Portland Ballet Company once again demonstrated the versatility for which the company is known, performing the six gently creepy dances that made up this year’s “Halloween Spooktacular,” presented in two matinees on Saturday.

The show had a definite focus on family fun, with a raffle, plenty of sweet treats and a costume parade at intermission. For the parade, teen dancers greeted the costumed children, mostly tiny, as they trooped across the stage to party classics including “Monster Mash” and “Thriller.”

Although the dancing itself was rather brief (under an hour), it was of excellent quality, with consistent technical fluency and clarity. To music by Shostakovich, Gounod, Mussorgsky, Grieg, Saint-Saens and The Pierces, the program represented a mix of neo-classical balletic form, modern-dance moves and a bit of pantomime.

Each piece had a Halloween-friendly theme, from dolls come to mischievous life to crazily costumed characters rising from their graves. All were clearly a blast for the dancers to perform — a departure from the typical ballerina’s fare — and each chose a spooky nickname to appear in the program.

Five of the six pieces, including the premiere of “In the Witches’ Classroom,” were choreographed by associate artistic director Nell Shipman. Shipman’s work is almost universally polished and compositionally precise, and her skills include making the dancers look their best through a solid match between the choreography and their abilities.

Her “Masquerade” was an elegant and understated ensemble piece en pointe, performed to Shostakovich’s “Waltz from Jazz Suite No. 2.” “In the Witches’ Classroom,” to Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain,” was a sweet tale of a young witch (Jennifer “Jack-o’-lantern” Jones) who couldn’t make the grade with wand, cauldron and broom. She was teased by her classmates but then nurtured to success by the witchy instructor (Erica “Deadly” Diesl).

For “Night of the Living Dolls,” danced to “Funeral March of a Marionette” by Gounod, Shipman very effectively chose dancers with striking height differences to play girls and their dolls. “Marauding” Megan Buckley and Caroline “Shocking” Shelton were mechanical and conniving as the dolls, with lovely pointework including an endless balance by Buckley.

“Loathsome” Lindsay Cregier and Diesl were lithe as the girls, more irritated than frightened by their dolls’ lively antics.

“Now I lay me down to sleep …” also portrayed toys come to life, but this time there was a bit more potential for nightmarish inspiration. “Now I lay me,” to the crescendoing “In the Hall of the Mountain King” by Grieg, opened with a girl sleeping in a massive bed. Creepy clowns emerged from under and behind the bed and danced sweeping contemporary choreography until the sleeper woke up with a scream.

The one non-Shipman piece had the most potential to frighten. To “Secret” by The Pierces, Andrea Tracy’s choreography included a throat-cutting gesture to the line “Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead.”

A dozen of the younger corps dancers appeared in white romantic tutus with black neckbands. Their makeup was pale, with dark eyeliner and red lipstick, for an eerie effect amplified by blank stares and crisply classical choreography en pointe. By the end, only one dancer was left “alive,” but all rose to take a bow.

The performance closed with “Danse Macabre” (Shipman; Saint-Saens), a graveyard party of characters including a bride, tourist and beauty queen, led by James “Creepy” Kramlich (whose gravestone read “Ken U Diggit”) in a tattered tuxedo. Kramlich impressed with some quick, neat jumping.

“Halloween Spooktacular” was Portland Ballet’s October offering in 2008 and 2009. In the last two years, the company instead presented “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” which is now slated to play in alternate years.

Jennifer Brewer is a freelance writer who lives in Saco.