North Star Horror: October Edition

Something a little different!

Hello friends. We’re now hitting peak spooky season, something that extends for me from Mid-August to Mid-November, but which is at it’s most potent in October. Leaves fall from the trees, candy comes in big bags, and our friends, the ancient Celts, tell us that the world of the dead is nearer than ever.

This is also when those of us who don’t watch Horror movies year-round usually indulge in a little scare. My wife is gracious enough to allow me to show her three (3) Horror flicks each October. I choose these very carefully, using the venerable Does The Dog Die database to remind myself what triggers may await within each selection. We want to be scared, but not in the wrong way, of course. I usually also choose based on a theme. Below, I am including a list of ten triple features, some of which we’ve actually done, and some of which are just good combos.

If you’re feeling like you need direction this October, let me guide you into true thematic terror!

If you’re looking for something to read, I’ll be over on Instagram recommending a horror novel every day of October! Give me a follow over there.

No fiction this month! Next month it will return with a tale of true(ish) terror.

(Also, Doors of Darkness II is out! Alone on the Borderland ought to be out this month, read ‘em!)

Ten October Triple Features

Sweden- Midsommar (2019), The Ritual (2017), Let the Right One In (2008)

Weirdly, Sweden doesn’t produce a lot of Horror, hence the presence of only one film actually from the country in this collection. Still, there’s something spooky about all that wilderness to the north, about those vast and interconnected Stockholm suburbs. Kicking off with Midsommar, we get some daylight terror on a cult compound in rural Sweden. As someone who was recently there, I can confirm that the people are as friendly as they are on screen, though none of them ever tried to sew me into a bear suit. Ritual provides sort of the opposite vibe. It presents a version of rural Sweden with a more dreary darkness, and where things definitely go bump in the night. If you like the movie, check out the original novel by Adam Nevill, it’s different enough! Finally, you can end with an actually Swedish entry. Let the Right One In is a legitimate masterpiece and on release, was a welcome antidote to an oversaturated vampire market. A lonely boy makes friends with a strange neighbor girl who only appears at night. Skrammande! 

90’s- Scream (1996), Blair Witch (1999), Ringu (1998)

The 90’s was kind of a weird time for horror. Slashers had become passe, and we weren’t yet in the glut of shiny remakes and torture flicks of the new Millennium. That doesn’t mean there was nothing going on, though. Scream puts a cap on the classic slasher by dissecting (maybe vivisecting) the genre. Though it’s since become a staple of the very genre it was trying to explore, it’s well worth a watch. Only a short while later, Blair Witch heralds something new: the found footage movie, marrying both increasingly retro tech in the form of analog tape, and the power of internet to build tension through rumors that it was all real. Finally, we leave the US behind for a country where horror was still going strong for Ringu, later remade in the US as The Ring. I find Ringu to be a little more frightening, personally, but if you can’t handle subtitles, through on Candyman as an alt.

Women of Horror- American Psycho (2000), Jennifer’s Body (2009), Slumber Party Massacre (1982)

It’s no secret that horror has a, let’s say “troubled,” relationship to sex and gender. A lot of valid criticisms have been made about the way that certain subgenres fetishize violence against women for a primarily male audience. At the same time, women have been involved in horror behind the camera since 1913’s Suspense, directed by Lois Weber. This collection gives us Mary Harron’s American Psycho, which explores the toxic masculinity of 80’s corporate America. We follow it up with Jennifer’s Body, written by Diablo Cody and directed by Karyn Kusama. It’s an imperfect but still deeply resonant film about the painful ways that people, and the connections they share, change during adolescence. Finally, we wrap with an early feminist take on the slasher, a genre that was still in its childhood, with Slumber Party Massacre, directed by Amy Jones and written by Rita Mae Brown. Though in many ways a by-the-numbers slasher, the relationships between the sorority girls are much more believable and textured compared to its male-directed contemporaries. 

Gen Z Horror- Sissy (2022), Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022), Talk To Me (2023)

I’m getting old enough that some horror movies are no longer targeted at me. C’est La Vie, I guess. What unites these three films is the youth of their casts, sure, but also the particular social and political mores these characters bring with them. Apologies for two of them being Australian, though. Sissy follows a mental health influencer who reconnects with a childhood friend in time to be invited to her Bachelorette party (or, if you insist, a hen do). It’s being hosted, unfortunately, by a childhood enemy who has a slightly different take on the past than our hero. Bodies Bodies Bodies, similarly set among “friends” at a remote getaway, centers on a Mafia-like game that spins out of control. It presents a bit of satire on the perception that many among Gen Z tend to see themselves identity-first, playing with questions of who is poor, who is oppressed, and who is secretly a shithead. Some wild kills, plus national treasure Rachel Sennot. We go back to Australia for Talk To Me, which was the scariest movie I watched in 2023. Complex, quasi-familial relationships, occult party games, and just the right amount of lore carry this movie into the world of the modern classic.

Sci Fi Body Horror- Color out of Space (2019), Event Horizon (1997), The Thing (1982)

Sci Fi horror and body horror go together like milk duds and popcorn, or like your DNA and a mysterious organism set on deconstructing it. Color Out of Space features Nic Cage as a father whose farm is visited by a mysterious alien force. Represented by a previously unknown color (purple), this alien force terrorizes the family, culminating in a gruesome scene that gives a Paul Simon classic a whole new meaning (First track on his second album, if you must know). Then we go into space for Event Horizon, a film which proves no one does it like Sam Neill. Turns out the portal to hell is in space. Can you believe that there’s a secret cut of this movie that’s even more intense? Finally, we head back earthward for The Thing, which is a true masterpiece: paranoia, excellent special effects, Kurt Russel’s spectacular beard, a massive spoiler if you speak Norwegian. This movie has it all. 

Fuck This House- Poltergeist (1982), House of the Devil (2009), The Lighthouse (2019)

This is a variety of haunted (ish) houses (ish). First we have Poltergeist, which helps kind of set the scene. It’s a fairly standard haunted house flick, featuring mysterious goings-on at a suburban home. It has both some fun and some not-so-fun behind the scenes trivia associated with it, and the practical effects are spectacular, especially the scene where the mom is dragged along the wall and ceiling. Then we move into Ti West’s House of the Devil, which is presented as a kind of 70’s throwback. It follows a college-aged girl who takes a babysitting job, which turns out to be for an old woman. It also turns out to be home to a satanic cult. I don’t want to give away more, but it gets wild. The Lighthouse isn’t haunted, per se, but it does get weird and wild. Two men who kind of can’t stand each other gradually go mad. Is it bad luck to kill a seabird? Did Robert Pattinson really fuck a mermaid? Do you really not like my lobster? All these questions and more await.

Found Footage- V/H/S (2012), Noroi: The Curse (2017), REC (2007)

Blair Witch may have spawned the found footage genre in the popular imagination, but since then there have been many good and bad takes on the form that have transformed it far beyond the 1999 classic (I have not forgotten the found footage flicks that predate it, but if you’re going to suggest that Cannibal Holocaust was an influential as Blair Witch, I’m gonna ask you to be for real). It makes sense, since found footage is ideal for lowering production costs while increasing immersion. There are many great options, including the entire Hell House LLC trilogy, but here’s what I recommend to get the most bang for your buck. V/H/S is an anthology film series with lots of ups and downs, but the first entry was only recently unseated by V/H/S 94. Every segment is well done and brings something new to the table, though the first is the most memorable. I hope you like subtitles, because the next two aren’t in English. Noroi: The Curse is a Japanese found footage film that marks a valuable subgenre in found footage: the mockumentary. This one follows a purported curse, duh, but I don’t want to say more than that. There’s a reason this is considered among the best of the genre. Finally, we have the film that actually spawned my love of found footage: REC, which is meant to be footage captured by a TV film crew as they accidentally get wound up in a zombie outbreak limited to one apartment building. For maximum effect, follow immediately with REC 2, which begins at the moment this one ends.

Something’s Not Right. . .- Lake Mungo (2008), In the Mouth of Madness (1994), Green Room (2015)

This theme is a little looser, but these movies do make for a fun combo that’ll keep you guessing. We have another found footage/mockumentary in the form of Lake Mungo. Here’s an Australian horror movie without a scene where a car hits a kangaroo. It follows a family’s quest to figure out what happened to their missing daughter. Truly, I don’t want to give away the twists, but just let it take you away. The end credits still freak me out. In the Mouth of Madness features our second Sam Neill appearance on this list, as an insurance investigator and skeptic sent to track down a missing horror author. The problem is that the author’s books might be real? This was hard to find for a while, but it’s on Shudder. If you’re unmoved by the supernatural, can I interest you in some gnarly white supremacy? Green Room is about a group of punks who finds themselves unknowingly playing at a skinhead club. When they play a cover of “Nazi Punks Fuck Off,” things get real. The kills in this are really something else, though, so be warned.

Family Strife- Hereditary (2018), I Saw The TV Glow (2024), When Evil Lurks (2023)

Horror is a great space to work out your problems, and what is a more potent source of problems than a difficult family? It’s no surprise that Hereditary is on this list. An artist grieves her deceased mother, with whom she had a deeply complex relationship. Then that mid-movie twist happens with her daughter and, well, look, family is never more complicated than when tragedy strikes. I Saw The TV Glow is here because of themes of family run throughout it, from the beginning, when Owen helps his Mom vote, to the bitter end. Owen’s actions are dictated by the way his father might feel, as well as his rocky relationship with his “chosen” family. We end on a bleak note with Argentina’s When Evil Lurks, which presents not only a pretty interesting new take on possession, but forces us to reckon with an extremely divorced man trying to keep his family safe. Be warned though, even among the standards of this list, this is a feel bad flick.

Let’s Get Weird- Beau is Afraid (2023), Skinamarink (2023), Hausu (1977)

If ghosts, demons, vampires, and serial killers are too passe for you, may I suggest this list? My tastes turn toward the weird anyway, but I think these films will make anyone a believer in the awesome power of bonkers bullshit. Beau Is Afraid is Ari Aster’s controversial third film, and centers on a man named Beau and his crippling anxiety. The problem is that everything he is afraid might happen, does. People may not vibe with the long play sequence in the middle, but I sure do. Skinamarink is a true experimental film. No way to get around it. You just have to put your phone away and let it draw you in. The premise features two children stuck in a house that has become unmoored from reality. Is it mostly static shots of the spot where the wall meets the ceiling? Yes. Is it one of the scariest movies I saw the year it came out? Also yes. We wrap with an all time weird classic: Hausu. Also known as House in some English releases, Hausu follows a group of school girls who go to one of their aunt’s country homes for a little rest. The house eats them. Perfect, amazing 70’s special effects are in play here, and the scene where a girl is eaten by a piano lays the foundation for a scene in Super Mario 64 that made me panic and turn off the console when I was 6.

***

There you have it, thirty films sure to give you the creeps, the heebies, the jeebies, and spine-chills all October long. Hey, you could watch one every night of October and only leave one night unaccounted for. How’s this for a bonus rec? Check out Viy if you can. It’s the first Soviet Horror film to gain distribution in the US and it absolutely owns bones. Great movie to throw on without sound during a Halloween party.

Happy October! I’ll see you in November for more of our regularly scheduled programming!