Family-friendly Halloween cinema

Halloween is the season of super scary and super scary-but-corny-yet-compelling movies (cornpelling). For those of you folks who might not be so inclined to the super spook trend, be it by tendency of nerves or the presence of young children in your family, there are still a host of movies that are cute and compelling and, most importantly, still vaguely spooky.

The Addams Family and its sequel, Addams Family Values, often play on ABC Family in the Halloween season. They’re spooky and macabre, but also comical, and not likely to send you or your littlest sibling running screaming from the room.

Another ABC Fam fave is Hocus Pocus, which most folk might remember as a nostalgic throwback to the Halloweens of their childhoods. They can sit down with a big bowl of popcorn and/or candycorn and laugh while enjoying the shenanigans of the three witch sisters.

Netflix also offers an array of Halloween selections — in October they actually have a whole new tab entitled “Halloween Favorites” (or something to that effect) that have subsections of Family Friendly, Super Scary, etc. (NOTE: this is an instance of paraphrasing.) Select at will from whichever piques your interest.

Alas, Paranorman was recently removed from the Netflix archives, so if you want to watch that one you’ll have to search elsewhere.