Halloween Cinema in London 2023: Spooky Halloween Movie Screenings & Scary Film Events

The beautiful Rivoli Ballroom – one of the last remaining ballrooms in town – is open again for its usual series of Halloween pop-up film screenings. In the days running up to fright night, it’ll be showing movies of the spooky and scary (and camp) variety, including 'Casper', 'The Lost Boys', 'Ghostbusters (1984)', 'Hocus Pocus' and 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show'. Scroll down for the full details of the spooktacular film programme.

With its crimson-shaded walls and art deco fittings, Covent Garden’s beguiling The Garden Cinema feels like the kind of place Vincent Price might have haunted IRL. He’s doing it on the big screen this Halloween, thanks to a bumper season that takes in Price’s Brit-horror classic ‘The Abominable Dr Phibes’, alongside some vintage J-horror (‘Kwaidan’), recent cult cuts (‘The Love Witch’) and family-friendly scares (‘Hocus Pocus’, ‘Coco’). Not to mention anniversary screenings of ‘The Exorcist’ and ‘Christine’. Expect the unexpected. Oh, and fancy cocktails. 

London’s primo horror film festival is once again resurfacing, Kraken-like, for its annual two-day Halloween edition this October. Dubbed ‘the Woodstock of Gore’ by no less an authority than Guillermo del Toro, FrightFest takes over Cineworld Leicester Square for two days on the weekend before Halloween, programming a terror-inducing line-up of movies that promise everything from violence, gore, blood and suicide to ‘monstrous menace’, ‘supernatural/alien threats’ and the scariest horror film trope of all...‘tobacco products’. The full line-up will be announced shortly before tickets go on sale on September 30. Needless to say, the festival has an 18 rating. Bedwetters need not apply.

As usual, beloved central London repertory cinema The Prince Charles will be showing more frightening films than Dracula has had bloody dinners during its wildly eclectic month-long season of spooky cinema this October.

From 1922 German Expressionist classic ‘Nosferatu’ and the original 1932 ‘Dracula’ movie to recent hits like ‘Get Out’ (2017) and ‘Last Night in Soho’ (2021), via 1970s giallo film ‘A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin’, French noir ‘Les Yeux sans visage’ (1960) and a trans sexploitation movie from 1977 called ‘Let Me Die a Woman’, there really is something for absolutely everyone.

Our pick of the bunch? The ‘Friday 13th I-IV’ mini-marathon on Friday 13. Grab the popcorn, and take a look at the full programme here. 

The plush surrounds of London’s Everyman cinemas will be hosting a chilling array of Halloween-friendly horrors this spooky season. Glad yourself some form of crimson-tinged cocktail and settle in for ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’, ‘Beetlejuice’, ‘Hocus Pocus’ and, horror’s axe-wielding don,  ‘The Shining’. If you’ve got children to amuse and are looking for something a little more U-rated, there’s a toddler screening of ‘Hotel Transylvania’ too. 

Short of veiling visitors in cobwebs and chanting at them in Latin, there’s not much more that Regent Street Cinema could do to conjure up spooky, olde-timey vibes this year. ​In concert with horror podcast ‘The Evolution of Horror​’, the historic Regent Street picture house is wheeling in one of only four working Compton organs to accompany screenings of silent-era frighteners ‘Häxan​’ (7.45pm, Oct 19) and ‘The Phantom of The Opera’ (​7.30pm, Oct 29). Look out, too, for post-screening discussions with horror luminaries like Kim Newman and Pamela Hutchinson.

Dalston’s magnificent Rio cinema is welcoming the spookiness in this All Hallow’s Eve. It’s partnering up with Queer Horror Nights for a special Halloween Monsters Ball (dress code: ‘bring your freak’), featuring a screening of ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ (10pm, Fri Oct 27) and a late bar license. If you’re in the mood for some classic Brit horror, get along to a ‘Don’t Look Now’ and ‘The Wicker Man’ double bill (kicking off at 6.45pm, Tue Oct 31). There’s no discount for turning up in a PC uniform or red coat, but your fellow moviegoers will think you’re pretty rad.

Beloved Bethnal Green indie picturehouse Genesis Cinema is known for its eclectic programming, so it’s no surprise that it’s got loads of interesting stuff on for Halloween. This year it’s partnering with Bar Trash, a travelling film event series celebrating ‘cult and curious cinema’ (read: lurid B-sides), for Trash Planet 2, a programme of ten eco-horror movies in which ‘man’s toxic stupidity forces Mother Nature to bite back’. Highlights of the programme include Jack Arnold’s Universal classic ‘Creature from the Black Lagoon’ and 1979 indie box office smash ‘Grizzly’. Each screening will feature an introduction from host Token Homo, plus prize giveaways and themed cocktails. Better yet? Tickets are just three quid! Check out the programme here.

What's the best thing about Halloween? Arguably, it's the movies, and this Fright Night spectacular inspired by horror films promises to scare you into the seasonal spirit. Mama Shelter London Shoreditch, a kooky hotel in the east of the city, will become a coven of cult classics, with dramatics, interactive performances and a spooky flashmob taking inspo from our favourite frightful films. The evening begins with a meal and selection of blood-red cocktails, followed by dancing and music from resident DJs Rebecca Gough and Redfreya 'til late. There will of course be a prize for the best dressed, so make sure to book your place!

If you’re looking for some chilling big-screen fare – new and old – and don’t want to rummage too deeply into the bank vaults for it, the multiplex chain has your covered. With ticket prices at around the £5 mark (look out for the Super Saver Tickets) and five dishorrors to pick from, there’s something for all tastes and budgets. We’re not going to sit here and recommend ‘The Exorcist: Believer’ – this is Halloween, not April Fool’s Day – but Stephen King chiller ‘Christine’ (week of Oct 20) and ’80s classic ‘The Lost Boys’ (week of Oct 27) are both getting crowdpleasing screenings, and the macabre-fun ‘Saw X’ is still playing.