Though horror films are released all year round, the Halloween season in October is really the time to celebrate all things dark and creepy.
Several movies have been come to known as Halloween classics with films like The Thing, Nightmare Before Christmas, and Poltergeist, but 2024 has also brought in some interesting movies that should get you into the spooky season (in no particular order).
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Halloween isn’t always about things being scary. Sometimes things can just be gross and silly, and the Beetlejuice sequel from Tim Burton delivers a great return to his kooky depiction of the afterlife.
Wednesday star Jenna Ortega takes over the role of the dark gothic girl that was played by Winona Ryder in the original, and the movie also gives some interesting backstory to Beetlejuice as a character and why he’s the way he is.
Late Night with the Devil
The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity have brought the mockumentary format to the horror genre, and Late Night with the Devil puts a twist on it that it’s not a found-footage film; but rather a planned TV production that just goes horribly wrong when the devil is brought into the show.
David Dastmalchian (Dune, The Suicide Squad) takes the spotlight as host Jack Delroy, and audiences get to watch him slowly unravel as he tries to save his show only to have the worst possible guest appear on camera.
The First Omen
Final Destination may be the franchise that owns the ‘death by miraculous coincidence’ genre, but that was all kick-started by the original Omen movie which was directed by Richard Donner (the same guy who helmed the original Superman).
Though there have been sequels to The Omen and a remake back in the 2000s, The First Omen tells a prequel story about a woman being plagued by horrors and visions of the incoming antichrist.
It should be an interesting watch for fans of the original but the frights will still shock anyone who hasn’t even seen any Omen movie.
If you want a film with the same premise, but starring Sydney Sweeney, Immaculate is pretty much the same movie.
Abigail
The directing duo Radio Silence (Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin) turned heads with their horror-comedy Ready or Not, and they have since been working on the new Scream films.
With Abigail though, they follow the footsteps of M3GAN in that they have a ferocious killer in the form of a little girl—this time played by Matilda’s Alisha Weir.
The film is the Radio Silence’s take on the vampire genre and is littered with all kinds of tropes from drinking blood to being damaged by sunlight. Kevin Durand (Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes) is hilarious in this film, and Dan Stevens also shines as this mercenary for hire.
Sting
Alien: Romulus shouldn’t be the only creature feature on the list; so Sting should be a great time for anyone who is looking for a classic monster that doesn’t resemble a human.
The story essentially follows this little girl Charlotte who ends up raising a spider who she doesn’t realize will grow into a bloodthirsty monster. After the death of several pets and small animals, Charlotte’s family and neighbors realize they’re trapped in a building with a giant arachnid, and the only one who can save them is this weird little girl.
Trap
The general public may not have forgiven M. Night Shyamalan for The Last Airbender movie, but he still manages to prove his mettle as a director—specifically one that specializes in horror. Old and Knock at the Cabin were absolute rides, and his latest Trap also managed to keep audiences on their toes.
The film follows a father and daughter as they go together for a concert of a young teen idol; what the father doesn’t realize is, that the entire concert is a trap to catch him—who is also revealed early in the film to be a deranged serial killer.
At this point, fans admit Shyamalan isn’t the best when it comes to realistic dialogue, but he can definitely set the mood, and his signature twists will always catch audiences off-guard.
Longlegs
Admittedly a bit more artsy than typical horror films, Longlegs follows the story of an FBI Agent (Maika Monroe) who has been tasked to find a mysterious serial killer Longlegs (Nicolas Cage) who she realizes actually had a personal connection with her.
While it does start out as a mystery thriller, audiences will slowly realize that there’s actually a heavy occult theme involving magic and the devil. It’s not so keen on jump scares, but the film’s creepy vibe and sounds are sure to make anyone’s skin crawl.
In a Violent Nature
Slasher films like Friday the 13th and Halloween were big in the 80s. But by the time the 90s came around, everyone had been familiar with the formula—a group of teens find themselves in the path of a deranged killer, and the killer spends most of the film hiding and taking out the teens one by one.
With In a Violent Nature though, the script is flipped and the movie is shot from the killer’s perspective. Like most horror films, the killer is also mute, but the audience gets to follow him as he slowly goes about his murder spree.
Lisa Frankenstein
Described as a ‘Coming of RAGE story’, Lisa Frankenstein is a stylized horror movie that imagines a young misunderstood girl (Kathryn Newton) in the 80s resurrecting a dead boy (Cole Sprouse) to become her boyfriend.
The movie may not have made a splash at the box office, but like Jennifer’s Body, some are expecting the film to eventually become a cult classic over time. It’s undeniably campy and macabre, but it’s full of all that teenage angst and romance that makes for a fun film.
Alien: Romulus
Ridley Scott may have leaned in too heavily with the existential crisis themes with Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, but director Fede Alvarez returns the franchise to form with the release of Alien: Romulus.
The movie pretty much brings everything back to basics with a group of young adults getting trapped in a space station with xenomorphs, but the thrills are surprisingly raw with the facehuggers and xenos doing exactly what it is they do best; and the creature work have just evolved so far from the first Alien film that audiences will find themselves squirming in their seats.