Halloween atmosphere from the spookiest of shows and films

Best autumn set design and animation
By Sonam Kaloti, Arts Editor

What gets you in the Halloween mood? For me, it’s movies with dark and grey colour palettes—cold and dreary aesthetics. Here are the films I watch for the special chilling aspects of their animation and cinematography:

Over the Garden Wall

Over the Garden Wall is a quirky little tale about two young brothers journeying through the forest. The entire series, though, is dark and brooding.

Every scene in this show is absolutely stunning and has a vintage charm to it. This propels you into the dark and hopelessness of this world and is the perfect setting to envelop you during fall. 

Halloweentown

Halloweentown has everything—from costumes, to magic, and music (of course)—yet the set design is what makes you feel like you’ve truly transported to another world. It’s what the world looked like during Halloween as a kid, and what you wish it felt like during Halloween as an adult.

Pan’s Labyrinth

Not as bubbly as many of the other sets, Pan’s Labyrinth may not even be much of a Halloween movie, per se. However, it is so uncomfortably jarring that it deserves a spot.

This scene of the large buffet and hand-eye monster scarred an image in my brain ever since I saw this film on as a kid. The luscious grapes that the main character couldn’t help but to try, all while feeling the dread of being so close to this monster, among the dim lights of this underground tunneled hell… it’s just phenomenal.

Twitches

It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what feels so Halloween in regard to sets in Twitches. The castle being spun by the ever-growing darkness is great, but still looks a little too computer generated. However, the darkness monster depicted by the main character feels like just the right amount of casually menacing for this Disney classic.

Coraline

Coraline is terrifying. At least, I thought that as a kid. Now, it’s more of a very dizzy experience. A lot of this film is creepy, and additionally the colours are a bit too bright for all the scenes to pass for a Halloween-vibe. Instead, their home with the gloomy foggy backdrop is a great starter scene to introduce the rest of the film.

Scooby-Doo

There’s never a moment when Scooby-Doo isn’t Halloween friendly, but a lot of this movie feels like something’s wrong—all while drinking pina coladas on the beach (not so spooky). This ghost scene early in the movie sets up the movie’s darker tone, despite not often coming back to the same visual elements (especially the colour palette).