Snuggle Up and Get Spooked Together: The Best Horror Movies for Couples
If you love spooky season as much as we do, then you understand our love for horror movies. Horror movies are notorious for increasing your adrenaline and making it impossible to sleep alone at night. Spooky season gives you the chance to round up your partner, find a few good movies, and turn a Netflix-and-Chill date night into a horror movie marathon.
Having someone there to freak out with you, cuddle with you, and impulsively shout out movie plots is what a partner in life is for.
Let’s face it — horror movies are not enjoyed for their incredible storylines. So we've rounded up some of the best horror movies that pair well with a spooky night in.
Grab the blankets, turn the lights off (or don't), and get comfy. Consider making a friendly bet about the storyline's outcome. You may find yourself engaging in playful banter about what these horror movies are actually about. And you may learn something because of it.
Jump into each other’s arms
If you’re looking for a reason to hold your partner tight and refuse to let go — look no further! These three horror movies expose how ominous our world can be.
Scream
Scream is a 1996 classic slasher-film about a masked serial killer that gets a thrill from stalking teenagers in the suburbs. There’s a haze of mystery around who the killer beneath the mask is, leaving a lot to the imagination. Surprisingly enough, the victims aren’t always who you expect.
The Nightmare
The Nightmare is a documentary that looks a lot like a horror movie. The documentary tells the stories of eight people who experience sleep paralysis — a state where a person is aware but unable to move, talk, or react. The frightening recreations of their experiences may leave you gripping your partner’s arm a little too tight.
Splice
Splice is a sci-fi thriller that resembles a classic Frankenstein. Two geneticists take matters into their own hands when they combine human DNA with their work with animal splicing. The result of which is a creature neither they nor you are ready for. Watching this movie may make you think twice about what the rules of the world are and aren’t.
How it all ties in...
These movies make it easy to slip into another world and question what you would do in these situations.
Talking about scary things, like death or dying or cloning, tends to make them less scary. Between the jump out of your skin scenes, there's an opportunity to learn what scares your partner. You can gain insight about them in ways regular conversation doesn't provide. 1
Question reality together
Interested in watching something with a little more bark than bite? These movies will take your mind through the ringer, leaving you unsure of the reality you live in. At least for the next 48-hours post-movie.
Perfect Blue
In Perfect Blue, the reality that Mima feels safe in starts to crumble when she's stalked by an obsessed fan. We watch Mima lose her sense of reality and her sense of self as she's connected to a string of murders that follow her. This movie does a good job of blending our conceptions of reality as well as Mima's.
This movie is more relevant today than its release in 1997 because it explores the idea of how our idol (i.e., our virtual/ideal selves) can intertwine and affect our real-world selves.
Shutter Island
Shutter Island is a movie about an island with its namesake. This island is where the criminally insane pay for their crimes. When an inmate vanishes in thin air, U.S Marshal Teddy Daniels goes to Shutter Island to investigate. He uncovers layers of deceitful and uncanny events that happen on Shutter Island that leave you questioning the line between logic and intuition.
In the Tall Grass
In the Tall Grass is about as confusing and shocking as a horror movie gets. A brother and his pregnant sister (yes, it’s important) stop on the side of the road after they hear a little boy call out to them from a thick field of grass. Unaware, they wade through the grass only to find out there's no little boy. Not really.
How it all ties in...
Psychological thrillers exist on many levels. They seep into our minds and make us question reality. Mental health, dying wishes, and hospitalization don't come up during daily conversation.
Watching these movies with your partner may leave you both ready to express your beliefs. Lean into that feeling and learn more about what goes on in the deepest corners of their mind.
Haunt each other’s thoughts
The paranormal is far more controversial than we may think. Go ahead. Whether you believe in spirits or you don't, watch any of these movies and tell me you don’t wish you had a nightlight.
Eerie
Eerie is a movie about a clairvoyant guidance counselor who learns that the all-girls catholic school she's at has a sinister history. She’s able to talk to the spirits of the girls who died (that’s right, spirits plural) and discovers there's more to the story. It isn’t until she talks with Eri that she unravels the treachery that happens within the school halls.
Eli
Eli revolves around a little boy named, well, Eli who has a peculiar allergy to the outdoors. His parents do what they feel is best for him and take him to a secluded clinic where he’s treated by Dr. Horn. She recommends intensive treatment, assuring everyone that the pain means it’s working. Eli doesn’t believe her and feels like his mind is playing tricks on him. But we learn that some tricks were for his own good.
Malevolent
Malevolent is about a paranormal scam gone wrong. When their mom commits suicide, Angela and her brother con their way through paranormal encounters to make money. They soon find out that there was truth to their mom's condition, and the plague that haunted their mom is also haunting Angela. The jobs become more and more real for her. They do one last job at an old orphanage and quickly realize the paranormal isn't the problem.
Bonus: Literally Anything by Mike Flanagan
The director has created haunting films such as Oculus, Gerald’s Game, Ouija: Origin of Evil, and the famous series, The Haunting of Hill House. Just in time for spooky season you and your partner can binge his latest series, The Haunting of Bly Manor. Many of his works play with the supernatural and how horror can accompany grief.
How it all ties in...
The supernatural elements in these movies bring the ideas of the afterlife much closer. It may feel easier to talk about life after death, spirits, and beliefs after watching a movie like this. Do they believe in spirits? Do you? How often have you wondered if the place you’re in is haunted? How often have they?
The supernatural ties into our other beliefs, which are often tricky to bring up or seem to elude us. We should "seek to understand each other’s faith because they’re a huge part of our identity," said one-half of an interfaith couple interviewed by Cosmo. It may be strange to talk about at first but learning something new about your partner is always nice.
Spooky romance
Now, in true cuddle fashion. These movies are some of the best horror movies for date nights. They have a scary element with a pinch of comedy and a dash of romance. Every opportunity to cuddle without being too afraid to go to sleep at night.
The Nightmare Before Christmas
The Nightmare Before Christmas is a Halloween movie fit for all ages. We follow the misadventures of Jack Skellington after he finds the door to Christmas Town and devises a plan to steal Christmas. Not even Sally can talk him out of going through with his most regrettable choices to discover who he is and what Halloween means.
Beetlejuice
Beetlejuice is a 1988 Halloween classic. After a young couple dies in a car accident, they find themselves stuck in their home. When a new family moves in, the couple does everything they can to reclaim their home. As a last resort and despite the warnings, they call on Beetlejuice. Things get a little chaotic and Beetlejuice wreaks a little havoc before anything gets good again.
Warm Bodies
Warm Bodies focuses on a world post-zombie apocalypse. When one, newly decaying zombie, R, saves a human, Julie, from harm, they form a strange relationship. As their relationship grows, R starts to show more and more signs of life. A beautiful blend of horror and romance, this movie ends with the idea that love makes us all a little more human.
How it all ties in...
What these movies do best is show how everyone is worthy of a forever someone. You may watch these movies and wonder how you got so lucky to have found your partner. Sure, they have some quirks but so do you — and you wouldn’t change a thing.
If you start thinking about what you would do during an apocalypse or if you or your partner died in an accident, then explore those thoughts. Talk to your partner about these scenarios that pop into your mind and see what they think.
And as you’re watching, if the topic of death or dying or the afterlife come up — what would be the harm in exploring them? Talking about these taboo topics creates a safe space for them in our relationships, making them more accessible at another time.
We can help you come up with conversation starters and conversation explorers in our new death mini-guide. Enter your info below to sign up for our newsletter and be one of the first to know when it becomes available!
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