With COVID-19 making all but the smallest get togethers extremely ill advised, an at-home scary movie marathon might be the best way for adults to celebrate Halloween this year. But with so many great horror movies to choose from, both classic and contemporary, it's hard to settle on only a few.

To help with the selection process, here are five recommendations for your Halloween home-viewing pleasure. However, because we are a real estate publication, there's a twist: each movie on this list involves a haunted house (or, in one case, hotel).

How to get the sell and still be festive

With the holidays hot on their heels, homeowners will have plenty of opportunities over the next couple of months to indulge in outdoor decorations that range from the gruesome and garish to the feel-good and festive.

Yet housing experts still urge homeowners to keep curb appeal in mind when it comes to going over-the-top this Halloween and Christmas.

Today's technology is downright frightening

Combine a new technology with the creative mind of a rocket scientist, throw in Halloween and the results are pretty amazing.

When Apple introduced the iPad in 2010, it didn't take long for Mark Rober, a one-time NASA engineer who helped put the Curiosity rover on Mars, to come up with a Halloween costume idea that incorporated it.

For Halloween 2011, Rober showed up to a party wearing a shirt with gaping "bloody" holes ripped into the front and back, and iPads attached to the inside, visible through the holes. By setting up a Facetime video link between the two, he created the illusion of being able to see through his body.

A stroll down haunted lane with Calgary's paranormal experts

Bring out yer dead!

It's Halloween in the city, which means spooks and specters will soon intertwine with sugar and sweets.

It's also a chance for many Calgarians to explore the city's haunted past. CREB®Now recently took a walk down "Elm Street" with local officials, who detailed the paranormal, the unexplained and everything in-between.

Screamfest
One of the more fright-inducing events around the city, Screamfest lets visitors experience haunted houses, Halloween-themed games, creepy and disturbing entertainment and flat-out fear. The event is rated PG-13 and takes place at the Grandstand Building at Stampede Park. Visit www.screamfest.ca for more information.

Calgary Ghost Tours
With tours showcasing local ghost stories and tales from some of the city's most historic neighbourhoods, locals and visitors alike will get a glimpse into the mischief, mayhem and even murders of Calgary's storied past. Inglewood Ghost Walk (Oct. 24; Oct. 30) takes visitors through "Calgary's most haunted neighbourhood," while the Oct. 23 tour will showcase the city's downtown ghouls. Visit www.calgaryghosttours.com for more information.

Scaring others a family tradition for Calgary household

For most of the year, Calgarians go to great lengths to boost their homes' curb appeal. After all, removing unwanted trash and old rubbish to make a home welcoming is part of what makes a neighbourhood great.

Yet around this time of the year, these same people will do their best to make their homes as unwelcoming as possible – when those old garbage bags, stained sheets and broken furniture become valued commodities.

Welcome to Halloween in Calgary.

Part three of a three-part series looking at the sinister and spooky side of Calgary's haunted housing history.

Serving as a place of work for more than 140,000 Calgarians, it may go unnoticed that the majority of this city's historic buildings also reside downtown.

Lurking among the plethora of glass-and-steel towers representing the core's newer additions are buildings that have managed to withstand the test of time. And, along the way, many of these same structures have managed to pick up a story or two surrounding their long - and sometimes eerie - history.