It's a question that can be specifically answered only by individual kids and their parents but given the ongoing popularity of spooky stories aimed at young audiences, the thrill of fear - in certain ways, under controlled circumstances - is real, and fun. We could theorise about matters like how such films help kids handle scary stuff in real life or turn them into weirdos but with Halloween coming up, let's look at some possibilities for spooky - but not too scary - family viewing. Obviously parents will be the best judges of what their kids can, and should, see and at what age.

Many horror movies - including The Exorcist, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and most slasher flicks - would also be unsuitable for various reasons (though you can bet many teenagers have probably seen them, or worse).

Good starting points to gauge kids' tolerance for and enjoyment of spookiness might include movies like Casper (1995) - based on Harvey Comics' stories about the eponymous Friendly Ghost - as well as The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), Wallace and Grommit: the Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), Coraline (2009), Paranorman (2012). All have supernatural elements but probably won't be too scary.

The horror comedy Ghostbusters (1982), Gremlins (1985), its sequel Gremlins 2 : the New Batch (1990) - with the titular critters running amok - and the ghost story Beetlejuice (1988) might be a step up in intensity. Scooby-Doo (2002) and The Haunted Mansion (2003) are also in the family-friendly horror vein though they did push a couple of my colleagues' buttons (one confessed to being susceptible to jump scares).

The Addams Family (1991) is fun, evoking the "creepy, mysterious and spooky" spirit of the 1960s sitcom, and it has a sequel too. Just hope your child is not too much like young Wednesday.

R.L. Stine's wildly successful Goosebumps franchise began with a long series of books featuring everything from living ventriloquist's dolls to werewolves and inspired a TV series and a couple of movies starring Jack Black that kids can enjoy.

Author Roald Dahl also understood very well what kids liked and could handle - his books are full of gross-outs, mischief, the subversion of adult authority, and often a delicious frisson of fear.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) was adapted by Dahl (and an uncredited David Seltzer, who later wrote The Omen) from his novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It's not really a horror movie. But consider the surreal and unsettling scene of the boat on the chocolate river. The vessel enters a tunnel that includes brief visions of a snake crawling over a man's face and a chicken having its head cut off, accompanied by an increasingly unhinged Gene Wilder as Wonka ranting a poem.

Dahl was also co-writer of another family musical, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), adapted from Ian Fleming's book. Again, this isn't a horror movie, but Australian actor Robert Helpmann's sinister portrayal of the creepy Child Catcher, while brief, has haunted many of us.

Dahl's The Witches told the story of a boy who wants to rid Britain of all its witches after one turns him into a mouse. The book has twice been adapted into movies. The more recent was in 2020, starring Anne Hathaway, but for many of us the 1990 version was the more memorable, especially the scene where Anjelica Huston's Grand High Witch reveals her true self.

While we're on the subject of witches, it's worth remembering Hocus Pocus (1993) and its 2022 sequel, the latter now on Disney+.

The former - about three Salem sisters, witches all, who are accidentally resurrected hundreds of years later - was not a big critical or commercial success on release but developed a cult following.

Hence, presumably, the belated sequel that reunited Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy.

And who could forget The Wizard of Oz (1939) with the Wicked Witch of the West (played by Margaret Hamilton, a former kindergarten teacher)?

This green, cackling character and her Winged Monkeys can still freak out kids. The belated Oz film follow-up, Return to Oz - with elements from some of the later books - was even darker: the Wheelers spooked me and Princess Mombi the witch was a nasty piece of work.

Return to Oz was made by Disney, and that studio's animated movies also features some evil witches. The jealous Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs transformed herself into an ugly hag (an odd disguise when you're trying to get close to the girl you want to kill, but it worked).

In Sleeping Beauty (1958) the evil Maleficent cursed the newborn princess Aurora to die at 16 and turned herself into a dragon to battle the heroic prince.

Other Disney animated films weren't afraid to have scary or traumatising moments - remember the boys turned into donkeys on Pleasure island in Pinocchio, the death of Bambi's mother and the Headless Horseman that chased Ichabod Crane?

In the late 1970s/early 1980s, there were some "dark Disney" movies like the Ray Bradbury adaptation Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Black Hole, a sci-fi movie with a passing resemblance to Disney's earlier 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea that featured some intense moments and a weird, often-discussed ending.

You could go old-school and watch some of the old Universal horror movies from the 1930s and '40s, though despite the iconic characters and portrayals - Dracula, the Frankenstein monster, the Wolf Man, the Mummy - the films might seem quaint.

By the time kids have reached their mid-teens, they will probably be making their own movie selections and the real horror would be having to watch them with their parents who would likely be freaked out, unless they remembered their own clandestine viewing. But that's another story.

Happy Halloween!