10. Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace
The scary stories of The Simpsons Halloween episodes are usually parodies/tributes to classic or contemporary horror movies, and this story is based on one of the most iconic ones out there: A Nightmare on Elm Street. In this version, Willie, the Scottish housefather of Bart and Lisa’s school, replaces Freddy Krueger, the serial killer who was burned to death by the town parents—in this case, he was burned because Homer accidentally turned on the furnace at the wrong time. Like the A Nightmare on Elm Street films that take place largely within the dreams of Freddy’s victims, this segment also consists of several Nightmares are interesting, which gives the animators an excuse to go a little wilder than is customary in the series. Besides, there’s also one of Grandpa Simpson’s great lines here: when Bart and Lisa realize that because of the killer in their dreams the next time they fall asleep they might never wake up, he replies “Welcome to my world” and then falls right back to sleep.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSiHy1OmPEM
9. Nightmare Cafeteria
One day the teachers at the school decide to start eating the students. That’s it, that’s pretty much all there is here. This story doesn’t really have a strong parody (it’s kind of a parody of the movie “Soylent Green”), but there are still a lot of good gags and a bit of satire on the education system. Special points also go to the episode for its crazy ending, which I already mentioned in the list The funniest moments of the nineties (in general, not just The Simpsons).
8. Time And Punishment
We all know that if you go back in time, the first rule is not to touch anything, because every little thing you do can cause irreparable damage to reality. So when Homer accidentally turns his toaster into a time machine, and accidentally crushes and steps on insects in prehistoric times, he causes a number of warped realities where Flanders rules the world, donuts fall from the sky and Maggie speaks in the voice of James Earl Jones. Another story that takes a classic horror/MDB concept and puts it through the funny machine that is “The Simpsons” and creates something funny and new.
7. Terror at 5 ½ Feet
After all kinds of classic horror movies, the great source of influence on the Halloween episodes of The Simpsons is of course the classic series “The Twilight Zone”. This story is based on a famous episode from the 1960s starring William Shatner, even before he was Captain Kirk in “Star Trek”, and also wonFilm version starring John Lithgow (“Encounters of the Third Kind”, “Dexter”) in the 1980s. The original episode is about a scared man who is sure he saw a monster on the wing of the plane he is on, and this story replaces the man with Bart, the plane with a school bus and manages to maintain a balance between suspense and humor. The design of the monster is original and unlike any of the previous versions, and the end where he holds the severed head of Ned Flanders, manages to shock and laugh.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bourqrq-yKY
6. The Thing and I
This story, as far as I know, is not based on an existing source – but some say that it actually influenced horror films that came after it. Bart discovers that his parents are hiding something from him in the attic, and that “something” is actually his evil twin, who was separated from him at birth. At the end of the episode there is a good twist in which it turns out that Bart is actually the evil twin (“Don’t look so surprised,” he says), and there is a good chance that this episode will greatly influence the twist of one of director Jordan Peele’s films (“Run away”) in the future. And it also has Dr. Hibbert’s most iconic joke:
5. Dial Z for Zombies
Zombies have been an important part of the horror genre for decades, so of course one of the first Halloween episodes of The Simpsons parodied some of the genre’s most notable films. When Bart tries to bring Lisa’s beloved cat back to life (a nod to “Animal Cemetery,” of course), he accidentally brings back all the people buried in Springfield (a list that somehow also includes George Washington, William Shakespeare, and Albert Einstein). The zombies, of course, bite other humans and turn them into zombies as well, which leads to probably the most famous moment from The Simpsons Halloween episodes: Homer shoots the zombie version of Ned Flanders, and when Bart says “you killed zombie Flanders” Homer responds with the question “was he a zombie?”.
4. Citizen Kang
Matt Groening, the creator of “The Simpsons”, although he prefers to avoid direct political satire to give the series a temporary feel – but this episode sets itself at a very specific point in time in American history – the 1996 presidential election, which always takes place in early November – a few days after Halloween . When the alien duo Kang and Kodos (guests of honor in the Halloween episodes since the first special) plan to impersonate the President of the United States in order to take over the world, Homer informs them that there will be an election soon so they still don’t know who the president will be. So Kang and Kodos impersonate the two candidates, Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. When Homer exposes the lie, Kang explains that the citizens have no choice but to vote for one of them, and when a citizen says they will vote for a third party, he says “Sure, throw your vote away!”. In short, a satire that, despite its direct engagement with candidates who have long fallen off the political map, really manages to be timeless, especially when Kang wins and enslaves all of humanity and Homer declares “Don’t blame me, I voted for Kudos!” (A common format for political stickers in the United States, with the candidate’s name changing depending on the circumstances).
3. The Devil and Homer Simpson
In an adaptation of the classic short story “The Devil and Daniel Webster”, Homer sells his soul to the devil for a donut (of course). When the devil – actually, Ned Flanders (“It’s always who you least expect”) – comes to fulfill the deal, Homer gets the chance for a fair trial. Unfortunately, the only lawyer he can get is Lionel Hatz, the town’s worst lawyer (voiced by Phil Hartman). In the end Homer does win the trial but is still punished by Satan: his head is turned into a donut that he can’t stop eating.
2. Bart Simpson’s Dracula
The story of Count Dracula is of course a classic tale from the late 1800s, but this Simpsons story is specifically influenced by Francis Ford Coppola’s grandiose 1992 version of the story (including a reference to the structure of that film’s title, Bram Stoker’s Dracula), As Mr. Burns the vampire is designed in a way that directly echoes the iconic look of Gary Oldman as the evil Count. One of my favorite things about this story is the ending, which really manages to be surprising and even a little scary: Bart thinks he killed the main vampire but in the end it turns out to be his mother. Spooky!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lCeAOOWaEU
1. The Shinning
It makes sense that the movie considered the greatest of the horror genre would also be the source of the best story of all the Halloween episodes of The Simpsons. And yes, this parody of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece “The Spark” has it all: a Simpsons version of every iconic moment in the film, an almost Kubrickian attention to small details, and an ending where the family freezes in the snow while watching TV – which is perhaps the perfect metaphor for how to watch the episodes The horror (not really scary) of “The Simpsons” feels in today’s scary reality.