Watching horror on Halloween is a tradition and if you haven't started yet, the time has come. Turn off the lights, pop the popcorn and feel your heart racing. This ritual is perfect for those who like to test their limits. On HBO Max, the catalog brings together stories that explore fear in its most varied forms: from the supernatural to the psychological, from the grotesque to the symbolic. These films are not content to scare, they want to disturb, stir the unconscious, make the viewer laugh at their own despair. Fear, after all, is a mirror. And Halloween is its most faithful night.

We chose five works on HBO Max that will transform horror into a complete experience. Each of these films creates a particular universe, where horror mixes with drama, humor or tragedy. Monsters dressed as clowns, entities that defy faith, curses that test sanity and dead people who refuse to accept their own end. These stories revisit our greatest fears: the dark, the unknown, the loss of control. What begins as curiosity turns into dread. What seems like fiction takes on the shape of truth. In the end, Halloween becomes an excuse to face fear head on.

Sinners (2025), by Ryan Coogler

In a community marked by religious fervor and unspeakable secrets, a brutal murder exposes the cracks in a faith built on fear and power. A detective is called to investigate the case and discovers that nothing there is as it seems, every pious face hides guilt, and every prayer seems directed towards the void. As she gets closer to the truth, she finds herself entangled in a web of fanaticism and manipulation, where morals serve only as a mask. The horror grows not because of the supernatural, but because of human perversity that masquerades as devotion. Sin, here, is the engine of a suffocating suspense, and forgiveness, a cruel impossibility.

Ghosts Still Play (2024), by Tim Burton

After years of trying to deal with the unusual ability to see ghosts, Lydia finally learned to live with her gift, and turn it into success. Fame came along with acceptance, but the past, as always, takes its toll. When a family tragedy takes the Deetzes back to Winter River, Lydia realizes that there is something dark preventing the cycle from ending. Only she, now more mature, has the key to unravel the mystery, just three forbidden words and an old ghost willing to return to the scene. The problem is that playing with the afterlife never ends well.

Talk to Me (2022), by Danny and Michael Philippou

A group of teenagers discover an object that allows them to communicate with the dead, an embalmed hand used in possession rituals. The game, initially fun, becomes a dangerous obsession when the boundaries between the living and the dead begin to blur. One of the participants, still shaken by the loss of her mother, sees the experience as a form of contact and ends up going too far. The consequences are brutal: visions take shape, voices persist, and terror becomes physical. What begins as a viral joke turns into a dive into grief, guilt and madness, a tempting but impossible-to-refuse invitation: “talk to me”.

It: The Thing (2017), by Andy Muschietti

In a small town marked by mysterious disappearances, a group of children form an unlikely alliance to confront something hiding in the sewers. The creature takes the form of a frightening clown, feeding on the fear and vulnerability of its victims. United by friendship and trauma, the boys decide to confront evil head on, even without understanding its true origin. As the summer progresses, the city reveals its own scars and buried secrets. What begins as a youthful adventure turns into a journey of courage and maturity, where fear takes shape, and laughter mixes with horror.

The Conjuring (2013), by James Wan

A couple specializing in paranormal cases are called to investigate an isolated farm where unexplained phenomena torment a family. Little by little, what seemed like a simple case of haunting turns into a fight against demonic forces. The investigators, accustomed to the supernatural, realize that they are facing something older and more powerful than they imagined. Between noises at dawn, possessions and rituals, faith and fear collide in an invisible battle. In the center of the house, an evil presence waits for the moment to reveal itself, and not everyone will emerge unscathed.

Fer Kalaoun is an editor at Revista Bula and a reporter specializing in cultural, audiovisual and political journalism since 2014. A History student at the Federal Institute of Goiás (IFG), she brings a critical and contextualized perspective to her texts. He has worked for major media outlets in Goiás, including Rádio CBN, Jornal O Popular, Jornal Opção and Rádio Sagres, where he presented the Cinemateca Sagres show.