Halloween watchlist: Minions & Monsters is the family pick, Dexter and Nocturne are the grown-up ones, and the theaters took the weekend off

Minions & Monsters, Peacock, since Wednesday

This is the family pick and it's an easy one. Minions & Monsters started streaming exclusively on Peacock on Wednesday, October 28. It's not a special, which is how I've seen it described. It's the full movie that opened in theaters July 1 and made about $520 million worldwide: three Minions in 1920s Hollywood try to make a monster movie and let a real one loose. Pierre Coffin directs, Trey Parker, Allison Janney, Christoph Waltz and Jeff Bridges are in the voice cast, it's PG, about 90 minutes, and critics landed around 89 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, which is high for this franchise. Peacock added the first Minions movie and the first two Despicable Me films alongside it, plus a how-to-draw featurette. (Variety, Peacock)

If you have kids under ten, this is your Saturday night. The monsters are the Universal classics played for laughs, and nobody will need the lights on afterward.

Dexter: Resurrection season 2, Paramount+ with Showtime, Friday

Ten episodes, Michael C. Hall back, and Dan Stevens and Brian Cox joining. (Dread Central) Last year's first season was the best Dexter since the fourth, and it earned its ending in a way the original finale never did. This is the thing I'd watch if I were alone on Halloween, and I'm slightly annoyed I won't be.

Nocturne, Apple TV, Friday

Apple's new one is a Nordic crime series adapting two Lars Kepler novels, Lazarus and The Sandman, with Liev Schreiber, Zazie Beetz and Stephen Graham. The first two episodes are up and it runs weekly on Fridays, six episodes in all. (TV Insider) The Sandman is one of the genuinely scary crime novels, a serial killer in a coma who may still be running things, and Stephen Graham in anything is reason enough. I haven't seen it. It's the one on this list I'm most curious about.

For the horror people

• Hunting Matthew Nichols, Shudder, today. A found-footage Shudder original about a filmmaker investigating her brother's disappearance on Vancouver Island. Critics have it around 91 percent from a small sample, audiences at about 50, which for found footage usually means it's slow and then isn't. (Rotten Tomatoes)
• Big Baby, Shudder, since Friday. A horror writer's nightmares about a killer in a baby mask. Directed by Spider One. It was on rental in August and this is its streaming debut.
• Cannibal Poet, HBO Max, since Thursday. A three-part HBO documentary about José Luis Calva Zepeda, the Mexico City case from 2007. True crime, not fiction, and grim.
• The R.I.P Man, Shudder, since Wednesday. A British slasher from last year about a killer who takes one tooth from each victim in a quiet English town. It's a library addition with one critic review, not a premiere.
• Apocalypse Z: New World, Prime Video, since Friday. The Spanish zombie sequel, if you want something loud.

Theaters: one new wide release, and it's a Christmas movie

With Halloween on a Saturday, studios stayed away. The only new wide release is Christmas at the Kringles, an R-rated comedy from the Willy's Wonderland director about a family whose new neighbors celebrate Christmas all year, with Ron Livingston, Rachel Bilson and Beverly D'Angelo, on about 1,800 screens and tracking at $2 million or so. Early reviews are rough. (Rotten Tomatoes) The real contest is the top spot: Boxoffice Pro has A24's You Can See Everything, the Nathan Fielder documentary I wrote about last weekend, likely to pass Clayface for number one in its third week, somewhere between $12 and $17 million. (Boxoffice Pro) If it does, that's a documentary beating a DC movie on Halloween weekend, and I'll have more to say about it Sunday.

In limited release, Queen at Sea is at 92 percent and the Scream 30th anniversary re-release is in theaters if you'd rather do Halloween the 1996 way.

On regular TV tonight

AMC's FearFest is running the Halloween movies all day, with the 1978 original at 7 and 11 p.m. Eastern. Freeform has Hocus Pocus at 7:20 and the sequel at 9:30. TNT has Beetlejuice Beetlejuice at 5:45 and 10. And WWE's NXT Halloween Havoc is live on The CW tonight if your house is a wrestling house. (Rotten Tomatoes' guide)

What I was sent, and what was wrong with it

This one needs its own section, because four of the briefing's five picks were wrong in a way that would have sent you looking for things that aren't there.

• "Peacock debuted its exclusive animated special Minions and Monsters." It's a theatrical feature, the fourth-biggest animated movie of the year, not a special.
• "Shudder premiered its chilling new supernatural mystery The R.I.P. Man, following an investigator unearthing ritualistic murders tied to urban folklore." It's a 2025 slasher about a dentist-themed killer, it's been on digital since January, and this week it was simply added to Shudder's library. Nothing supernatural, no folklore.
• "Hulu expanded its October catalog with SOULM8TE, exploring an AI companion that develops an obsession with its creator." It arrived on Hulu October 1, four weeks ago. It never had the January theatrical release that was planned. And the premise is a grieving engineer testing a tech company's android that develops a mind of its own. Kate Dolan directed, it's R, and it's fine for a Halloween night if you missed it.
• "Stream A24's The Backrooms on HBO Max." It's just Backrooms, no "The," and it's been on HBO Max since September 25. Still A24's biggest movie ever, still worth it, not new.
• What the briefing missed entirely: Dexter, Nocturne, Big Baby, Hunting Matthew Nichols, and the fact that there's basically nothing new in theaters.

My watch order

Candy first. Then Minions & Monsters with the family, because it's the one thing everyone will sit through. Once the house is quiet, the first episode of Nocturne, since I'd rather be hooked on something new than comfortable with something old. Dexter waits for Sunday night, when the box office numbers are in and I've written them up. And if I'm still awake after that, Hunting Matthew Nichols with the sound low, which is how found footage should be watched anyway.

Verified October 28, 2026. Minions & Monsters details from Variety and Peacock. Dexter from Dread Central, Nocturne from TV Insider. Shudder and TV listings from the Rotten Tomatoes Halloween programming guide and Streaming Better. Box office forecasts from Boxoffice Pro; they're forecasts, and the actual numbers come Sunday. SOULM8TE's Hulu date from Collider, Backrooms from Variety. Review scores as of October 28 and will move.