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It’s the final week of October and that means Halloween is right around the corner, ending the week, the month, and the whole damn Halloween season on Sunday, October 31st.
What fresh horrors can you expect on the road to the big day, you ask? For starters, two new movies are coming to theaters this week, and we’ve been waiting a long time for both…
Here’s all the new horror coming our way between now and Halloween!
Halloween Week kicks off today with the at-home digital release of Frank, which comes courtesy of Bloody Disgusting family member/Bleeder’s Diegest co-creator Krsy Fox.
“In a moment of desperation, Ruby makes a lifetime vow of servitude to a monster, but breaks the deal when she commits suicide. Now angered, the monster (Frank) sets out on a course of bloody revenge, all leading to the one that Ruby loved the most.”
Described as a “connected anthology of terror”, Frank also stars Krsy Fox alongside Bonnie Aarons (The Conjuring 2, The Nun), Azure Parsons, Lyndsi LaRose, and Rachel Brunner.
In addition to being included with Severin’s folk horror box set All the Haunts Be Ours, which will be released in December, Keir-La Janisse‘s award-winning documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched (read Meagan’s review) will be coming to VOD this Tuesday.
“Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched explores the folk horror phenomenon from its beginnings in a trilogy of films – Michael Reeves’ Witchfinder General (1968), Piers Haggard’s Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) and Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man (1973) – through its proliferation on British television in the 1970s and its culturally specific manifestations in American, Asian, Australian and European horror, to the genre’s revival over the last decade.
“Touching on over 200 films and featuring over 50 interviewees, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched investigates the many ways that we alternately celebrate, conceal and manipulate our own histories in an attempt to find spiritual resonance in our surroundings.”
Two brand new horror movies are coming to Netflix on Wednesday, October 27th, the first of which is Hypnotic starring Kate Siegel (Hush, “Haunting of Hill House,” “Midnight Mass”).
“A young woman seeking self-improvement enlists the help of a renowned hypnotist, but after a handful of intense sessions, soon discovers unexpected and deadly consequences.”
Watch the Hypnotic trailer right here.
And then there’s Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight: Part 2, another original horror movie that’s coming to Netflix on Wednesday. This one is a sequel to last year’s Netflix slasher.
“Adaś is a young, lonely, unhappy policeman from a small village in Podlasie. Ignored by his colleagues and beautiful and extremely confident Wanessa, the shy boy is looking for his place in the world. In the sequel, we will also learn more about the fate of Zosia, who will show a completely new and surprising face. The film is a perverse, ironic, grotesque and bloody story about looking for love and discovering one’s own self in a world that divides us more than it unites us. It’s a slasher that will turn genre rules upside down this time.”
Watch the Polish slasher sequel’s trailer here.
Shudder celebrates Halloween with the October 27th premiere of new docu-series “Behind the Monsters,” with each episode spotlighting a different horror movie villain.
The debut season will cover Candyman, Chucky, Jason, Michael, Freddy and Pinhead.
Each of the series’ six episodes, premiering on a weekly basis, will focus on a single horror character, and feature interviews with horror experts and the writers, directors and actors from the original films that made each character the stuff of genre legends.
The follow-up to the documentary, Shudder’s feature film anthology Horror Noire premieres on October 28th, showcasing stories of Black horror from Black directors and screenwriters.
The six stories featured in the anthology are: “Daddy,” “Bride Before You,” “Brand of Evil,” “The Lake,” “Sundown” and “Fugue State.”
The new and adapted stories are written by husband-and-wife writing duo Tananarive Due (My Soul to Keep, Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror) and Steven Barnes (Lion’s Blood), Ezra Claytan Daniels (BTTM FDRS), Victor LaValle (The Ballad of Black Tom, The Changeling,) Shernold Edwards (All Rise, Anne with an E); and, Al Letson (Reveals).
Preview the Horror Noire feature film here.
Friday, October 29th is a pretty huge day for horror, kicking off with the hotly anticipated theatrical release of Scott Cooper‘s Antlers, which has been delayed numerous times.
In Antlers, a small-town Oregon teacher (Keri Russell) and her brother (Jesse Plemons), the local sheriff, become entwined with a young student (Jeremy T. Thomas) harboring a dangerous secret with frightening consequences.
Based on the short story “The Quiet Boy” by Nick Antosca (“Channel Zero”), Antlers is written by Henry Chaisson and Antosca, with revisions by Cooper, and produced by Guillermo del Toro.
Also coming exclusively to movie theaters this Friday is Edgar Wright‘s psychological horror movie Last Night in Soho, which was similarly delayed many times because of the pandemic.
Last Night in Soho takes us back to London’s Soho district during the Swinging Sixties, with Thomasin McKenzie starring as a fashion designer who uncovers a murder from the past. The victim? Anya Taylor-Joy‘s Sandie, a singer from the ’60s.
In the film, “Eloise, an aspiring fashion designer, is mysteriously able to enter the 1960s where she encounters a dazzling wannabe singer, Sandie. But the glamour is not all it appears to be and the dreams of the past start to crack and splinter into something far darker.”
The Paranormal Activity franchise returns this Friday with brand new movie Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin, which isn’t coming to theaters but rather exclusively to Paramount+.
“From Paramount Players, the new film will bring fans an unexpected reimagining of the beloved horror franchise,” the press release sent over this afternoon teases.
Christopher Landon (Happy Death Day, Freaky) wrote the script and William Eubank (Underwater) directed Next of Kin.
In addition to the new movie, a brand new Paranormal Activity documentary is also coming to Paramount+ on Friday. It’s titled Unknown Dimension: The Story of Paranormal Activity.
It may not be a horror movie per se but we should note that this Friday marks the Netflix premiere of Army of Thieves, a prequel to Zack Snyder’s zombie movie Army of the Dead.
Just don’t expect too many zombies in this one…
Matthias Schweighöfer directed Army of Thieves, a prequel movie that will center on his character that we first met in Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead. His name is Dieter.
“Small-town bank teller Dieter gets drawn into the adventure of a lifetime when a mysterious woman recruits him to join a crew of Interpol’s most wanted criminals, attempting to heist a sequence of legendary, impossible-to-crack safes across Europe.”
Even Tubi is bringing original horror to the table for Halloween weekend, with Harland Manor premiering on Friday, October 29th.
Directed by Steven R. Monroe (“The Exorcism of Molly Hartley,” “I Spit on Your Grave”) and co-written by Steven R. Monroe and John Thaddeus (“Sea of Love”), Harland Manor stars Camille Sullivan (“Intelligence”), Summer H. Howell (“Cult of Chucky”), Dion Johnstone (“Sweet Magnolias”) and Josh Strait (“The Ice Road”) as a team of paranormal investigators who document the haunted Harland Manor, only to find themselves hunted by the malevolent ghosts that still dwell there.
Oddly enough, there’s no trailer or even images for this one at this time.
Fresh from its SXSW premiere, the animated fantasy-horror movie The Spine of Night was acquired for U.S. release by RLJE Films and Shudder, and it’s headed home for Halloween.
Via RLJE Films, The Spine of Night is coming to theaters, Digital, and On Demand on October 29, 2021, with a release through Shudder to follow likely sometime next year.
“This epic begins many years ago when an ambitious young man steals forbidden knowledge from a sacred plant and, as he falls to its darker temptations, unleashes ages of suffering onto mankind. As his power grows over the years, there are many who stand against him. Among them are a daring tomb-robber, star-crossed lovers, a maniacal necromancer, winged assassins, and an undying guardian.”
“The Spine of Night is an ultra-violent, hand-rotoscoped epic fantasy inspired by the cult classic works of animators Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta. The film is set in a fantasy land ripe with magic and intrigue where a dark force is unleashed sending mankind into an age of ruin. It falls on heroes from different eras and cultures to fight back.”
Preview the madness and ultra-violence here.
From Terror Films, They’re Outside is coming to digital on October 29th, which comes from directors Airell Anthony Hayles & Sam Casserly, and starring Hellraiser’s Nicholas Vince.
“While filming a documentary about an agoraphobic woman, a celebrity psychologist is drawn into supernatural events.”
Emily Booth (Grindhouse, Event Horizon), Tom Clayton-Wheatley (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix), and Christine Randall (9 Full Moons) also star.