My SO and I are always looking for good movies, shows, etc. to fill the month of October. We like things that are atmospheric, cerebral, or just fun. But a lot of the standard recommendations are your typical slasher movies and the like, disgusting body horror, kids movies that we have no interest in, and things that are just plain miserable.
Here’s some things we’ve liked to one degree or another from previous years.
Action Horror / Horror That’s Actually Enjoyable
- Aliens
- Bram Stoker’s Dracula
- Fright Night
- Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
- The Mummy (1999)
- Silence of the Lambs
- Sleepy Hollow (Great? No. Fun? Yes.)
- Termors 1 & 2
- Various Stephen King Mini series (IT, The Stand, Rose Red)
Funny and Spooky
- Army of Darkness
- BeetleJuice
- Bubba Ho-Tep
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer (movie)
- The Burbs (didn’t love it, but a good fit)
- Death Becomes Her
- The Frighteners
- Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace
- Ghostbusters 1 & 2
- Gremlins 1 & 2
- High Anxiety
- Little Shop of Horrors (not really into musicals, but still a good fit)
- Shaun of the Dead
- What We Do in the Shadows (movie)
- Various MST3K horror movie episodes
- Young Frankenstein
Anthology Shows (inherently hit or miss)
- The Twilight Zone (60s)
- The Outer Limits (90s)
- Tales From the Crypt
Old Timey Classics
- Dracula
- Frankenstein (actually underwhelming, but it was a good fit)
- The Haunting (1963)
- The Haunting of Hill House (with Rifftrax, but still counts)
- The Last Man on Earth
- Psycho
- The Invisible Man
Barely Qualifies as spooky but still good:
- Dark Man
- The Dead Zone (movie)
- Men in Black
- Pacific Rim
- The Shadow
- They Live
The Night House is a really good horror/thriller, I don’t recall it having any gore.
The Menu is phenomenal, but does have a bit of blood and gore.
I don’t think I saw anyone mention Get Out, a fantastic movie.
I’m not a big movie guy, but these were some of my faves (along with Evil Dead, which have been mentioned a ton already 🙂)
The Haunting of Hill House is a phenomenal show. Incredibly creepy, and one of the most emotionally powerful things I’ve ever watched.
Was so excited to answer this only to find the top post hit virtually every one of my suggestions.
But there is one more. This year I plan to revisit an old classic:
The Lost Boys.
Dracula: Dead and Loving it. It’s a comedy/horror with Leslie Nielsen.
Tales from the Dark side: The movie (I never watched the series, so can’t comment).
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Ring (Japanese original)
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The Eye (Taiwanese? Thai?)
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M3GAN (you want the PG/13 rated version, as there’s a gory cut out there)
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The Conjuring 2 (the best of the whole franchise)
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Nope
That should keep you going for a bit.
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Try Oculus, 1408, and Session 9.
Everyone likes a good mindfuck horror now and then.
Beyond The Black Rainbow - A psychedelic loveletter to the 80s, about a dying cult and its first and last victims.
Anything by David Lynch, but particularly Mullholland Drive and Twin Peaks.
Mullholland Drive is a dream logic trip through Los Angeles as a small town actress finds work and love and heartbreak and murder in the big city while the world becomes increasingly incomprehensible and nightmarishly surreal; it also includes one of the best acted, directed, shot and scored scenes in all of horror.
Twin Peaks is the story of a small town deep in the forests of Washington, struggling to solve the murder of a high schooler, an FBI agent arrives and proceeds to explore esoteric and supernatural causes; part drama, part cosmic horror.
watching every AVGN halloween special
Under the funny and spooky category, one of my favourite movies is Murder Party.
Candyman Candyman Candyman Candyman … … . … … <draws breath> Candyman
I thought Insidious was good, and not annoyingly gratuitous with the violence.
The Murmuring from Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities.
Got any interest in spoliation films?
Scream Blacula Scream Some regard this as the worst blaxploitation movie. Considering the genre consist primarily of low budget movies with very short filming schedules that’s a fairly damning indictment but I think it can be enjoyed for what it is if you have an interest in this type of cinema.
The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982). Not gory, so much as gooey.
The Babadook.
The Mist. Based on a book by Steven King. King admits the movie ending is better than his own.
10 Cloverfield Lane. It’s standalone, don’t worry if you haven’t seen Cloverfield
Annihilation. The bear freaks me out.
Event Horizon. Sci-Fi/Horror
Original Ghostbusters from 1984.
Gremlins
No One Will Save You. The ending is weird, but the suspense is top-notch.
The 'Burbs. Classic Tom Hanks comedy.
Tremors.
What We Do in the Shadows
The best thing about Event Horizon is how incredibly gorey it is. Definitely not what OP is after.
Event horizon is definitely not the type of movie OP is after.
Based on OP’s likes The Thing is spot on
I love The Thing, specifically because it’s smart and has great atmosphere. And as with Tremors, I like seeing people behave intelligently and adapt to try to overcome the threat, rather than just having people be idiots so we can watch them die.
That said, it goes way past the line for my SO, who makes less of a distinction between gross creature effects and violent gore effects. Plus, it’s not like there isn’t some fairly extreme violence as well. The defibrillator scene for example.
Seconding Annihilation. Was going to suggest it if nobody else did.
It could just be that I first watched it when I was pretty young, but The Changeling from 1980 with George C. Scott is a pretty good atmospheric horror. No real gore or even deaths to speak of, but a good creepy ghost story nonetheless.
