8 Best Halloween Disney Channel Original Movies

Hocus Pocus’ Kathy Najimy, In Living Color’s Tommy Davidson, and Monty Python funnyman Eric Idle are a scream as they play ghosts relegated to the Soul Patrol, i.e. assigned to find and capture wayward spirits. But behind this movie’s slapstick facade is an emotional undergirding, as the kids who cross paths with the Soul Patrol get a little extra time with their dearly deceased grandpa.

Fans of The Nanny saw a different side of Mr. Sheffield when actor Charles Shaughnessy played an eligible bachelor with a blood-sucking secret in this movie, the title of which as high-concept as Snakes on a Plane. With Caroline Rhea playing the vampire’s unsuspecting date, Matthew O’Leary and Laura Vandervoort playing the kids determined to stop him, and Robert Carradine playing a descendant of Van Helsing, this is the DCOM version of B-movie frivolity.

Olivia Holt, later known as a star of Cloak & Dagger and Cruel Summer, takes the lead in this production about a girl who discovers she comes from a long line of monster hunters. Some of the CGI in this movie is frightful, but the storyline’s manifestation of internal phobias as external monsters is a clever twist. And don’t take our word for it — Girl vs. Monster also earned a Writer’s Guild of America Award for its screenplay.

A trio of suburban tweens happen upon a mummy in a neighbor’s basement just before a magical twist of fate resurrects the ancient corpse. That’s not the most interesting premise, but what makes Under Wraps fun is that the mummy isn’t a soul-sucking monster but a lovable klutz the kids name Harold. (And the man under Harold’s wraps is Bill Fagerbakke, better known as the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants’ Patrick.)

Twin sisters separated at birth grow up under different circumstances and finally meet one another on a shopping trip? Yes, this movie with Tia and Tamera Mowry clearly cribs its premise from their TV show Sister, Sister — and, for that mater, its evil-uncle-committing-fratricide plot from Hamlet. Plus, that punny title is just terrible. Even so, it’s a hoot watching the Mowrys playing witches saving the magical home-realm they never knew existed.

What happens when children grow too old to believe in imaginary friends? Those phantom pals become boogeymen, according to this Disney Channel Original Movie. And this production has gives viewers one thing other Halloween-themed DCOMs don’t: actual terror. In fact, the movie so frightening that Disney reportedly yielded to parents demanding it stop being shown. That’s too bad, because the message of holding on to one’s childhood sense of wonder is an important one.

Yeah, you know about Harry Potter, a seeming Muggle who learns he’s a wizard and gets a ride to the magical world of Hogwarts — but do you know about Marnie (Kimberly J. Brown), a seeming mortal who learns she’s a witch and gets a ride to Halloweentown? Add Debbie Reynolds as a doting witch grandmother, and you have the Halloween entertainment of legend — and a franchise that still shows signs of continuing more than quarter-century later.

Now that Marnie is growing into her witchy powers, she’s ready to help grandma Aggie with a supernatural threat that’s not only draining Halloweentown of its color — literally — but posing mortal danger to the mortal world as well. With its more mature storyline and improved VFX, we’d say Halloweentown II is the rare sequel that improves on an already-impressive predecessor.