Lessons in Fear: A Halloween Horror Film Guide for Healthcare Students

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

(1978, directed by Philip Kaufman)

A public health inspector (Donald Sutherland) and a research scientist (Brooke Adams) make a horrifying discovery: people in San Francisco are being quietly replaced by identical alien replicas. What begins as a science fiction mystery turns into a chilling meditation on contagion, conformity, and the fear of losing one’s humanity. “It’s an amazing sci-fi horror thriller and paranoia nightmare," Gaines said.

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A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

(1987, directed by Chuck Russell)

Group therapy has never been this deadly. The third entry in the Freddy Krueger saga trades suburban bedrooms for a psychiatric hospital, where a new generation of Elm Street teens battles the bladed boogeyman in their dreams—with help from OG Final Girl, Nancy Thompson, now a therapist herself.

Gaines notes that this one’s a perfect watch for psychology or nursing students: a haunted house of trauma, sleep disorders, and the therapeutic power of teamwork (with a dash of demonic dream logic).

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28 Days Later

(2002, directed by Danny Boyle)

Before “social distancing” was part of our vocabulary, Danny Boyle’s rage-fueled apocalypse imagined what happens when an experimental virus escapes a lab and society collapses overnight. Cillian Murphy wakes up in an empty London, only to find that the real infection might not be the virus—it’s humanity itself.

Gaines calls it “a horror film that feels like a pandemic case study.” For healthcare students, it’s a grim reminder of how fragile social order can be when science, policy, and compassion fall out of sync. “Plus, sketchy animal research, post-apocalyptic London, Cillian Murphy, and very fast, totally-not-zombies. What else do you need?” he said.

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Lake Mungo

(2008, directed by Joel Anderson)

Told in the style of a documentary, the movie follows an Australian family reeling from the sudden death of their daughter. As they piece together her final days, what emerges is a layered story of grief, privacy and the desperate human need to understand loss.

Less a traditional horror movie than a study in mourning, the movie speaks to anyone who has witnessed how families cope with death. Its realism—and its restraint—make it one of the most quietly devastating films of its kind. “Best to go into this one cold. Just watch. You won’t regret it,” Gaines said.

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Relic

(2020, directed by Natalie Erika James)

When an elderly woman begins to show signs of dementia, her daughter and granddaughter discover something sinister lurking within the family home. As the house itself begins to warp and decay, the movie transforms the experience of caregiving and decline into an unsettling allegory for memory and loss.

For healthcare students, especially those studying geriatrics or mental health, the film offers a moving depiction of what it means to care for someone whose identity is slowly fading. “This film leans all the way into its allegory about the damage wrought by degenerative illness, but in a beautifully rendered way,” Gaines said.

Watch the trailer.