These are the best free horror films to watch this Halloween

It’s the season of the witch – and the serial killer, and the stalker, and the thing lurking in the basement. If you’re hosting this Halloween, or if you’re staying in to handy out mini chocolate bars to hordes of tiny Wednesday Addams and Minecraft Steves, you won’t have to spend a penny on your own entertainment, as we’ve rounded up the best free horror films to stream this Halloween in the UK.

We’ve picked options to watch with your family, with a group of friends, and found scary options for solo watching too.

Bear in mind that if you watch on ITVX or Channel 4, the films will have ad breaks. Only BBC iPlayer doesn’t.

And if you’re going to be away for Halloween, here’s how to watch BBC iPlayer from abroad.

Best horror films for parties

SAW I-X – free to stream on ITVX

If we’re being real, only the first Saw film (directed by James Wan) is an essential watch, but if you’re looking for a horror series to marathon for a Halloween party or get-together, all films in the series are on ITVX, giving you around 20 hours of gory viewing assured.

The films’ overall plot concerns John Kramer, terminal cancer patient and inspiring life coach, whose chosen form of therapy is to attach people to various killing machines and encourage them to fight their way out. What a guy. The Jigsaw trap scenes are interspersed throughout the films, so people won’t have to concentrate too much to get a gory thrill.

These films are also ideal for drinking games. Take a shot every time Kramer says “I want to play a game”, someone in a pig mask lurks in the back of a frame, a creepy tricycle appears, or another supporting character turns out to be a Jigsaw acolyte.

Escape Room and Escape Room: Tournament of Champions – free to stream on BBC iPlayer

Like the Saw movies, Escape Room is an easy-to-watch horror with inventive deaths aplenty.

In the first film, a group of people are invited to solve an escape room, but as you might guess by the fact that it’s a horror film, they don’t wind up going out for a cheeky Nando’s afterwards. Instead, the players must solve puzzles to progress through a series of themed rooms fitted with death traps. The rooms are compellingly imagined and the stakes suitably high.

Things go awry somewhat in the second film, but it’s still entertaining enough if you watch with friends.

Scream 1-3 – free to stream on BBC iPlayer

The beauty of the Scream films is that they’re not too scary or intense for people who aren’t fans of horror. Plus, they don’t have the off-putting meat locker/camcorder vibe of the Saw movies. Instead, they’re glossily styled like a teen TV series. But there are enough horror film references (especially to Carpenter’s Halloween) and in-jokes to make them watchable for horror aficionados.

Sidney Prescott and friends are being stalked by Ghostface, a killer (or killers) whose schtick involves a rubber mask, a hunting knife and a propensity for phoning his victims-to-be and asking: “Do you like scary movies?”

Scream 2 and 3 offer diminishing returns on the same formula but are fun enough to keep the Halloween atmosphere going.

Carpenter classics

The Thing – free to stream on ITVX

The 1982 John Carpenter thriller is a masterful blend of paranoia and grotesque practical creature effects. To my mind, it’s the best Carpenter horror of all time. The plot set-up will be familiar to anyone who’s ever played Among Us. An alien life form invades an Antarctic research base but it can take on the form of any person or animal it infects. So, who among the dwindling bunch of survivors can be trusted?

Halloween – free to stream on BBC iPlayer

This 1978 film is the essence of Halloween and you’re not doing spooky night right if you don’t at least have it on in the background. Carpenter’s theme tune is the best thing about it (fight me) but the opening, shot from the POV of 6-year-old Michael Myers, who stabs his sister to death while wearing an adorable clown costume (aww), is also pretty epic. Fifteen years later, MM escapes from the asylum and begins terrorising the babysitters of Haddonfield, including Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie.

Halloween II is also free to stream on ITV X – but it fails to recapture the magic of the original. I’d give it a miss.

Modern monsters

It Follows – free to stream on ITVX

There’s so much more to this film than initially meets the eye. But the first glance stuff is pretty compelling. For a start, it has the best horror concept of recent years: once you’ve inherited it, this monster will slowly stalk you until it catches you and mashes you up into a little ball of crushed limbs. You can’t escape it, you can’t stop it – but you might be able to pass it on. It also stars low-key scream queen Maika Monroe (The Guest, Longlegs).

And the other stuff? Look out for the cars, tech and fashion and ask yourself when the film is set. And what’s up with Jay and Kelly’s mother?

The Blair Witch Project – free to stream on BBC iPlayer

This found-footage film may be a divisive choice: for a start it’s 25 years old, which is somewhat stretching the definition of modern. Plus, many people argue that its reputation rests on the fact that its early audiences believed they were watching a documentary. However, I think it stands up well, all these years later. Bear in mind, however, that it’s slow and atmospheric, so it’s not a film that will hold the attention of a rowdy group. But if you turn off the lights and watch it alone, it’ll scare the bejesus out of you.

Plot-wise, it’s a simple affair: three student filmmakers head out into the woods of Burkittsville, Maryland, to make a documentary on the legendary Blair Witch. Some regrets are had.

Barbarian – free to stream on Channel 4

As he showed again in his 2025 follow-up horror Weapons, Zach Cregger is a writer/director who likes to wrong-foot his audience. Don’t worry – this isn’t a spoiler, because this information will do you absolutely no good in guessing what’s going to happen after Barbarian’s initial, compelling set-up. This may not be horror at its most sophisticated, but you’ll be hooked throughout.

Tess (Georgina Campbell) arrives at her Airbnb in a rough neighbourhood late at night to discover that it’s been double-booked and Keith (Bill Skarsgård) is already occupying the space. Should she stay or should she go?

All the atmosphere, none of the gore

But if you have kids or don’t enjoy watching your films from behind a cushion, there are gentler options available.

Family-friendly Halloween films:

• Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride – free to stream on ITVX

This gothic-themed stop-motion animation features romance and musical numbers.

• The Addams Family and Addams Family Values – free to stream on ITVX

Can little Wednesday fans accept that Christina Ricci was the OG? And that Raoul Julia and Angelica Huston are the definitive Gomez and Morticia? (And for the rest of us: couple goals.)

• The Witches – free to stream on BBC iPlayer

Anne Hathaway heads up the coven in the latest adaptation of the Roald Dahl children’s novel (which may be a bit too scary for little ones).

• Edward Scissorhands – free to stream on BBC iPlayer

The goth boy from the castle comes to live in the suburbs in this comedy starring Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder and Dianne Wiest.

Comedy horror:

• Shaun of the Dead – free to stream on ITVX

You can, in fact, watch all three films in Edgar Wright’s Cornetto Trilogy on ITVX, but the rom-zom-com that started it all is the one to go for on Halloween.

• What We Do in the Shadows – free to stream on ITVX

Before the series came Taika Waititi’s comic film, which provides a glimpse into life in a vampire house-share. Plus, werewolves (not swearwolves).