I think it’s funny that most years, October doesn’t have as many horror movies as I think it should. If you think about how many good ones have already been released in the last nine months, you wonder why, just from a marketing perspective, they didn’t wait to get released for spooky season.
Of course it’s all logistics and timing; not all of them can share the same release blocks, especially with the politics of premium theater screens being so convoluted these days. That all being said, October has got a solid slate both in a cinematic setting and on home screens this year. Shudder understands the assignment, and subscribers are in for some real Halloween treats over there.
Here’s a list of what we are looking forward to this October in the horror movie space. Let’s hope they are all worth our time and money.
Theatrical
Beware Boiúna (Oct. 2)
The Amazon rainforest becomes a hunting ground in Beware Boiúna, a creature feature directed by Mike P. Nelson. Logan Marshall-Green, Jessica Rothe and Kiana Madeira star as part of a team of doctors who travel into the rainforest on a local mission, only to discover that their arrival has attracted the attention of the Boiúna, a deadly predator rooted in Amazonian mythology. Remote wilderness, a legendary monster and nowhere easy to run make this one a natural fit for creature-feature fans.
Other Mommy (Oct. 9)
Jessica Chastain gets terrifying in Other Mommy, director Rob Savage’s adaptation of Josh Malerman’s novel Incidents Around the House. Eight-year-old Bela is already living in a home strained by her parents’ troubled marriage when a sinister presence emerges from her closet. Calling itself “Other Mommy,” the entity takes on a disturbingly familiar form and begins inserting itself into the family’s lives, turning the comfort of home and motherhood into something frighteningly sinister.
Whalefall (Oct. 16)
Talk about a bad day at sea. Based on Daniel Kraus’ novel, Whalefall stars Austin Abrams as Jay Gardiner, a diver searching for the remains of his late father when he is swallowed by a massive sperm whale. With only about an hour of oxygen remaining, Jay must use everything his father taught him to figure out a way to escape from inside the creature. Josh Brolin, Elisabeth Shue, Jane Levy and Emily Rudd co-star in this claustrophobic survival thriller directed by Brian Duffield.
Crawlers (Oct. 16)
Arachnophobes may want to sit this one out. Crawlers traps the residents of an apartment building inside when a catastrophic infestation of venomous spiders triggers a police-mandated quarantine. Building manager Serena, played by Matilda Lutz, may be the residents’ best chance of surviving as the spiders multiply, but doing so means confronting her own deepest fear. Directed by Ángel Gómez Hernández, the creature thriller also stars Gregg Sulkin and Melina Matthews.
Streaming
V/H/S/Mixtape (Oct. 9) – Shudder
The V/H/S franchise cranks up the volume for its ninth installment, V/H/S/MIXTAPE, a new found-footage anthology built around music and sound as instruments of terror. The collection mixes cosmic horror, psychological suspense and splatter with segments from filmmakers including Ernest Dickerson, RZA, David Moreau and Renee Zhan, plus music-video interludes from Flying Lotus and Tobias Forge. There’s even an appearance by GWAR and puppet work from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, making this one particularly wild mixtape of nightmares.
R.L. Stine’s Pumpkinhead 2 (Oct. 9) – Tubi
The curse of Redhaven isn’t finished yet. In R.L. Stine’s Pumpkinhead 2, bullied student Evan discovers a forbidden spellbook and accidentally awakens the pumpkin-headed children connected to the town’s gruesome past. With the Harvest Festival approaching, Sam and Becka are pulled back into the supernatural nightmare, only this time the curse threatens the entire town. Writer-director Jem Garrard returns for the sequel, which arrives exclusively on Tubi.
The Cycle – (Oct. 23) – Shudder
A decades-old disappearance comes roaring back to life in The Cycle. When the body of a man who vanished 36 years earlier is discovered at the scene of a horrific crime, his estranged daughter is forced to dig into the secrets of a father she barely knew. Starring Deborah Ann Woll and Jeffrey Donovan, the horror-thriller turns a long-buried family mystery into an increasingly dark investigation as the past refuses to stay dead.
Infirmary (Oct. 2) – Shudder
Infirmary takes the found-footage formula inside an abandoned psychiatric hospital, where a security guard vanished during his very first night on the job. Recovered bodycam footage reveals the increasingly disturbing events he encountered inside the building, including unexplained phenomena and a sinister intruder. Directed by Nicholas Pineda, the film turns an overnight security shift into the kind of job orientation nobody would survive long enough to quit.
Hallowarrior (Oct. 16) – Shudder
Halloween meets the apocalypse in writer-director Ben Sottak’s Hallowarrior. Milly Shapiro stars as Pumpkin, the last girl on Earth and sole survivor of a humanity-ending plague, who spends the eve of Halloween scavenging a desolate wasteland for supplies. Her solitary holiday is interrupted when a vicious gang of raiders led by Shannyn Sossamon’s Thalia arrives at her doorstep, forcing Pumpkin to fight back with whatever she has—including candy, weapons and plenty of ingenuity.
Hunting Matthew Nichols (Oct. 31) – Shudder
Two decades after her brother mysteriously disappeared, a documentary filmmaker decides to investigate the cold case herself in Hunting Matthew Nichols. What begins as an attempt to finally understand what happened takes a disturbing turn when new evidence suggests Matthew may not have died all those years ago. Blurring the lines between documentary filmmaking, missing-person mystery and horror, the film follows a sister whose search for answers leads her toward something she may wish had remained buried.
