And so we come again to that most wonderful time of the year: Halloween season! No matter that the human race’s inability to properly eliminate fossil fuels from our energy diet has doomed us all to bear witness to the total collapse of civilisation (expect opportunistic diseases, global outbreaks of war, and insecurity of food networks to ravage and eventually end the lives of you and your children).
No. Ignore that unpleasant, irreversible real world horror, and deep dive into the world of cinematic horror, the most successful and cathartic artform us fucked-up denizens of a rapidly warming earth have ever managed to produce. After all, to paraphrase Wes Craven, horror films don’t create fear, they actualise it, so why not sit back, kick off your shoes, and use art to purge yourself of those apocalyptic thoughts that keep you up at night, won’tcha?
Before we run through the exciting horror originals debuting on Netflix throughout October, let’s quickly glide through the classics the service already boast on the platform.
Mohawk
Worth special mention is Ted Geoghegan’s Mohawk. Having already proven himself a master of tonal control with We Are Still Here, a particularly crunchy ghost story that sidles back and forth between slow-burning terror and all-out horror, Geoghegan leans into his unique skill set with his second feature, a survival horror nerve-shredder that has more heart and humanity than most recent flicks combined.
Terrifier
Terrifier, a gooey ’80s throwback, is also well worth the time of any contemporary horror hound looking for some old school kicks. An arch riposte to the era of “elevated horror” in which we live, the film is gleefully nasty – it feels like something that could have poured from the pen of Bill Lustig or Larry Cohen back in the day.
Watch the trailer for Terrifier below
Following the exploits of Art the killer clown, a face-painted antagonist unsettling enough to give Pennywise a run for his money, the film has a sense of surreal, outlandish nastiness that is making a well-deserved comeback these days. Most mainstream critics hated it, because of course they did, but those looking for some blissfully cheap thrills need look no further.
Hush
Those not quite ready to stomach Terrifier would do well to check out Hush. An elegant little Netflix original directed by Mike Flanagan – the director of equally harrowing Gerald’s Game – it’s a slasher film with a difference, as a deaf woman finds herself stalked by a masked killer.
Flanagan’s original plan was to make the film totally silent, replicating for the audience the POV of his resourceful heroine. He might have abandoned that idea during the writing of the film, but that stripped-down approach to storytelling remains in other, surprising ways – this is a handsome little film with a narrative arc that bends thrillingly towards redemption. Hunt it down.
Now, onto the newbies hitting Netflix throughout October.
Apostle, available now
Gareth Evans is back, baby! Best known as the director of The Raid duology, some of the most thrillingly fucked up action films of recent memory, with Apostle Evans has returned to cult horror, a genre he stuck his flag back in with the bonkers (and brilliant) Safe Haven, a segment of 2013’s portmanteau film V/H/S/2.
Like Safe Haven, Apostle focuses on a hero trying to infiltrate a particularly bloodthirsty cult, as Dan Stevens’ Thomas Richardson must try to save his sister from an occult group led by the always charismatic Michael Sheen. Reviews out of Texas’ Fantastic Fest have compared the film to Robin Hardy’s all-timer, The Wicker Man, a comparison sure to get any self-effacing horror fan drooling. Colour me ready.
The Haunting of Hill House, available now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9OzG53VwIk
Ole mate Mike Flanagan gets another peek in with The Haunting Of Hill House, a limited series based on Shirley Jackson’s novel of the same name, one of the ur-texts of the haunted house genre, but it looks as though Flanagan is taking significant liberties with the text. After all, the book ends (SPOILERS!) on a note of uncertainty regarding the mental state of haunted heroine Eleanor – it’s never clear whether the ghostly apparitions of the book are a sign of her deteriorating mental state, or a genuine case of possession.
By contrast, Flanagan’s adaptation looks to be heavily leaning into the supernatural side of things, with a trailer jam-packed with pale children reciting their dreams, foreboding shots of Hill House itself, and assorted bumps in the night. It’s also being described as the “first season” of an ongoing project, so it’ll be interesting to see how Flanagan and co spin quite a simple story into a streaming behemoth.
The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, available October 26
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybKUX6thF8Q
This new series is from the minds that brought you Riverdale, so one would be safe to expect that it’ll be a mess of high school horniness, ludicrous narrative turns, and a great deal of taboo-breaking. We’re keeping our expectations tampered as a result – despite being early defenders of Riverdale, a lot of us at the BRAG offices have given up on that glut of madness. But the early trailers and promotional materials make this look like a genuinely interesting, visually inventive horror story, and a far cry from previous incarnations of the character. Let’s hope it’s a good ‘un.
After even more horror this month? Read our top 50 horror films of the 21st century.
