Arts & Entertainment

11 NYC Movies To Watch This Halloween

Any one of these will put you in a spooky mood.

Noah Manskar's profile picture
Noah Manskar, Patch StaffVerified Patch Staff Badge
|

NEW YORK CITY — Are your pajamas the only thing you want to dress up in this Halloween? A spooky movie can make you feel the Hallow's Eve spirit without making you go further than your kitchen for some candy.

Stay close to home with one of these thrillers and slasher flicks.

All are set in NYC and are perfect for some scary viewing. Maybe they even merit an excursion to see some of the city landmarks they feature?

Find out what's happening in New York Cityfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

  1. Rosemary's Baby (1968)

    Roman Polanski's classic stars Mia Farrow as Rosemary Woodhouse, who lives in a ritzy Upper West Side apartment near Central Park. Their creepy neighbors turn out not to be the best choice of caretakers for their newborn son. You can go see the building where the film is set, The Dakota, at West 72nd Street at Central Park.
  2. American Psycho

Find out what's happening in New York Cityfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

Finance culture drives Christian Bale crazy in this Wall Street slasher film. After seeing its over-the-top violence, you'll never hear Huey Lewis and the News the same away again.
  • Ghostbusters


    Whether it's the 1984 original or the 2016 reboot, "Ghostbusters" is a quintessential New York City Halloween movie. It doesn't get more iconic than the Stay Puft marshmallow man stomping through Manhattan.

  • Black Swan
    It's not a horror movie in the usual sense, but Darren Aronofsky's unsettling peek inside the cutthroat New York City ballet world will definitely freak you out. It follows a ballerina's psychological journey through a production of "Swan Lake" at Lincoln Center.
  • C.H.U.D.

    In this campy '80s flick, a police officer and homeless shelter manager find out the CHUDs — cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers — are taking New Yorkers captive under the city. It might make you wonder if anything's living in the subway tunnels.

  • Cloverfield

    This found-footage film follows a group of young New Yorkers fleeing a mysterious monster attacking the city. Sort of like "The Day After Tomorrow," several shots imagine what the city would look like if an apocalyptic disaster struck.

  • King Kong


    The giant ape. The woman he kidnaps. The Empire State Building. No matter which version you see, the climax of "King Kong" is one of the most recognizable New York City movie scenes of all time.

  • Friday the 13th, Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

    One of cinema's most famous killers terrorizes the Big Apple in this chapter of the "Friday the 13th" series. The original poster showed Jason Voorhees' knife slashing through the "I Love NY" logo, but a complaint from a city tourism group got it changed.
  • Maniac

    The villain of this 1980 cult classic takes victims in Times Square and near the Verrazano Bridge. There's also a 2012 remake starring Elijah Wood.

  • The Warriors


    In this 1979 thriller, the eponymous Coney Island gang has to make it back home from the Bronx, outrunning thousands of cops and enemy troops along the way. Their 27-mile journey from Van Cortlandt Park back to South Brooklyn would take nearly two hours by subway today.

  • The Devil's Advocate

    Keanu Reeves plays a young lawyer who becomes a rising star in a New York City firm run by Al Pacino — who turns out to be the devil. It might make you wonder just what goes on in those big Manhattan law offices.

    • (Lead image via YouTube)

    Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

    More from New York City