Halloween t-shirts come in two species, and it helps to know which one you are hunting. One is the holiday: classic monsters, jack-o'-lanterns and the general spooky-season mood, which we keep in our All Hallows' Eve category. The other is the movie: John Carpenter's Halloween (1978), Michael Myers and the franchise that followed, which lives in our Halloween movie category.
Both are correct answers. They just attract different people at the party, and I have opinions about both, so let me sort them for you.
Quick Guide: Which Halloween Shirt Fits Your October
- Office party with a no-costume rule: a classic monster tee (Frankenstein, Dracula, the Creature from the Black Lagoon) or a costume joke shirt that announces itself as the costume. Festive, recognizable, zero HR paperwork.
- Trick-or-treat escort: the same classic monsters, or a Trick 'r Treat pumpkin design. Warm, a little spooky, nothing that will make a five-year-old cry on a stranger's porch.
- Horror movie marathon: Michael Myers, full stop. Or anything from the wider horror shelf, which I rank below.
- The whole month of October: rotate. Spooky season is a thirty-one-day event for a lot of people now, and one shirt will not survive it.
Side One: The Holiday (All Hallows' Eve)
We call the holiday category All Hallows' Eve for a practical reason: in our store, Halloween is the name of a movie with a very large man in a very white mask in it, and we did not want someone looking for a cheerful pumpkin to land on a kitchen knife. So the holiday gets its old name, and the film keeps its own.
What lives there comes in two moods. The first is the Universal Monsters and their friends: Frankenstein, the Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, the Mummy and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. These are the original Halloween faces, scary the way a haunted house ride is scary. You get the shiver without the nightmare. The second is pure spooky-season fun: glowing jack-o'-lanterns, a black cat peeking out of a pumpkin, a witch on a crossing sign, bedsheet ghosts with opinions, and a few costume jokes for people who refuse to wear a costume, like the World's Least Offensive Halloween Costume. I rank these below The Thing on artistic merit, but I respect a ghost with a pun.
That makes them the ideal holiday shirt for the people who have to be festive in public. An office that bans full costumes almost never bans a Frankenstein tee. A parent walking three blocks of trick-or-treaters wants something that says I am participating, not something that scares the neighbors. A classic monster reads instantly to everyone, which is the whole point of a holiday shirt: a small, cheerful handshake with everyone you pass that night.
The deep cut on the holiday shelf: Trick 'r Treat
You will also find our Trick 'r Treat category, which I consider the most Halloween movie ever made about Halloween itself. Michael Dougherty's anthology was shot for a theatrical release in October 2007, was pulled, played the festival circuit, and finally came out on home video in 2009. It found its audience anyway, which is what good horror does.
Its mascot is Sam, a small, silent trick-or-treater who appears to enforce the rules of the holiday. Break a Halloween tradition in Warren Valley, Ohio, and Sam will have a word. It is the rare horror movie that loves the holiday more than the gore. A Sam shirt is the ultimate inside joke: people who know it will light up, and people who do not will ask, and then you get to recommend a movie. That is how a fan community grows, one confused coworker at a time.
Side Two: The Movie (John Carpenter's Halloween)
Now for the one I actually came here to talk about. I will state my bias plainly: John Carpenter is a god, and I am not using that word loosely. On Halloween he directed, co-wrote the screenplay with Debra Hill, and composed the score himself. That theme, the one you are hearing in your head right now, is in an unusual 5/4 time signature, which is part of why it never quite settles. It sounds like something that will not stop walking toward you. Which is, conveniently, the plot.
Some verified numbers, because the story of this film is better than most films:
- It was made for roughly $300,000 to $325,000 and grossed about $70 million.
- It was filmed in 20 days over four weeks in May 1978, in Southern California.
- It was Jamie Lee Curtis's film debut, as Laurie Strode.
- In 2006 the Library of Congress selected it for the National Film Registry as culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.
The mask: a $1.98 lesson in seeing less
Here is my favorite piece of film trivia on earth. Michael Myers' mask was a store-bought mask modeled on William Shatner's Captain Kirk. Production designer Tommy Lee Wallace bought it for $1.98 at a costume shop on Hollywood Boulevard, widened the eye holes, and spray-painted the face a bluish white. As a lifelong Star Trek person, I find it deeply satisfying that the scariest face in American horror is a Starfleet captain with the personality removed.
And that removal is the whole trick. The credits do not even call him Michael Myers when he is masked; Nick Castle is credited as The Shape. The mask has no expression, so you project one onto it. Horror is scariest when you see less, and Halloween is the textbook case: very little blood, a lot of empty suburban lawn, and a pale face standing perfectly still in the background of a shot you thought was safe. Carpenter understood that the thing you are not shown will always be worse than the thing you are. Same reason practical effects beat CGI: something physically on set, glimpsed for a second, lands harder than any rendered detail.
That is also why a Michael Myers tee works so well as a shirt. The blank mask is iconic in silhouette. You do not need a caption. Anyone who has seen the film recognizes it from across a parking lot.
The sequels, the remakes, and the 2018 do-over
The franchise has kept going for decades, with sequels, a reboot in the 2000s, and several attempts to explain things that were scarier unexplained. Reboots usually do not improve on the original, and I will leave my ranking of the middle entries at that, out of respect for everyone who owns them on DVD.
The 2018 Halloween, directed by David Gordon Green, is the interesting exception to the pattern in one respect: it is a direct sequel to the 1978 film that ignores every other entry in the series, set 40 years later, with Jamie Lee Curtis back as Laurie. Carpenter served as an executive producer and scored it. It grossed $259.9 million worldwide on a $10 million budget, which made it the highest-grossing slasher film in unadjusted dollars. It was followed by Halloween Kills (2021) and Halloween Ends (2022). You can enjoy all three and still believe the 1978 film is the one that matters.
Our movie category covers the whole run: the original and international poster art, the mask, the knife, the logo, and a few cheerfully dark jokes. A good Halloween tee from the film side is less of a costume and more of a credential. It tells the room you have opinions about which sequel is the worst, and it invites someone to argue with you about it.
The Wider Horror Shelf People Wear in October
Once October starts, Halloween is not just one film. It is the season when everyone pulls their horror shirts out of the drawer. Our Horror category is where the rest of the lineup lives, and here is how I would sort it for a month of wearing:
- The masked slashers: Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street, plus Freddy vs Jason for people who wanted the two of them in the same room. Pair with a Myers shirt and you have the whole unholy trinity for a group.
- Horror comedy: Beetlejuice, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Army of Darkness, Evil Dead and Shaun of the Dead. These are the right call for a party where half the crowd does not watch horror. Everyone laughs at a klown with a cotton-candy gun.
- The practical-effects hall of fame: Pumpkinhead, Gremlins, Evil Dead again, and the classic monsters. Rubber, latex, puppeteers and fake blood made by the gallon. I will defend every one of them.
- The heavy hitters: The Exorcist, Carrie, Pet Sematary and Jaws.
And then the undead. Our Zombie category is small and very well-bred: Night of the Living Dead, the film that set the rules for the modern zombie, and Return of the Living Dead, the one that decided zombies should want brains specifically and should be funny about it. If your October involves a zombie walk or a double feature, those two are the correct pairing, and the shirts show up on a crowded sidewalk.
How People Actually Wear Halloween Shirts
The costume that is not a costume
A lot of workplaces now allow festive clothing but not full costumes. A Halloween shirt is the loophole everyone agrees on: you are clearly participating, you can still sit through a budget meeting, and the moment the party ends, you are just a person in a good shirt.
Matching shirts for the group
Group shirts are the most fun you can have with this category. The trick is a theme rather than identical shirts. Put every member of the family or friend group in a different Universal Monster and you have a monster squad that photographs beautifully. A horror-night crew can split the slashers between them. A couple can go Laurie and The Shape. It reads as a costume in pictures and as clothing everywhere else, and it gives strangers an easy way to say hello.
Sizing for layering in cold weather
October in much of the country means a tee over a hoodie, or a tee under a jacket, and that changes your size. Our standard adult tee runs from a chest width of 18 inches flat at Small up to 36 inches at 7XL, measured across the front, with each size adding about 2 inches of width and an inch of length.
- Tee over a hoodie: go up one size from your normal fit so the shirt sits flat over the extra layer instead of stretching the graphic.
- Tee under a jacket: stay in your usual size; the jacket does the insulating, and a closer fit keeps the print from bunching.
- Bigger bodies: our plus-size category goes well past 2XL on many designs, depending on the shirt colour.
- Taller bodies: our Tall t-shirts category adds 3 inches of length at the same width, which matters a lot when you are layering and raising your arms to hand out candy all night.
One more October tip: order early. The week before Halloween is when everyone else remembers they needed a shirt too.
The Short Version
If you want cheerful, pick the holiday: classic monsters, pumpkins, Sam from Trick 'r Treat. If you want the film, pick Michael Myers and wear a $1.98 Captain Kirk mask with pride. If you want the whole month, raid the horror shelf and rotate. Either way, you will pass someone on the street this October who is wearing the same monster, and the two of you will nod at each other like members of a very small, very spooky club. Happy Halloween. Lock the back door.