This October, AMC’s horror programming comes with a host. “Welcome to Horrorwood,” a five-film series booked into roughly 300 AMC locations across the country, opens October 2 and runs through Halloween night.
The series is an AMC Thrills & Chills program assembled with Bloody Disgusting and Ice Nine Kills, and the band is not just a logo on the key art. Frontman Spencer Charnas recorded a custom introduction for every title, and each screening closes with the Ice Nine Kills music video that the film inspired.
The Lineup
Screenings run Friday and Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. local time.
- October 2 and 6 — Hostel (2005)
- October 9 and 13 — Friday the 13th (1980)
- October 16 and 20 — American Psycho (2000)
- October 23 and 27 — Pet Sematary (1989)
- October 30 and 31 — The Crow (1994)
That is a wider net than these repertory blocks usually cast. One straight slasher, one Eli Roth travelogue, one Bret Easton Ellis satire, one Stephen King adaptation and one comic-book revenge picture: the common thread here is the band, not the subgenre. Putting The Crow on Halloween night is the sharpest call on the schedule. Alex Proyas’ film has spent three decades as an October fixture without ever quite being a horror movie, and it will play to a room that knows every frame of it.
Why the Band Is on the Marquee
Ice Nine Kills has built most of a career out of writing songs about specific horror films. The Silver Scream arrived in 2018, and its 2021 follow-up, The Silver Scream 2: Welcome to Horrorwood, is where this series gets its name. The band’s Pet Sematary track, “Funeral Derangements,” came with a video shot as a straight tribute to the 1989 film, which gives a fair idea of what will be playing after the credits roll on October 23.
“It’s a bloody honor to present this selection of modern horror classics with the mighty AMC Theatres,” Charnas said in the announcement.
Ryan Wood, AMC’s senior vice president and head film buyer, framed it as a seasonal play: “Horror has long been a favorite among moviegoers, especially during Halloween season.” Michael Roffman of Bloody Disgusting put it shorter. “Scares should be shared. Simple as that.”
Getting In
Tickets are on sale now through AMCTheatres.com and the AMC mobile app at the chain’s discounted Fan Faves pricing. The announcement does not name a flat ticket price for the series.
One clarification, since there is a second AMC on the October calendar: the theater chain running this series is not the cable network running FearFest. AMC Networks has said outright that the shared name is “just a coincidence” and that it is “not affiliated with AMC Theaters in any way.” Two different Octobers, two different AMCs.
Regal is running a competing program next month: ’31 Screams on Screen’ puts a different horror film on screen every day in October at $7.99 a ticket. Between the two chains, there is a horror movie playing big somewhere near you on most nights this Halloween season.
