It is Saturday 31 October, still warm out after tea, and one of you has waited all year to watch something properly frightening while the other already has the blanket up to their eyebrows. Here are six Halloween movies and shows for a horror-hating partner and the fan they live with, each rated honestly for how scary it gets and where it streams in Australia. Halloween still splits the country. Half your street will have a bowl of lollies by the door and a plastic skeleton on the letterbox, and the other half will tell anyone who asks that it is an American thing, right before buying a bag of Freddo Frogs just in case.
It gets a bit bigger here every year, and it still lands in the wrong season. The jacarandas are out, the evenings are warm, and pumpkins in this country go in the soup, not on the porch. None of that matters to the fan. They have been counting down since the footy finished, and the other one would like to stay on the couch without being traumatised. Both of those can happen on the same night.
How to split the night without a blue
Taking turns sounds fair and rarely is. One of you sits through two hours of the other's pick with arms folded, and you both know exactly who is keeping score. Run it like this instead.
- Set the scare ceiling before anyone opens an app. The one who hates horror says out loud what they can handle: jump scares fine, gore not, nothing with a creepy kid. That is the line for the night, and nobody gets to argue it down later.
- Trade, do not take turns. If the fan gets a proper slasher, the other one picks the next thing, and the fan watches it without a running commentary on how soft it is.
- Start in the middle. Open with something that plays as a drama for one of you and a horror for the other, then branch out from there.
- Stick to what you pay for. Nothing kills Halloween faster than finding the perfect movie on a service neither of you has.
It is the same give and take as the guide to ending the what-to-watch argument, with a higher body count. The shows for couples who disagree list runs on the same idea: look for titles with a reason in them for each of you, not one compromise you both resent. MatchWatch handles the boring bit. You both swipe on your own, it only shows what is on the services you have, and whatever you both said yes to is the movie.
What do you watch when one of you hates horror?
Six picks that alternate. Horror for the fan, then something Halloween-flavoured for the other one, so nobody sits through two hard nights in a row. The scariest sits at number five, and the last card is one you will both laugh at. Three of them are on Stan, which says more about Stan's October than about anyone's taste.
Carrie
Stephen King's bullied-teenager story, stretched to eight episodes by Mike Flanagan, all on Prime Video since 7 October. The fan gets dread that builds and an ending everyone knows is coming. The one who hates horror gets a gripping, sad drama about a girl and her mother. Unsettling rather than jumpy, and the safest place to start.
Practical Magic
The 1998 witch movie, on Stan, and the October rewatch in plenty of lounge rooms. The one who hates horror gets mostly sisters, romance and a kitchen full of spells. The fan gets a darker thread and will enjoy it more than they admit. Scare level: low. This is the other one's night, fair and square.
Crystal Lake
Friday the 13th before Friday the 13th: A24's prequel, Linda Cardellini in the Pamela Voorhees role, and every episode lands on Stan on Friday 16 October. This one is for the fan: a slasher, eight hour-long episodes, and slashers do not do gentle. The one who hates horror can watch from behind a cushion.
Gnomes
A new Australian horror-comedy on Stan since 8 October: the Gnome Queen wakes an ancient evil in the town of Nompton and unleashes a hellish horde of gnomes. It is splatter, so there is blood, but it is played for laughs. The fan gets the gore. The one who hates horror gets full permission to laugh at it, loudly.
Scream 7
The seventh Scream, on Paramount+, and the hardest watch on this list. The fan gets the masked killer, the phone calls and the stabbing. The one who hates horror gets a whodunit, which is the way in: guess who is under the mask and watch the nasty bits through your fingers. Check the scare ceiling first.
What We Do in the Shadows
Honourable mention
The 2014 Kiwi mockumentary about vampires sharing a flat, free on SBS On Demand. Deadpan, daft and about as scary as a house meeting about the dishes. The fan gets fangs and the odd splash of blood. The one who hates horror gets the funniest thing here. End the night on this one, whoever won.
The six, in depth
Carrie is Mike Flanagan's version of the Stephen King novel, made as a series rather than a film, so it has room to build up the people before anything goes wrong. All eight episodes went up together on 7 October, as Amazon confirmed, so there is no waiting around. How scary is it really? Slow, sad and creepy, with the big moment saved for late. It works as a drama for the one who hates horror, which is why it goes first. It is on Prime Video, the one that came with the free delivery and never got cancelled.
Practical Magic is the 1998 one, two sisters from a family of witches in a town that has never quite trusted them. It is a romance with spells in it, and the spooky stretches are short enough that the fan will call it a cop-out. That is the deal: this is the horror-hater's pick, and the fan can sit through it knowing Crystal Lake is next. It is on Stan, and Practical Magic 2 is in cinemas if the first one lands.
Crystal Lake goes back before the 1980 film to Pamela Voorhees, the mother the original is built around, played here by Linda Cardellini. Nobody should mistake it for a gentle character study. It is a slasher, eight one-hour episodes, and Stan puts every episode up at once on Friday 16 October. So the fan can knock it over in two sittings, and the other one can bow out after episode one with their dignity intact. This is the fan's pick. Nobody should pretend otherwise.
Gnomes is a new Australian horror-comedy on Stan, out since 8 October, about a country town called Nompton where the Gnome Queen wakes something ancient and a hellish horde of gnomes follows. It is splatter, so expect blood, but killer garden gnomes are not a premise that asks to be taken seriously, and the show knows it. Half the backyards in the country still have a gnome somebody's nan left behind, so the one who hates horror may never look at theirs the same way. Scare level: messy rather than frightening.
Scream 7 is the newest in the series, on Paramount+, and the hardest watch here. It is a slasher with a whodunit built in, so the fan gets the kills and both of you get to argue about who is under the mask, which is the one argument tonight that is actually fun. Be straight with each other on this one. If the scare ceiling was set at no gore, skip it and pick again. That is what the ceiling is for.
What We Do in the Shadows, in this case, means the 2014 film, not the later series, and it is free on SBS On Demand. A camera crew follows a handful of vampires sharing a flat, and the comedy is the Kiwi kind: flat delivery, small stakes, enormous arguments about chores. There is a bit of blood, but nobody will be checking under the bed afterwards. It is the honourable mention because it is the soft landing. Yes, the Kiwis made it. Let them have it, they will mention it anyway.
Also worth knowing
Yaga starts on Binge on Friday 23 October, with the first two episodes on day one and the rest weekly. Carrie-Anne Moss leads a supernatural mystery built on the Baba Yaga legend, in half-hour episodes, so it is an easy one to start the week before Halloween and finish well after. And if you are wondering where Weapons went: it leaves HBO Max on 23 October, so it is not on the list. There is nothing worse than planning the thirty-first around a movie that has already gone.
The night, sorted
So when one of you hates horror, Halloween comes down to a trade. Set the scare ceiling, start with Carrie, alternate, and finish on the vampires, with a packet of Freddos for whoever lasted longest. The MatchWatch page for couples shows how the two of you match on what to watch from the services you already pay for, so the arguing stops before the trick-or-treaters start. Available in New Zealand, Australia, the UK, and the United States.