31 Days of Halloween Movies: A Weekday-Aware October Calendar

31 Days of Halloween Movies: A Weekday-Aware October Calendar

This 31 days of Halloween movies calendar gives you one film a night from 1 to 31 October, in five theme weeks that end with Halloween (1978) on the 31st. Two SubhSandesh numbers shaped it: 48.3% of the 57,456 views of pages shared on our platform were on a phone, so each night is one line you can screenshot, and on Raksha Bandhan 2026, our nearest festival analogue (89 pages, a small sample), 49.4% of pages were built on the day itself, so you can join late.

The schedule follows the real weekdays: 1 October is a Thursday in 2026 and a Friday in 2027. Ten dates (2, 3, 9, 10, 16, 17, 23, 24, 30 and 31) fall on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday in both years, so the longest films sit there, while the 12 dates that are Monday to Thursday in both years average 76 minutes.

What is a 31 days of Halloween movies calendar?

A 31 days of Halloween movies calendar, also searched as a Halloween movie calendar, assigns one horror or Halloween film to each night of October. It swaps one marathon weekend for a nightly habit of 13 to 117 minutes.

This version adds an order. Films climb by era inside five theme weeks, and the scares drop for family week (19 to 24 October) before the adults-only finale.

The 31 films, 1–31 October, week by week

Weekdays are shown as 2026 / 2027, and years and directors come from the AFI Catalog, the National Film Registry or archive.org records. Runtimes are AFI's (the longer where it gives two) or the archive.org copy's, since silents vary with projection speed.

Week 1, 1–6 October: the silent era

All six were published before 1931, which puts them in the US public domain. They run on images and music rather than dialogue, and 6 October is a 13-minute short.

• 1 Oct (Thu / Fri): The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920; archive.org says 1919), Robert Wiene, about 72 min.
• 2 Oct (Fri / Sat): Nosferatu (1922), F. W. Murnau, 93 min in the most complete archive.org copy.
• 3 Oct (Sat / Sun): The Phantom of the Opera (1925), Rupert Julian, 107 min.
• 4 Oct (Sun / Mon): The Cat and the Canary (1927), Paul Leni, about 87 min.
• 5 Oct (Mon / Tue): Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920), John S. Robertson, 79 min.
• 6 Oct (Tue / Wed): The Fall of the House of Usher (1928), J. S. Watson and M. Webber, 13 min, on the National Film Registry since 2000.

Week 2, 7–13 October: Universal monsters

Universal's cycle is the easiest weeknight theme, because AFI lists all seven at 80 minutes or under. In release order, the monsters go on to meet their sequels.

• 7 Oct (Wed / Thu): Dracula (1931), Tod Browning, 75 min.
• 8 Oct (Thu / Fri): Frankenstein (1931), James Whale, 70 min.
• 9 Oct (Fri / Sat): The Mummy (1932), Karl Freund, 78 min.
• 10 Oct (Sat / Sun): The Invisible Man (1933), James Whale, 71 min.
• 11 Oct (Sun / Mon): Bride of Frankenstein (1935), James Whale, 80 min.
• 12 Oct (Mon / Tue): The Wolf Man (1941), George Waggner, 70 min.
• 13 Oct (Tue / Wed): Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Jack Arnold, 79 min.

Week 3, 14–18 October: folk horror

Folk horror puts the threat in a place and its beliefs: a village, a cornfield, a curse. The two films over 90 minutes take 16 and 17 October, a weekend in both years.

• 14 Oct (Wed / Thu): Village of the Damned (1960), Wolf Rilla, 78 min.
• 15 Oct (Thu / Fri): Curse of the Demon (1958), Jacques Tourneur, 82 min.
• 16 Oct (Fri / Sat): Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), Tommy Lee Wallace, 98 min.
• 17 Oct (Sat / Sun): Children of the Corn (1984), Fritz Kiersch, 93 min.
• 18 Oct (Sun / Mon): Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971), John Hancock, 89 min.

Week 4, 19–24 October: family week

Week 4 drops the R ratings so children can join. AFI lists Bedknobs and Broomsticks as G, The Watcher in the Woods and Little Monsters as PG, and The Monster Squad as PG-13, so preview that one for under-13s.

• 19 Oct (Mon / Tue): Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), Charles T. Barton, 83 min, week 2's monsters as comedy.
• 20 Oct (Tue / Wed): The Monster Squad (1987), Fred Dekker, 82 min.
• 21 Oct (Wed / Thu): The Watcher in the Woods (1981), John Hough, 83 min.
• 22 Oct (Thu / Fri): Mad Monster Party (1969), Jules Bass, 94 min, stop-motion.
• 23 Oct (Fri / Sat): Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), Robert Stevenson, 117 min, the longest film here.
• 24 Oct (Sat / Sun): Little Monsters (1989), Richard Alan Greenberg, 102 min.

Week 5, 25–31 October: modern horror

The finale runs from 1968 to 2015, and AFI lists six of the seven as R. The one long film on a weeknight is It Follows on Thursday 29 October 2026, so start it by 8 pm that year.

• 25 Oct (Sun / Mon): Night of the Living Dead (1968), George A. Romero, 90 min.
• 26 Oct (Mon / Tue): The Fog (1980), John Carpenter, 90 min.
• 27 Oct (Tue / Wed): Night of the Demons (1988), Kevin S. Tenney, 89 min.
• 28 Oct (Wed / Thu): Pumpkinhead (1989), Stan Winston, 86 min.
• 29 Oct (Thu / Fri): It Follows (2015), David Robert Mitchell, 100 min.
• 30 Oct (Fri / Sat): Candyman (1992), Bernard Rose, 101 min.
• 31 Oct (Sat / Sun): Halloween (1978), John Carpenter, 93 min, set on Halloween night and on the National Film Registry since 2006.

The five weeks compared

The table totals each week's runtimes. The full calendar runs 2,624 minutes, about 43.7 hours or 85 minutes a night.

Week 2 is the lightest at about 75 minutes a night. Family week is the heaviest at about 94, holding two of the four films over 100 minutes.

Which of the 31 films are public domain?

The US Copyright Office's Circular 15a on copyright duration, revised April 2026, states that all works published in the United States before 1 January 1931 are in the public domain. That covers all six week-1 films, and archive.org hosts copies of each.

The same circular caps older works at 95 years, counted from the end of the year copyright was secured. By that arithmetic Dracula and Frankenstein, both 1931, enter the US public domain on 1 January 2027, so October 2027 has eight public-domain nights against six in 2026. Restorations and new scores can carry their own copyright.

Night of the Living Dead is usually listed as public domain, and archive.org hosts a 1080p copy marked public domain. But the AFI Catalog's history note, citing Variety of 2 May 1990, says the retitled film lost its copyright and Image Ten secured a new one in 1986. For the other 23 films, catalogues change monthly and by country, so check a JustWatch-type tracker on the day.

Why one film a night beats a weekend marathon

A 2017 First Monday study by Horvath and colleagues split 51 University of Melbourne students into weekly, daily and one-sitting viewing of six TV episodes. The one-sitting group scored well the day after, but their memories faded faster across tests at 7 and 140 days, and they reported significantly less enjoyment.

Sleep is the second cost. A 2017 Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine survey of 423 adults aged 18 to 25 linked more frequent binge viewing to poorer sleep quality, more fatigue and more insomnia symptoms, while regular TV viewing showed no such link, and mental arousal before sleep explained it. Both measured TV series, not films, so read them as a case for one film a night, not proof about horror.

Sharing the calendar with one person

SubhSandesh pages average 11.1 views each, which suggests a page carrying the plan gets reopened. These are one-person greeting pages, not a watch-party tool, and neither plays a film.

For a weeknight nudge, the interactive Halloween card with a pumpkin to carve takes about 5 minutes: up to six photos, a letter read by flashlight, and a jack-o'-lantern that glows with your chosen word, such as tonight's title. Its No button runs away, so send it only to someone who has already said yes.

For the person watching all 31 with you, the premium cinematic Halloween page takes about 10 minutes and adds a voice note up to 60 seconds, up to 12 photos and an optional unlock time, so it can open on 31 October after Halloween ends. Their one reply, up to 280 characters, is emailed to you.

To ask someone to join before 1 October, The Invitation page fits better than either Halloween page. They must answer it, and a yes turns into a countdown to your start date.

When this calendar is the wrong plan

Young children should skip weeks 3 and 5, where AFI lists 8 of the 12 films as R. Family week alone, six nights from 19 to 24 October, is the safer slice for under-10s.

Silent intertitles are hard to read on a small screen, and 48.3% of views on our shared pages happen on a phone, so put week 1 on a television. A printed list on the fridge beats any link for some households, and our pages are English only.

Sources

• Horvath et al., First Monday, 1 September 2017.
• Exelmans and Van den Bulck, J Clin Sleep Med, August 2017.
• US Copyright Office, Circular 15a, revised April 2026.
• AFI Catalog, Night of the Living Dead entry.
• Library of Congress, National Film Registry listing, undated.
• Internet Archive, Night of the Living Dead item.