Welcome to Shocktober 2024

It’s that time again: meat is back on the menu. And by meat, I mean flesh. And by flesh, I mean horror movies where, depending on the film, flesh could be meat. This is where I recommend the movie Raw.

Halloween is, far and away, my favorite time of the year. There’s a reason I purchased a 12-foot skeleton from Home Depot several years ago and have yet to take it down, because if you pretend Halloween never ends, does it? (Whenever the skeleton does come down, it's usually for repairs, and within a day or two, my elderly neighbor will complain and ask that it be put back in the yard. Good neighborhood.)

Arguably, this is a process I go through all year long, but now, it becomes more socially acceptable to be watching Friday the 13th movies on loop. (I usually end up picking Jason Takes Manhattan.)

One of my favorite exercises each year is coming up with 31 movies to watch. I will not watch 31 movies, but usually, I’ll make it through half? A little more? Does it count as “watching” a movie if I put it on in the background and do other things in the house? What happens if you “watch” half of Demon Seed after you fall asleep on the couch?

My lists are usually a bit of column A, B, C.

• A: New movies coming out this month. Though horror hits VOD awfully fast these days, there’s a chance these slip into November for me, because date nights are rare and increasingly expensive because our cheapest babysitter left for college. Please help.
• B: Movies celebrating a milestone, aka a 25th anniversary for The Blair Witch Project. Oh no, I'm almost 40! I like having a good excuse.
• C: Me digging through increasingly obscure reddit threads documenting “overlooked horror movies from the 70s and 80s” trying to find creature features that I somehow haven’t seen.

If you click on a movie title, you’ll get a link to JustWatch, which is useful for the ever present question of “okay, I want to watch this movie, but which arcane service do I have to sign up for?”

You will be shocked how often the answer is just Tubi, though.

Without further ado, here’s the list for 2024. Enjoy.

October 1: Strange Darling (2024)

I'm trying to stay in the dark on this one. All I've heard is that it's surprising, interesting, and very good. You might not even want to watch the trailer—I haven't yet. I am not anti-trailer, but I do enjoy the element of surprise, and if a movie is premised around surprise and the buzz is good, maybe it's better to go in blind.

October 2: Demon Seed (1977)

OK, look. This is a weird one. I know, I've already watched it. Horror has a long legacy of exploiting women's bodies, and there's a lot of imagery in this movie that feels uncomfortable. But it's also a shockingly transgressive movie that feels prophetic regarding AI, and without getting into spoilers, is The Terminator before The Terminator? There's also some tremendous practical effects work happening here. And that's all before you before you realize that it's based on a Dean Koontz novel??

October 3: Salem’s Lot (2024)

Almost no chance a movie that disappeared for two years before getting dumped on streaming is any good, even if Warner Bros. is run by a weirdo these days. You're probably better off watching the original Salem's Lot, but I gotta know.

October 4: V/H/S Beyond (2024)

Found footage is, far and away, the style of filmmaking that gets under my skin. It does not matter the subject matter, it does not matter if it's good. Maybe it's because I spent so many hours as a kid looking behind a camera, but the wildly inconsistent V/H/S series at least promises me annual found footage experimentation. Beyond is sci-fi themed, so I'm going to get aliens. I'm fucked.

October 5: Uzumaki (2024)

Despite my horror fandom, I'm basically blank in regards to Junji Ito. I'm hoping this series, which has reviewed well already, will open the door for me to explore.

October 6: Creep (2014)

I told you I like found footage! This is mostly here because there's a Creep television series coming to Shudder in November, but we're in October, so I might as well recommend one of the most underrated found footage films around. Mark Duplass expertly uses the fact that you don't anticipate he'd be good at being scary to be exceptionally scary. And yes, the sequel, Creep 2, is also worth checking out.

October 7: Immaculate (2024)

It's bizarre Immaculate and The First Omen came out back-to-back, mostly because both movies are pretty good! Maybe it's because I watched Immaculate first, but this one sat with me longer. A lot of that happens to do with the final shot of the movie, which is absolutely fucking haunting. Worth it for that. I also hope Sydney Sweeney, who's clearly going to have a career where she can do whatever she wants, will continue to show up for genre films. She's very good at it.

October 8: Lake Mungo (2008)

Look, what do you want from me? Lake Mungo is one of the most unnerving found footage films around. I re-watched this randomly earlier this year because it was on a streaming service, and actually had to turn the movie off because it was too much to take in solo. I usually watch horror with my wife—and I learned why!!!

October 9: In a Violent Nature (2024)

The concept is more interesting than the execution here, but the basic premise is this: what if you followed Jason Voorhees instead of the children he's stalking? It's one of those "I can't believe it hasn't been done before" ideas, and I'm actually far more excited about what they end up doing with the already announced sequel.

October 10: Lady in White (1988)

I didn't check, but I have almost certainly put this on a previous list specifically because my wife has dropped this a movie that messed her up as a kid. I have no history with it, but one of these days I need to actually watch it. Maybe this year.

October 11: Terrifier 3 (2024)

Dude, these movies are fucked. I do not recommend anyone watch the original film, which mostly establishes Art the Clown's design and what the series has now become famous for: excessive gore. Terrifier 2 is a better movie, even if there's no reason it should be nearly three hours (!!) long. My wife is game for most things, but I showed her a clip from Terrifier 2—the bedroom scene, for people in the know—and she mostly adopted a thousand-yard stare during it.

October 12: Speak No Evil (2022)

This movie's ending stuck. It's mean, pulls no punches, and does not leave you feeling satisfied. You're supposed to feel upset. You're meant to be angry at the movie. You want to throw something at the screen as the ending begins to unfold. I do not recommend the film lightly, especially if you have kids, but it's very good. And importantly, this is the original movie, not the remake that just came out...!

October 13: Speak No Evil (2024)

Speak No Evil did not need a remake, and yet, I'm intrigued by the remake because everything I've hard from people who've seen it suggest that, at the very least, it diverts from the original. The original might be (and probably is) better, but Speak No Evil's ending has two paths it could take. The original takes one very specific path, and I suspect the remake takes the other, more obvious path.

October 14: Bad Taste (1987)

This is me just wanting to check a movie I haven't seen off a list. I don't have a reason for putting it here, other than being reminded of Peter Jackson's horror origins while working my way through the latest season of Rings of Power.