Look, anybody can curate an all-day Halloween movie marathon, but it takes a real broken brained freak to assemble a 24 hour playlist. We’re digging beyond the typical Misfits/Monster Mash of it all to program a couple dozen spooky as hell albums, sequenced to soundtrack your whole ass Halloween, midnight to midnight.

12:00am – 1:47am

Kali Malone “The Sacrificial Code”

We’re gonna start things off low and slow, a double album of longform organ drones to accompany your REM sleep. Unobtrusive enough to snooze through but eerie enough that if someone came into your bedroom while you were sleeping while this was playing they’d be a little freaked out.

1:48am – 3:08am

Thom Yorke “Suspiria (Music for the Luca Guadagnino Film)”

The one and only horror movie soundtrack we’re including here, Thom Yorke’s first ever film score is a wide-ranging collection of ambient sketches, brief interstitials, and longform instrumental pieces, ideal tunes for a very unsettling sleep.

3:09am – 4:01am

Tim Hecker “Ravedeath, 1972”

Revisiting the spooky pipe organ drone zone, Hecker’s buried these tones beneath layers of distorted synthesizers and buzzing feedback. You might be jolted awake by an occasional burst of harsh noise but this stretch of dark ambience will mostly just make your dreams 75% more uneasy feeling than usual, setting the tone for a very scary day.

4:02am – 4:40am

Oren Ambarchi / Johan Berthling / Andreas Werliin “Ghosted”

The four extended, skeletal instrumental jams are as unobtrusive as anything you’ve played midslumber with so far, but a bit more upbeat. The title also just makes sense for what we’re trying to do here. Ghosts!

4:41am – 5:27am

Grouper “Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill”

A perfectly autumnal and dreamy album from one of the best to ever do it. Ease your way into your morning with some gorgeous, smeary ambient folk.

5:28am – 5:58am

Elliott Smith “Roman Candle”

Smith’s absolutely sublime melodies, whispered into a Radio Shack mic plugged into a four track are best beamed directly into your skull first thing in the morning.

5:59am – 6:44am

Leonard Cohen “Songs of Love and Hate”

At this point we’re not even trying to have a restful sleep; perhaps the most chilling record of Cohen’s career is an extremely fitting partner to a frosty predawn fall morning.

6:45am – 7:15am

Bill Orcutt “How to Rescue Things”

The sky is brightening and sunrise is nearly upon us, there’s no better time to throw on the extremely haunted and haunting atmosphere of avant garde guitar master Bill Orcutt’s “How to Rescue Things.” Equal parts The Shining-core midcentury dollar bin ballroom LP and slow burn solo electric guitar riffage, it’s an uncanny midpoint between pleasant and creepy.

7:16am – 7:55am

Nick Drake “Five Leaves Left”

What’s nicer than a sunrise paired with the pastoral folk sounds of the melancholy prince of autumn? Nick Drake’s debut album is sparer than his later work but mines a similar vein of gloom beneath those sunny melodies and warm acoustic guitar.

7:56am – 8:24am

The Beach Boys “Smiley Smile”

The weird, stoned, half formed follow-up to “Pet Sounds” is a delightfully off way to accompany your morning coffee, as uneasy, slightly decayed vibes creep into Brian Wilson’s sunny pop perfection.

8:25am – 9:14am

Broadcast & The Focus Group “Broadcast And The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age”

This collaboration with experimental sound collagist The Focus Group is Broadcast at their most hauntological, forefronting the through the looking glass ambience and obscure library music influences. Whip up a big stack of pumpkin spice pancakes while your stereo plays some of the craziest sounding indie pop you’ll ever encounter.

9:15am – 9:56am

Carla dal Forno “Confession”

There’s something claustrophobic and unsettling about the lo fi pop nuggets on Carla dal Forno’s latest LP, what first comes off as a collection of charmingly domestic love song curdles into something more sinister, a bunch of unreliable narrators with bad intentions feigning naivety.

9:57am – 10:48am

Zola Jesus “The Spoils”

Goth pop diva Zola Jesus’ homemade debut LP is full of soaring melodies and heartbroken ballads layered in harsh noise and severe feedback, sounding like something that would be blasting out of the windows of an angsty teenage vampire’s bedroom.

10:49am – 11:18am

C.A. Quintet “Trip Thru Hell”

A nearly forgotten piece of late ‘60s psych rock paranoia was originally released as an extremely limited run on a tiny Minneapolis label before being rescued from obscurity decades later by crate digging weirdos and record collector fanatics. It’s a cinematic, ominous suite of songs with swirling organ lines and anguished howls, tailor made for a day like today.

11:19am – 12:06pm

Liars “Drum’s Not Dead”

Another cinematic brain scorcher, “Drum’s Not Dead” turns 20 this year and sounds just as otherworldly as ever, all throbbing percussion and ghoulish moans and groans.

12:07pm – 12:44pm

Jenny Hval “Blood Bitch”

The atmospheric, menacing highpoint in a catalog with plenty of bangers, Jenny Hval’s pseudo concept album is definitely at least sort of about vampires.

12:45pm – 1:38pm

Sonic Youth “Bad Moon Rising”

Early, no wave era Sonic Youth hitting it out of the park with Halloween adjacent album artwork (Jack-o’-lantern head on a scarecrow!) and track listing (featuring songs like “Ghost Bitch” “Satan Is Boring” and, of course, “Halloween.”)

1:39pm – 2:45pm

Dr. Octagon “Dr. Octagonecologyst”

We’re lightening things up a bit with Kool Keith’s psychedelic hip-hop masterpiece, which incorporates tons of horror and science fiction influences and samples while keeping it strictly on the retro drive-in schlock side of the genre, much preferable to horrorcore’s off-putting too muchness.

2:46pm – 3:18pm

The Louvin Brothers “Satan Is Real”

There are few things more unsettling than The Louvin Brothers’ gorgeous close harmonies as they conjure harrowing country gospel songs, awash with visions of regretful sinners on their deathbeds, hateful demons, and Baptist redemption.

3:19pm – 4:12pm

Roky Erickson and the Aliens “The Evil One”

Roky Erickson’s tales of zombies, two headed dogs, and the “creature with the atom brain” are so perfectly suited for what we’re trying to do here. Written primarily during his time spent incarcerated at Texas’ Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, this some of the heaviest, mind-altering Halloween adjacent music you’ll ever hear.

4:13pm – 4:42pm

The Sonics “Here Are the Sonics”

Garage rock and the Halloween season go hand in hand, so we’re going to ease into the garage portion of the day with one of the first and best to do it!

4:43pm – 5:20pm

The Mummies “Never Been Caught”

Another perfect slice of grimy garage rock with a supernatural twist. The one and only LP from these nasty costume rockers is a rowdy good time, a great soundtrack to welcoming the coming onslaught of trick or treaters.

5:21pm – 5:54pm

Screamin’ Jay Hawkins “I Put A Spell On You”

A hot slab of wax from the original freak king of rock and roll, what’s nicer than the sound of Screamin’ Jay’s manic hoots and hollers echoing throughout your home on All Hallows’ Eve?

5:55pm – 6:37pm

Oh Sees “Castlemania”

Perhaps the most purely body horror forward record in a catalog full of albums called stuff like “Face Stabber,” “Memory of a Cut Off Head,” and “Warm Slime,” “Castlemania” sounds like if a group of weird teenage monsters started a band in their stepdad’s basement.

6:38pm – 7:20pm

Los Saicos “¡Demolición! The Complete Recordings”

Another bit of rock and roll archaeology, the handful of ferocious recordings available from Peruvian protopunkers Los Saicos brief run in the mid 1960s are just the thing to score the parade of neighborhood kids that have been banging down your door for a few hours now.

7:21pm – 7:57pm

Man Or Astro-Man? “Experiment Zero”

Campy 90’s sci-fi surf rockers Man Or Astro-Man? will have your house feeling like you’ve stepped into an episode of “Mystery Science Theater 3000” as you thrill to an endless barrage of riffs and out of context sound clips from old B movies.

7:58pm – 8:30pm

The Slits “Cut”

A trio of white British ladies playing art pop with a prominent dub reggae influence, now that’s scary! Miraculously they pull it off, these minimalist punk songs sound as extraterrestrial today as they did when they came out nearly fifty years ago. The kind of pulsing, idiosyncratic party starters that make for ideal background music to have people over for some spiked apple cider or whatever.

8:31pm – 9:14pm

Siouxsie and the Banshees “Through the Looking Glass”

This cache of gothy covers from the queen of Halloween, what’s better than Siouxsie Sioux howling her way through tracks like Iggy Pop’s “The Passenger” and Sparks’ “This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us”?

9:15pm – 9:52pm

Scientist “Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires”

Dub legend Scientist’s reworks of a bunch of early 80s reggae jams get a Halloween twist, layering sound effects and scary voices across songs with titles like “Dance Of The Vampires” and “The Mummy’s Shroud.”

9:53pm – 10:35pm

Devo “Hardcore Devo, Vol. 1 1974 – 1977”

A lot of folks aren’t aware of the early, evil Devo collected on the Hardcore compilations. These noisier, sinister versions of classic Devo gems like “Soo Bawls” and “Jacko Homo” are some of the most antisocial party jams you’ve ever heard. Prime late night Halloween listening.

10:36pm – 11:21pm

Danny Brown “Atrocity Exhibition”

The vibes are starting to turn as you grow tired from a long day of ghoulies and goblins; you should probably throw on Danny Brown’s malevolent masterpiece, an exhausted, noisy rager.

11:22pm – 12:00am

Iggy Pop “The Idiot”

Iggy Pop produced one of the all time great late night records after absconding to Europe in 1976 to do heroic amounts of cocaine with David Bowie. The rotten environment of “The Idiot” culminates with the soaring, depressive torch song “Mass Production,” the perfect way to close out your Halloween marathon.

Photograph by Nicholas Karlin, drawing by Daniel Knox

This piece is in Recommend If You Like The Spooky Issue Fall 2026. You can find physical copies in bars, cafes and stores in Chicago and Washington, D.C. The newspaper is available for purchase here. 

We are not owned or funded by a billionaire or even a millionaire. We do have a Patreon. If you can’t afford to become a patron, please sign up to our mailing list. It’s free and we’re asking here instead of a pop-up. Pop-ups are annoying.