You may not always run a live wallpaper on your Android device, but they can definitely be fun for a couple weeks at a time around different holidays. Luckily, app developers in the Play Store are offering hundreds of live wallpapers for every occasion, including Halloween, for your enjoyment. The unfortunate part is that not all of these wallpapers will perform as well as you'd hope.
So we've spent the time and effort to find the best looking and best performing Halloween live wallpapers in the Play Store today. Take a look after the break and see our top five picks that are real treats.
Halloween Gravity Live Wallpaper
We've seen a few wallpapers like this before. This time it's just more... pumpkin-ey. The basic idea is that you have a haunted background and a variety of jack-o-lanterns bouncing around behind your homescreens. The pumpkins float, but respond to movements of your phone as if they're obeying the laws of gravity. This live wallpaper is free, and the paid version unlocks different backgrounds, themes and objects for just $0.99.
Download: Halloween Gravity Live Wallpaper (opens in new tab) (Free) / Paid (opens in new tab) ($0.99)
Halloween Screamscape
A little more on the spooky side, this wallpaper does a simple continuous horizontal scroll in the background, which is actually a really nice contrast to some of the more "busy" live wallpapers. The free version is very basic and simply scrolls, while the paid version lets you configure it to have some more movement, with zombies, ghosts, witches and bats moving around at random through the landscape.
Download: Halloween Screamscape (opens in new tab) (Free) / Paid (opens in new tab) ($0.99)
aniPet Halloween Live Wallpaper
It's raining ghosts! And skeletons, bats and pumpkins... This wallpaper offers a simple gloomy background and raining little characters that will remind you what time of year it is. It's great as a free wallpaper, but paying for the full version (just $0.99) unlocks the ability to change the quantity, size and speed of the objects.
Download: aniPet Halloween Live Wallpaper (opens in new tab) (Free) / Paid (opens in new tab) ($1.99)
Halloween Pumpkins Live Wallpaper
This more cartoonish wallpaper is very visually appealing and lightly animated. A Halloween landscape is detailed with a haunted house, bats, black cats and pumpkins on the vine. If you tap on the screen, different actions occur. Hitting the pumpkins will squash them into a pulp, and if you watch long enough you'll see them grow back. Tap around and you'll find a lot of subtle things that happen with your interactions.
Download: Halloween Pumpkins Live Wallpaper (opens in new tab) (Free)
Halloween Live Wallpaper
After testing dozens of Halloween live wallpapers, we came away most impressed with this one. It just scrolls the smoothest of the bunch, and is really nice in the settings department. You can change the color of the light inside the jack-o-lanterns, change what happens when you tap parts of the wallpaper, and even change the bat population that flies around. Those of you with arachnophobia can even turn off the appearance of spiders.
Download: Halloween Live Wallpaper (opens in new tab) ($0.99)
Andrew was an Executive Editor, U.S. at Android Central between 2012 and 2020.
