Editor's Note: Visit our Halloween page for more tricks and treats, the costume and horror classics photo galleries, and our own scariest movies.

Many Halloween movies seem to fall into two categories. First there are the scary, totally kid un-friendly type, like the original Halloween with Michael Meyers methodically trying to kill everyone in town. On the other end of the spectrum are those that appear sweet as a sack full of treats, which I find almost as unappealing as the first variety, and are usually found in the children's section of the video store. I do not enjoy films of either extreme, and seek out those that combine suspense (not horror) and humor. Occasionally I succeed, but not always.

Three years ago my daughters had several of their friends over for a small Halloween party during which they watched Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein. I provided the movie, thinking Abbot and Costello would be funny. The second graders found it funny and also pretty scary. The kindergarten kids, however, were mostly just scared to death. I'm unclear whether it was the Wolfman, Dracula or Frankenstein that frightened them most. Whoops.

So, I tried again with It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, which the little kids enjoyed, but I find annoying. Maybe I'm just not a Peanuts fan. I know my husband loathes all of the Peanuts shows because he feels they were written for kids by an adult who didn't know any. My 10-year-old is somewhat ambivalent on the subject. She likes Lucy (my least favorite of the characters), and I suspect that is because she is frequently vexed by younger siblings who, like Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin, cause her embarrassment and frustration.

Another attempt at finding a Halloween film we can all enjoy led me to the 1993 film Hocus Pocus, featuring Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy and Sarah Jessica Parker as a trio of 17th-century witch sisters. This one got really mixed reviews. My son found it frightening. My nine-year-old daughter enjoyed it primarily because she thought one witch was pretty. Our oldest daughter joined our audience late, but seemed to be leaning toward an overall favorable review. Hocus Pocus is neither objectionable nor great, but it is fun to watch its stars in atypical roles.

A film we all seem able to appreciate is a classic, 1944's Arsenic and Old Lace. Cary Grant is popular with our entire family (what's not to like?), so I felt confident when I first introduced them to this film. My son appreciates the character who believes himself to be Teddy Roosevelt. The girls get a kick out of Grant's facial expressions and physicality (although they don't use that word for it). I enjoy the entire cast, including Peter Lorre, whose face and voice are synonymous with "creepy," and Josephine Hull and Jean Adair as the sweet maiden aunts who secretly poison lonely gentlemen guests and bury them in their cellar. Talk about skeletons in the closet. This is one of those rare pictures that perfectly nails just-scary-enough (Raymond Massey as Grant's escaped convict brother, Jonathan, is pretty frightening) with laugh-out-loud humor.

I readily admit that I am not a scary movie fan, but really, I don't think many children are either. They might be more tolerant of the super sweet than I am, but that's why they go trick-or-treating.

Sue Harvey

Sue (aka "Mom on Film") is a mother of three who shares her passion for film with bi-weekly, family-friendly movie recommendations.

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