Whether you prefer to turn all the lights off at home and scare yourself silly all alone, or embrace the communal fear in facing down the forces of darkness at your local cinema, Stephen A. Russell has you covered with this collection of frightful delights.
Barbarian
The less you know about this Airbnb booking gone horribly wrong creeper from The Whitest Kids U’ Know sketch show co-creator Zach Cregger, the better. Seriously. But the fact that It clown 2.0 Bill Skarsgård has already checked in, seemingly double-booked, when Georgina Campbell’s film researcher shows up in an all-but abandoned suburb of Detroit late one stormy night isn’t promising. Cregger brings his spiky humour to a seriously savage plot twister that will have you shrieking in no time then pull the rug out from under you.
Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities
Forging a deadly deal with Netflix, the Hellboy and Crimson Peak director has reanimated the horror anthology format to devilish delight. Presenting a hellish spawn of eight spooky episodes each conjured up by a different filmmaker, Australian Jennifer Kent of The Babadook fame is in the mix, as are Mandy-meister Panos Cosmatos and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night’s Ana Lily Amirpour. Brace for giant rats, tentacled demons and Essie Davis getting freaked out in a creepy ol’ house again.
Interview with the Vampire: Season 1
What better way to toast the passing of horror author extraordinaire Anne Rice than by raising a blood-filled chalice and bingeing this brand new show based on her best-selling vampire series? Aussie star Sam Reid (Lambs of God) steps into Tom Cruise’s shoes as sassy psycho killer Lestat de Lioncourt, alongside Game of Thrones’ Jacob Anderson in the Brad Pitt role of lovelorn Louis. Oozing chemistry, the AMC+ show is nonetheless stolen by Bailey Bass as the bratty Claudia.
Smile
An unstoppable box office slayer with a hint of It Follows, this bracing debut feature from filmmaker Parker Finn is centred on a spectacular performance by Sosie Bacon of the short-lived TV show Scream. Playing psychiatric doctor Rose, she’s ensnared in a demonic pursuit after witnessing a traumatic suicide at work. Stalked by a grinning ghoul that can assume the likeness of anyone around her—from partner Trevor (The Boys’ Jessie T. Usher) to a total stranger, it’s chilling stuff that’ll make you second guess every stranger’s smile.
Werewolf by Night
Marvel deployed the scary movie tropes with the underwhelming Sam Raimi-directed Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but gets it frightfully right with this full moon howling ode to classic monster movies. Presented in black and white, it stars Outlander alumna Laura Donnelly alongside Gael García Bernal as reluctant beast hunters, one of whom has a considerably worse time of the month than the other. Wickedly witty and diabolically stylish, props to Disney+ for having a scream with such a random character.
Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon
Indie filmmaker Ana Lily Amirpour of A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night fame brings an exhilarating music video energy lit with feminist fury to the latest entry in a rich vein of psychokinetic-channelling horror movies that recall Brian De Palma’s Carrie. Burning star Jeon Jong-seo is electric as the mental hospital escapee of the title who’s trying to use her ferocious powers for good, while a top notch Kate Hudson has other plans as a sex worker who spies a money making scheme.
Queer for Fear: The History of Queer Horror
Gothic author Mary Shelley is widely regarded as the unholy mother of the horror genre for her stroke of genius in summoning forth the ultimate monster in celebrated novel Frankenstein. A queer hero, she and other legends get the worship they deserve in this cracking Shudder docuseries that traces the rich history of LGBTIQA+ characters in scary movies: the ultimate outsiders hiding their true nature for fear of torch-bearing villagers. It’s a crowded cemetery full of filmmakers, authors, drag stars and more sharing why they found sanctuary in these dark places.
Hellraiser
It is a universal truth that no successful horror franchise will ever stay truly dead, no matter how many times you drive a stake through its heart and cut off its head. Some resurrections stick better than others, and that’s certainly true of V/H/S graduate director David Bruckner’s reanimation of the Clive Barker classic. Trans actor Jamie Clayton (Sense8) is fabulously unnerving as leader of the interdimensional S&M ghouls the Cenobites, who goes pinhead-to-head with Odessa A’zion as kick-ass final girl Riley.
V/H/S/99
Shudder continues to champion the video nasty-inspired cult hit anthology series everyone loves to press play on. The best thing is that with five spooky shorts in rapid succession, if you don’t love one, you can always fast forward to the next dastardly depravity. Maggie Levin’s zombie punk rockers shocker ‘Shredding’ is outrageous fun, with Johannes Robert’s claustrophobic sorority stunt gone wrong follow-up ‘Suicide Bid’ even better. But it’s down to Joseph and Vanessa Winter’s epic showstopper ‘To Hell and Back’ to wind it up in demonic style.
Sissy
If you’ve ever found yourself doomscrolling through the impossibly glam lives on display on Insta, or emotionally harangued by the so-called experts hawking their wellbeing wares on YouTube, then this Halloween brings the horror comedy for you. Australian slasher Sissy has a ball unleashing the monstrous potential of the too-perfect set. Headed up by The Bold Type star Aisha Dee, she plays a wellness influencer unexpectedly thrown into a weekend hen’s party that includes her former school bully. This payback’s gonna go viral.
She Will
Charlotte Colbert’s eerie feature debut streaming on Shudder channels righteous #Metoo rage in this wild and witchy tale. Set in the rugged and unforgiving beauty of the Scottish highlands, sometime Borg queen Alice Krige plays Veronica, an actor who retreats to the north with her personal assistant (Kota Eberhardt) while recovering from a double mastectomy. When the local area’s witch-hunting history bubbles up out of the dirt, newfound powers open the door to revenge over an abusive figure from her past, as played by Halloween star Malcolm MacDowell.
Halloween Ends
David Gordon Green audaciously rebooted John Carpenter’s Halloween franchise again by cutting loose all but the original when he brought a traumatised and battle-ready Laurie Strode face-to-face with The Shape aka Michael Meyers once more in his tight 2018 slasher sequel. Then he went batshit with the set-the-same-night sequel Halloween Kills. This final chapter (for now) doesn’t do Jamie Lee Curtis or Michael’s monstrous legacy proud, but sometimes you have to see these franchises that just won’t die right through to the bitter end…
