Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off Angel were shows made to have stellar Halloween episodes. While they didn’t have nearly enough of them (aka there should’ve been one every season), the ones they did have were incredibly memorable.
Buffy had them every other year, while Angel only gave us one in the show’s final season. Both shows are set in a universe where monsters, demons, ghosts, and ghouls are all real, so they had plenty of fodder for special spooky season episodes. They are the best kind of spooky season rewatch. So, let’s begin our list…
Every Halloween Episode in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Ranked
4) “All the Way”
The season 6 Buffy Halloween episode is clearly the weakest of the bunch. It has a few things working against it—it’s a Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg) centric episode and it takes place in the most depressing season of the show. Dawn is for sure a character that gets a lot of extra hate—I mean, who wouldn’t be whiny and crying all the time if as a tween you learned you weren’t real, the same year your mother and sister died? But, this episode suffers from not quite having a grasp on Dawn’s character (hot take: she shines in season 7) and filling the episode with characters we’ve never met before therefore don’t really care about. It does have a fun twist though, the boy Dawn gets her first actual kiss from ends up being a vampire.
Best Moment: Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Spike (James Marsters) arrive at the make out parking spot to save Dawn, and finding out there is only one random couple there just to make out and not interested in drinking blood.
3) “Life of the Party”
The lone Angel Halloween episode is a really fun one showcasing how the show really should’ve had more holiday-themed episodes. Lorne (Andy Hallett) is organizing Wolfram & Hart’s annual Halloween bash and the campy king goes all in. The party’s attendees include the Angel Investigations team, the Wolfram & Hart staff, and all of the law firm’s demon-y clients. We see the offices all decorated for Halloween, a thing that’s always fun in a show, and Lorne on the verge of a nervous breakdown while planning everything. There’s someone or something stalking folks at the party, which we later learn is actually the sleep Lorne had removed from his brain come to life as a Hulk-like monster.
Best Moment: Either David Boreanaz’s Angel having a non-stop f*ck fest with Eve (Sarah Thompson) or Lorne pointing out how Harmony (Mercedes McNab) is the only one on the dance floor and her waving back at him while dancing.
2) “Halloween”
The Buffy season 2 Halloween episode set the standard for all Buffyverse Halloween episodes moving forward. This episode gave us the “demons take the night off” bit that is the through-line for all the episodes on the list. Demons taking the night off stays mostly true (aside from the season 6 one), which forced the writers to create a fun one-off issue for every Halloween episode. And the one-off in this one is everyone becomes their costumes. It’s a premise that sounds like something straight out of a Goosebumps novel, but it totally works here. The episode sidelines our slayer, having become the noblewoman she’s dressed as and showcases the rest of the Scoobies. Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) are the two teens who retain who they are, Willow just happens to also become a ghost version of herself. It’s also one of the first episodes of Buffy where we see how confident Willow can and will become. The episode is also really freakin’ funny.
Best Moment: Willow saying “She couldn’t have dressed like Xena,” after Buffy as a Noblewoman has ranted about how scared she is.
2) “Fear, Itself”
Buffy season 4’s Halloween episode is the one episode on this list that’s both funny and actually kinda scary. A frat house is throwing a haunted house themed Halloween party that becomes a real haunted house when Oz (Seth Green) accidentally bleeds on a pentagram one of the frat boys drew on the floor. We see everyone at the frat being torn through, even one person getting their neck snapped in half and coming to life later as a zombie. This episode also sets up a lot of the themes of the season—and the show. Buffy feels she has to do everything on her own, Xander (Nicholas Brendon) is afraid of not being noticed, Oz is scared of losing control of his werewolf powers, and Willow is scared of being left alone. This episode also introduces Anya’s (Emma Caulfield) fear of bunnies, as she dresses up as one for the party, telling Xander bunnies scare her. We also get Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) with a chainsaw. This episode is like a funny version of the horror novel House of Leaves. It also has one of the best Big Bad reveals on Buffy—the tiny fear demon controlling everything.
Best Moment: Buffy squashing the fear demon beneath her foot and saving the day.