Happy Halloween, boils and ghouls. I hope, amid any pumpkin carving or candy-eating you plan to do tonight, you will spend the evening watching a scary movie or two. I appeared on KHOU’s Great Day Houston this morning to talk a little bit about horror films alongside my friend Alan Cerny.
I program a weekly horror movie series at the Alamo Drafthouse LaCenterra in Katy, Texas, so I watch my fair share of horror films year round but there’s still something satisfying about watching a spooky movie on All Hallow’s Eve. I personally am planning to watch BLACKER THAN NIGHT, the 1975 film by Carlos Enrique Taboada about four women who experience ghostly apparitions when they move into an old house.
For this week’s newsletter, I wanted to provide a few recommendations - specifically for movies that came out this year that are available to watch at home via streaming. I love rewatching or discovering older horror movies, but I also feel defensive when I hear folks complain that there are no good scary movies being made nowadays. WRONG. Here are a few I think you’ll dig:
BIRTH/REBIRTH
I love Laura Moss’ hauntingly dark reimagining of the Frankenstein story. A single mother grieving her young daughter’s death teams up with a morally-vacant morgue technician who has developed a method to revive the dead. The result is a bleak and scary look at how far a parent might be willing to go to be reunited with their dead child.
DARK HARVEST
David Slade directs this adaptation of Norman Partridge’s cult horror book. A town celebrates an annual tradition every Halloween in which local boys are starved and then let loose with weapons to hunt down a mysterious pumpkin-faced ghoul. They must kill the monster or bad shit will happen to the town. Somebody on Letterboxd referred to the film as TODD MCFARLANE’S RIVERDALE and I think that sums it up just about perfectly.
V/H/S/85
This latest installment in the insanely long-running found footage anthology features short films from Scott Derricksen, David Brucner, Mike P. Nelson, Gigi Saul Guerrero and Natasha Kermani. I think it’s one of the strongest entries in the franchise in … forever? It really feels like a cohesive movie, mostly due to the fact that the film smartly peppers in running storylines across the various segments. It’s fun, gory, and varied. What more could you ask for?
WHEN EVIL LURKS
I’ve written about this film before, but it’s now streaming on SHUDDER. Watch it!
DON’T LOOK AWAY
OK, here’s the deal - Michael Bafaro’s Killer Mannequin movie is not a “good” movie, per se, but I also found it wildly entertaining so maybe it kind of is? A group of friends find themselves at the mercy of an evil mannequin. The only way to prevent the fashion-focused fearmonger from slicing and dicing you is to never stop looking at it. It’s dumb fun, friends!
SLOTHERHOUSE
I’ve also written about this one before, but it’s now streaming on Hulu. Watch it!
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER
I didn’t necessarily love André Øvredal’s Wet Dracula tale, but I respect the hell out of its visuals. Corey Hawkins stars as the newest crew member of the Demeter, a ship bound for London with one very special piece of cargo - a vampire coffin. Adapted from a single chapter in Bram Stoker’s DRACULA, the movie features a gnarly-looking vampire and some fun gore.
SUITABLE FLESH
Joe Lynch directs this H.P. Lovecraft adaptation that has an origin under the pen of the late Stuart Gordon. Lynch teams up with Gordon’s old producing pal Brian Yuzna and star/producer Barbara Crampton to spin a gender-fliped version of Lovecraft’s THE THING ON THE DOORSTEP, a short story about involving body swapping, possession and - thanks to Lynch - gruesome gore and late-night Cinemax-inspired sexiness. This movie feels like something you would have rented from a Blockbuster in the ‘90s, in all the best ways possible.
MALUM
Anthony DiBlasi directs this bigger-budged remake of his own film LAST SHIFT. Jessica Sula plays a rookie cop who has to watch a decommissioned police station on its final night before it’s torn down. Too bad a deadly cult with ties to her father’s death comes a-calling. Wild demonic carnage and some super cool special effects help make this horror movie something special.
BROOKLYN 45
Ted Geoghegan directs this post-World War II movie about a group of war veterans who attempt to process personal demons during a botched seance. The movie is a dialogue and performance-driven morality tale with a few moments of extremely impressive gore. It feels like something Rod Sterling would have dug.
SATAN WANTS YOU
Steve J. Adams and Sean Horlor directed this documentary about MICHELLE REMEMBERS, the ‘80s literary sensation that presented itself as the memoir of a woman who had been abducted by a Satanic cult as a baby. The book kicked off the decade’s Satanic Panic craze and led American culture down some dark roads. But was it even real? The film is deliciously infuriating, in part because it finally answers how an increasingly unethical relationship between a psychiatrist and his patient led to a nation’s full-blown fear of the devil.
CONSECRATION
Christopher Smith’s film stars Jena Malone as a woman who goes undercover at a Scottish convent to investigate the mysterious death of her brother. The film doesn’t completely work but the ending? Chef’s kiss.
INFINITY POOL
Brandon Cronenberg, son of David, directs this weirdo celebration of the self, starring Alexander Skarsgård and Cleopatra Coleman as a couple who find themselves in trouble with the law while visiting an isolated island resort. Because they are insanely rich, though, they are given a unique way to skirt their punishment - an unorthodox opportunity they subsequently become addicted to.