Spooktacular: Five Frighteningly Affordable and Fun Watches Perfect for Halloween

Halloween is the best time of the year. Full stop. I will brook no dissent. It’s a celebration of flying your freak flag while eating as many fun-sized chocolate bars as your heart desires.

If you’re a fan of the supernatural, there’s no reason you can’t wear a spooky watch all-year round. And even if you only bust out a ghostly piece once a year (maybe a watch is all the costume you require), the following cheap thrillers can help you justify the investment in something on the eerie side.

Watchmakers must agree with me because every year, they release a full slate of ghostly and grisly-themed timepieces to honor the season. Here are four of our faves.

British brand Mr. Jones is famous for its clever incorporation of the jump hour complication. The newest chapter in the story of Mr. Jones is called Night Howl.
 

Designed by French author and illustrator Xavier Broche, the dial features a remote woodland cottage that draws the wearer into the scene through the beam of a flashlight, which doubles as the minutes hand and reveals a fox and her cub, a wise old owl, and a ghost that acts as an hours hand.
 

The Night Howl is powered by a Swiss quartz movement housed in a unisex 37mm 316L stainless steel case. It’s priced at $275 and is available via the Mr. Jones website.

Every scary movie has got to have a sequel. Perhaps that is why Spinnaker has once again partnered with seconde/seconde/ to create a follow-up piece to last year’s hugely successful “Fifty Phantoms.”

For this outing, the brand is releasing two new limited edition Fifty Phantoms: the No App and the Phantom Classic, both of which are modded versions of the brand’s Fleuss 40 Automatic dive watch.
 

Inspired by radioactive warning signs, the No App features a bezel chock full of ghosts and a bold “no apparitions” symbol at the center of the dial. Meanwhile, the face of the Phantom Classic features 50 custom-molded ghosts infused with a mix of blue and green Super-LumiNova.

What’s not scary about these dive watches? They are powered by an unfussy but reliable Japanese automatic movement that allows them to be priced at an accessible $445 (available for pre-order now via Spinnaker’s website with expected delivery in April 2025).
 

Plus, each unit will be delivered in special packaging, complete with a leather strap, a rubber strap, a special-edition cap, and a complimentary UV torch.

Another wholesome Halloween tradition is friends and family gathering to watch The Simpsons’ “Treehouse of Horror” episode. These shows are, of course, more fun than frightening, which is why the big, bold 47mm Swatch Aye Carumboo is the perfect medium for channeling the show’s animated weirdness.
 

A Frankenwatch in all the right ways, the Aye Carumboo depicts an x-ray version of Bart, with his bones and bodily outline shown in white and dark pink against a black background. The drawing continues across the watch dial and strap, while thunderbolts appear on the strap design alongside thunderbolt-shaped hands on the face.
 

The Aye Carumboo is priced at $140 and available via Swatch’s website.

Finally, we are wrapping up this year’s list of our favorite spooky season watches with quite the (pumpkin) spicy piece: the Nivada Grenchen Depthmaster Black Pumpkin. And, while it is pricier than the other timepieces in this roundup ($1,195), it still represents great value.
 

Starting with the striking dark orange full-LumiNova dial and the idiosyncratic typography of numerals, the Depthmaster Black Pumpkin really gives off that jack-o’-lantern energy without feeling overly kitschy. Plus, its lume glows even in low-light conditions, making it mysterious in everyday wear but also quite practical for real-life diving.
 

The 39mm cushion-shaped stainless-steel case is designed for durability and has a 100 ATM water resistance rating. Lastly, this piece is powered by reliable SOPROD P024 self-winding movement, so it will keep excellent time even if you find yourself in a Jaws, Piranha, or worse yet, Piranha 3D situation.

Available now and limited to 70 pieces, you can find more information on the Nivada Grenchen website.