4 Iconic Halloween Horror Films With Accidental Vegan Messages

Halloween calls for trick-or-treating, costume parties, and noshing on vegan sweets and treats. But if you’re anything like us, the month of October marks the beginning of spooky fun, and the best way to get in the spirit of Halloween is with scary movies. 

Ever since the misunderstood monster in Frankenstein proclaimed: “I do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite; acorns and berries afford me sufficient nourishment,” there’s been a connection between veganism and the horror genre. This Halloween, why not curl up on the couch with a fantastic film that will satisfy your hunger for horror?

Halloween movie night, the vegan way

While a plethora of vegan films have made headlines in recent years, a quick Google search for “vegan movies” yields a number of documentaries aimed at highlighting the benefits of plant-based diets and the horrors of animal agriculture. And while these documentaries are crucial to mainstreaming veganism and exposing audiences to the lived realities of farmed animals, they’re not what we think of when planning a horror movie marathon. 

Andrea Piacquadio

Luckily, the horror genre has plenty to offer, and with countless options, there are a few standouts that subtly (and not so subtly) drive the vegan message home.

Horror movies with a vegan twist

VegNews has collected the best frightening films with accidental vegan messages, but before you press play, don’t forget the spooky snacks. Caramel corn is a Halloween staple, and this recipe adds miso butter into the mix for a next-level snack that’ll make you scream, with glee that is.

For something a little more in tune with the night’s haunts, whip up a batch of these Spooky Eyeball Mini Vegan Cupcakes. Or keep it simple and peruse our candy guide for vegan-friendly sweets. 

Now that snacks are in order, check out these four iconic Halloween movies with accidental vegan themes.

1 Only Lovers Left Alive

A contemporary movie about a married vampire couple, directed by Jim Jarmusch, Only Lovers Left Alive suggests that these undead humans have hearts (even if they don’t beat). Starring Tilda Swinton as the vampire wife, Eve, and Tom Hiddleston as her husband, Adam, the movie follows these two as they seek out blood to sustain themselves without hurting others.

Unlike the animal-killing vampires in Twilight, this pair takes the cruelty-free route by securing bags of blood collected by doctors from willing humans. In fact, when Eve’s vampire sister comes to town and kills Adam’s friend for the sake of a snack, she is ousted from their home. It is only at the very end of the film, desperate for blood to sustain themselves, that the two make the difficult decision to bite into human beings. However, in the final scene of the film, the two agree not to kill their humans, only to turn them into fellow vampires.
watch it here

2 Soylent Green

Made in the year 1973, Soylent Green paints a bleak and frighteningly accurate representation of life on Earth in 2022. It suggests that overcrowding, pollution, and the depletion of resources have meant that society has not been able to rely on traditional foods.

Farmed animals have disappeared for the most part, not because of the compassion of human beings, but because the environment couldn’t sustain them. Plants are disappearing from the planet. People protesting the lack of food are collected by the police using “scoops,” similar to the massive tractors sometimes mercilessly used to move injured cattle by farmers. It is humans that are now being farmed.

A food is being distributed to the masses called “Soylent Green.” And it hides a secret. We follow Detective Thorn as he investigates a murder and uncovers the truth about Soylent Green: it is made from the bodies of people who have passed on. “The ocean’s dying,” he laments. “Plankton’s dying. It’s people. Soylent Green is made out of people.”
Watch it here

3 The Birds

Was director Alfred Hitchcock secretly an animal activist? His 1963 classic The Birds makes it clear that we shouldn’t keep birds in cages.

The film opens with the female lead, Melanie, among all of the caged birds in a pet store. She meets a new hot friend, Mitch, in the shop, and then purchases a pair of lovebirds who she totes around in a cage while wearing a fur coat. She sneaks into the hot guy’s house to leave the birds, as a prank. It’s then that the birds come after her, with a gull pecking her head as she makes her escape.

Soon, many birds come together, attacking the people of the town. A woman tells Melanie that this all started when she got there. Melanie has been playing games with the birds—but in the end, it’s the birds who trap Melanie.

She and the hot guy’s family board themselves up in their house (kind of like a cage). In the end, they escape, but we bet Melanie won’t be using birds as pawns in her little games anymore.
watch it here

4 Wolfen

Run-down and graffiti-covered, the New York cityscape of the 1980s plays a major role in this horror flick that contemplates the repercussions of gentrification.

It begins with a lavishly-living socialite couple, the Van Der Veers, losing their lives in a mysterious attack. Mr. Van Der Veer was a developer, placing modern buildings where there is now rubble. As it turns out, those run-down expanses of New York City are the habitats of wolves who were driven out of their natural homes by humans.

Desperate to protect their new grounds, the wolves took on the developer himself, and his fur-wearing wife. In a spellbinding scene at the end of the film, the detective on the case finds himself surrounded by the wolves in the Van Der Veer offices. Realizing why the wolves are there, he destroys a model of a development that is in the works.

The wolves howl and disappear into the night, making it crystal clear that they only killed the Van Der Veers to protect themselves from humans who were threatening their habitat.
Watch it here