Halloween Children’s Movies: These Are America's Favorites

Color us orange with disappointment. “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” has lost its standing as a Halloween children’s classic, according to an analysis of the top searched-for children’s movies during the frightening season. The report, based on Google searches, breaks down the top searches by state.

Among all states, the top searched for movie was “Ghostbusters,” the favorite in 11 states. In the movie, scientists played by “Saturday Night Live” alums Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray teamed with the late actor and director Harold Ramis lose their jobs and engage in a high-tech battle with the supernatural.

The second choice among states was the fantasy film “Coco.” In it, young Miguel finds himself in the colorful Land of the Dead as he defies his family’s generations-old ban on music and pursues his dream to become an accomplished musician.

Also big are “Scooby-Doo” (six states), along with “Beetlejuice” and “Nightmare Before Christmas” (five states each).

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The Halloween movie rankings were put together by Frontier Communications Corp., which provides internet, television and phone services in 29 states. The company did a grave-diggers’ dive into Google search data for children’s Halloween movies rated PG or below and selected the top 18 that are available to buy, rent, stream or watch on television. From there, data analysts ran a search for those 18 in every state and chose those with the highest volume for the ranking.

Some other findings:

“HalloweenTown,” the story of a 13-year-old who discovers she comes from a family of witches who live alongside other supernatural beings, is a favorite in Oregon. That’s not a huge surprise, given that parts of the 1998 movie were filmed in St. Helens, Oregon (incidentally, parts of “Twilight” were also filmed there).

“Casper” is based in Maine, but folks there are more interested in “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” But the story of a kind young ghost who haunts the mansion in Maine is a favorite in Wyoming. Is it because the Cowboy State’s second-largest city shares the same name as the movie?

Nowhere was the search for “Ghostbusters” greater than in New York. The classic is set in New York City.

Residents of Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming know a good movie when they see it. Their top searches this year match those in 2017, Frontier Communications said.

Here are most searched-for children’s Halloween movies by state:

Alabama: “Beetlejuice”
Alaska: “FrankenWeenie”
Arizona: “The Nightmare before Christmas”
Arkansas: “Scooby-Doo”
California: “Coco”
Colorado: “Beetlejuice”
Connecticut: “Ghostbusters”
Delaware: “Monster House”
District of Columbia: “Hocus Pocus”
Florida: “The Haunted Mansion”
Georgia: “ET”
Hawaii: “Hotel Transylvania”
Idaho: “Coco”
Illinois: “Coco”
Indiana: “The Nightmare before Christmas”
Iowa: “Scooby-Doo”
Kansas: “Ghostbusters”
Kentucky: “The Nightmare before Christmas”
Louisiana: “The Haunted Mansion”
Maine: “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”
Maryland: “ET”
Massachusetts: “ET”
Michigan: “Ghostbusters”
Minnesota: “Ghostbusters”
Mississippi: “Scooby-Doo”
Missouri: “The Nightmare before Christmas”
Montana: “Scooby-Doo”
Nebraska: “Coco”
Nevada: “FrankenWeenie”
New Hampshire: “Beetlejuice”
New Jersey: “Ghostbusters”
New Mexico: “Coraline”
New York: “Ghostbusters”
North Carolina: “Scooby-Doo”
North Dakota: “Ghostbusters”
Ohio: “Coco”
Oklahoma: “Coco”
Oregon: “HalloweenTown”
Pennsylvania: “Ghostbusters”
Rhode Island: “The Haunted Mansion”
South Carolina: “ET”
South Dakota: “Monster House”
Tennessee: “Scooby-Doo”
Texas: “Hotel Transylvania”
Utah: “The Nightmare before Christmas”
Vermont: “Ghostbusters”
Virginia: “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”
Washington: “Coco”
West Virginia: “Hocus Pocus”
Wisconsin: “Ghostbusters”
Wyoming: “Casper”

Your Turn: What’s your go-to Halloween movie and why do you like it? Would you recommend it for children? Tell us what you think in the comments.

Photo: Tolga Akmen/LNP/Shutterstock