The looming Halloween celebrations in EastEnders are anything but festive this year — instead they herald a dark and chilling chapter for Zoe Slater. Since her return, Zoe has carried an air of fear: she’s jumpy, looking over her shoulder, haunted by past choices that won’t stay buried. This week, the atmosphere in Albert Square shifts from merely tense to genuinely frightening. The classic settings — the barrel store, The Queen Vic, a burst-sewer leak behind the pub — become conduits for fear as Zoe’s paranoia spikes. It begins with a leak in the barrel store prompting her partner, Alfie, to discover a dusty VHS tape hidden among storage crates. The tape is from 1988, an old home movie of the Slater family — the kind of hidden relic that in Walford always carries more weight than nostalgia. Zoe’s reaction when the tape starts playing is sudden and panicked: she storms out, accusing someone of playing mind-games with her.

As the night of the pub quiz approaches — the Slater clan all together under one roof at The Vic — Zoe’s sense of being enemy-lined becomes impossible to ignore. Pictures of her with Kat, her mother, are found smashed. She lashes out at Kat, then blames Vicki Fowler. Anthony tries to calm her but ends up being kicked out. Meanwhile, wartime family secrets hang in the air: what was on that VHS tape? What skeletons have the Slaters locked away for decades, only for them to resurface on Halloween night? The show cleverly uses familiar haunting tropes — drawers found open, flickering lights, children asking about scary noises in the night — but because Zoe is visibly terrified, the tension feels real rather than gimmicky. The sense that someone might be targeting her is sharpened by every visual cue: a camera lens lingering on Zoe’s boots, a stranger’s face in a darkened alley, and the sound of a door clicking shut when no one should be inside.

Zoe’s isolation climaxes when she begins to mistrust her own family. Kat, ever protective yet bewildered, tries to reach out, offering the bed-room at The Vic and telling Zoe she’s safe. But Zoe disappears before dawn, leaving only a hastily scribbled note: “Don’t follow me.” Alarms ring when the parade of trick-or-treaters passes The Vic and finds the place empty. Kat discovers smashed photos, motionless candles, and the tape wearer still running in the background. In the meantime, the community senses something is off — the quiz turns into a search party, whispering turns into worry, and the spooky decorations of Halloween become part of a backdrop for real danger. For months Zoe has been living on the edge: hints of owing money to dangerous people in Spain, burner phones, missing address locations, and now this threat. But this week’s mystery raises the stakes in a way that reaches beyond her personal demons.

The brilliance of this storyline is how it ties the supernatural chill of Halloween with the very human horror of betrayal, guilt and fear. Zoe’s fear isn’t just of ghosts or jump scares; it’s of the past she thought she escaped, of the secret she still holds close. The VHS tape becomes the linchpin of the plot — an old family memory turned weapon. It suggests that someone has been watching the Slaters for years, knows their history, and intends to make them pay. Zoe’s screams of “You’d hate me!” and “I’ve done something!” echo through the narrative, forcing family members and viewers alike to wonder: what terrible thing has she done? And how far will the tormentor go to bring it out? Meanwhile, the social dynamic in Walford changes palpably. Loyal allies become suspect. Simple small-talk in the pub becomes interrogation. Every shadow might contain Zoe’s ghost, or a living threat.

As the show builds to the climax, visual cues intensify: cheap Halloween masks become ominous; the sound of children’s laughter fades into tension; the warm glow of carved pumpkins flickers like warning lights. In one chilling scene, Zoe sees her reflection in the barrel store’s sump-light, and for a moment she’s not herself but a terrified child from decades ago. Kat, Kat’s sister Jean, Alfie and Anthony converge at The Vic, all asking the same question: “Where’s Zoe?” The tape plays in the background, the family sees snippets of happy days, but Zoe is missing. Producers are clearly mining the fear of what you don’t remember, and how what you forget can come back louder and more dangerous.

What makes this storyline work on several levels is that it gives Zoe agency even as she’s under siege. She’s not just a victim; she recognises someone is out to get her. She shifts from reacting to strategising: she hides the burner phone, she follows a lead to Spain in a flashback, and in one moment whispers to Alfie, “If they ever find who I am, I’ll disappear.” The switch from being hunted to fighting back is subtle, but it reminds viewers that Zoe has survived worse. The stakes are raised because the threat is internal as well as external: her own family, her own guilt, might turn out to be her real enemy. At the same time, the soap uses community and family tension — the Slater clan tearing at themselves — to amplify the horror. Walford, usually loud and chaotic, becomes quiet and full of dread.

As the screen fades to black with a handheld camera shot of Zoe’s phone vibrating, we are left asking: who is this haunting her? Is it someone from her past debt in Spain, or a member of her family who knows her secret? Is the VHS tape proof of a heinous act, or just planted evidence to trigger Zoe’s unraveling? And what will Halloween night reveal? The narrative finds its power in postponement — the missing sister, the unplayed tape, the unspoken words — making the upcoming episodes feel like a countdown to terror. For longtime viewers, the return of Zoe feels meaningful, but this mystery grounds it in suspense rather than mere nostalgia.

In the end, EastEnders doesn’t just spin a spooky Halloween tale; it uses the aesthetics of horror to explore trauma, memory, betrayal and the fear of being exposed. Zoe Slater is right at the heart of it, not as a damsel waiting to be saved, but as a woman wrestling with her past in plain sight. The message is clear: you can try to run, but in Walford, someone always catches up. The streets of Albert Square may be decorated with pumpkins, but the shadows are real, and the enemy could be closer than you think. This Halloween, Zoe’s terror might just be the beginning of the Slaters’ darkest chapter yet.