary and fantasy at once, with only fifteen ratings to its name. Mildly spooky, and strictly for the curious.
Every one of these was built to be rerun, which is exactly why they stuck.
Line up Halloweentown and its sequels for a marathon, or mix in Under Wraps and The Halloween Tree for variety. The full watchlist has these alongside every other Halloween movie we track, from gentle to genuinely frightening.