One of my favorite things about October is watching Halloween and horror movies. There are the obvious ones like Hocus Pocus, Ernest Scared Stupid, Scream, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and, of course, any of the Halloween movies, but there are actually so many AMAZING horror movies that don’t get a ton of play and definitely won’t be appearing on AMC’s Fear Fest.
I am CLEARLY going to spend my Halloween watching the original Halloween and Halloween 2 because I have been doing that every single Halloween for nearly 20 years, but this weekend I hope to indulge in a few other gems. So if you’re looking for something spooky to watch this weekend that hasn’t come on tv a million times, how about giving one of these movies a try!
The Witch
The Witch came out just this year and it is MY JAM. I am OBSESSED with this movie and bought it on Blu-ray the second it came out, but you don’t have to buy it to watch it because it’s on Netflix now! Definitely not your average witch movie and based heavily in actual New England folklore, this movie doesn’t offer many cheap scares or jumps, but it unsettles you right to your core. It’s like a nightmare personified and it’s genuinely just a piece of art.
It Follows
It Follows is another one of those movies that I have been preaching about since seeing it this year. It was only released in the past year and so it’s really new, but also really inventive, jumpy, disturbing, and beautifully shot. Every shot in this film could be a painting it’s so beautiful and it’s actually just a really amazing film, so even if you aren’t into horror movies I think you could really appreciate this as a film.
The Babadook
This 2014 horror film is actually really moving and haunting and relies on real, deep horror rather than cheap scares. For this list I’m kind of going for more films that are 1) critically acclaimed but haven’t been huge commercial successes so maybe you haven’t seen them, and 2) are a bit more rooted in psychological scares that leave you feeling uneasy rather than just gore and cheap thrills, because I find the cheap thrills movies are what get aired a lot on tv during the Halloween season so meh to that.
Suspiria
Just as I say I’m going for psychological scares over gore, I give you Suspiria, a movie I never shut up about, and also one of Dario Argento’s goriest films. It has witches and ballet and blood, what more do you need?
Repulsion
This Roman Polanski psychological thriller isn’t technically a horror movie, but it’s extremely tense and claustrophobic and unsettling to watch a young woman’s descent into madness.
Don’t Look Now
This movie again falls under psychological thriller. It’s about grief and loss and being haunted; it’s also incredibly suspenseful and there is a crazy intense sex scene between Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland.
The Innocents
The Innocents is one of my favourite scary movies. It’s based on the acclaimed Henry James novella The Turn of the Screw, and is British ghost story-telling at its finest. Plus, it has creepy kids. Some of the original creepy kids in spooky movies at that!
We Are Still Here
This 2015 movie is about a really legit haunted house, but has some fresh and clever twists for such a familiar plot. It’s about a house that needs a sacrifice every 30 years, but I won’t tell you more than that.
The Innkeepers
Did you like the show Are You Afraid of the Dark? when you were a kid? I loved it, and if you loved it too you will probably love this movie, because it’s basically an adult horror movie version of that show. It’s amazing. Very subtle and very spooky.
Goodnight Mommy
The reviews for this movie call it dark, violent and drenched in dread and I honestly can’t think of a better way to describe this deeply unsettling and beyond creepy, unconventional horror film.
Bonuses: Ginger Snaps, The Others, We Are Who We Are, The Orphanage, Eyes Without a Face, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Eraserhead, The Wicker Man (1973)