These are some of the horror flicks I watched (or rewatched) in October. Trick or treat!

Abigail (2024)

written by Stephen Shields and Guy Busick

directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett

A group of kidnappers are hired to snatch the young daughter of a wealthy mob boss. Everything goes according to plan… until the criminals realize that sweet little Abigail (Alisha Weir) is actually a vicious vampire. A lot of blood and guts are spilled in this fun take on the genre, and for the most part it works, even if the sum total feels like it could’ve gone even crazier with the idea. Still, that scene where Abigail and one of her victims dance to Danzig’s Blood and Tears? Pretty cool.

Rating: **½

Barbarian (2022)

written and directed by Zach Cregger

The first and second acts of Barbarian are pretty nifty. A young woman (Georgina Campbell) arrives at the house she has rented in Detroit, only to find another tenant inside (Bill Skarsgård). It’s the middle of the night and pouring rain, so she reluctantly accepts his invitation to share the space. You think you know what happens next, but writer/director Zach Cregger subverts everything you’ve come to expect from this type of setup and instead reveals the true danger to be a creature lurking under the basement. Then comes the third act and the cleverness gives way to a dumb denouement that devolves into the kind of film Barbarian was trying so hard not to be. What a disappointment.

Rating: **

Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)

written by Sarah DeLappe

based on a story by Kristen Roupenian

directed by Halina Reijn

A group of wealthy friends get together for a hurricane party at a mansion. Along for the ride are two outsiders: A middle-aged hippie survivalist (Lee Pace) and a working-class Eastern European (Maria Bakalova). As the storm rages outside, they drink, do drugs, and play a wink murder game that quickly gets real when the players start dying off one by one. Is one of the newbies behind it? Bodies Bodies Bodies attempts an interesting mash-up of whodunit, slasher, and Gen Z satire, but the unlikable characters and poor overall execution make it more annoying than fun. There’s a smarter movie buried here somewhere.

Rating: **

Caveat (2020)

written and directed by Damian McCarthy

I’m not sure how to describe this first feature from Irish writer/director Damian McCarthy, except that it’s about murder, ghosts, and a creepy-as-fuck toy rabbit that plays the drums whenever something supernatural is getting close. Caveat is the type of unsettling low-budget horror that’s high on inventiveness even if it’s somewhat lacking in the plot department. McCarthy followed this up with Oddity (see below), which I also recommend. And did I mention the rabbit?

Rating: **½

Halloween (1978)

written and directed by John Carpenter

No Halloween can pass without revisiting Halloween, the classic horror flick that practically set the blueprint for what came to be known as the slasher (you can read more about it in my review of the awful “sequel” from 2018). And every year I am impressed by co-writer/director John Carpenter‘s stylish, minimalist take on the material – his amazing score, framing, and foreshadowing are just impeccable.

Watching it again, it struck me that after so many films in this franchise, it’s easy to forget that in this first movie Michael Myers was just a regular dude. Sure, he’s talI, strong, and evil, capable of breaking windows with his hand and lifting people up in the air… but he’s slow, both physically and mentally, a hulk with the mind of a disturbed child. In fact, it’s not until the end, after he gets shot six times and still survives, that the character crosses over into the supernatural.

Halloween continues to be one of Carpenter’s best features, right up there with Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), Escape from New York (1981), The Thing (1982), and Christine (1983). Sure, there are some minor missteps, including some laughable screaming (filmmaker Brian De Palma made fun of it in his opening to 1981’s Blow Out), but overall Halloween is a feat of DIY ingenuity that’s still impressive to this day. “I wish I had you all alone…”

Rating: ***½

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

written by Tommy Lee Wallace and Nigel Kneale

directed by Tommy Lee Wallace

After Halloween (above) and Halloween II (1981), producers Debra Hill and John Carpenter thought it would be a good idea to depart from the established Michael Myers formula and start making anthology films centering on the holiday. Thus Halloween III: Season of the Witch, in which an Irish wizard plots to kill children across the United States via Halloween masks that contain pieces of Stonehenge (!). It’s batshit crazy and makes no sense, and I haven’t even gotten to the androids. Yet there’s stuff I really like here, such as an awesome score by Carpenter and Alan Howarth, a wonderfully hammy performance by Dan O’Herlihy as the evil mastermind, and a great downer of an ending. Also, good luck getting that jingle out of your head.

Rating: **½

His House (2020)

written by Remi Weekes

from a story by Felicity Evans and Toby Venables

directed by Remi Weekes

Two refugees, Bol (Sope Dirisu) and Rial (Wunmi Mosaku), escape from South Sudan and arrive in London after losing their young daughter at sea. The government temporarily puts them in a dilapidated house, but soon they realize an otherworldy being has followed them from Africa, seeking repayment for a “debt.” His House is an intriguing take on haunted house films, and while it sometimes leans too much on the usual tropes, its exploration of the immigrant experience is scary indeed.

Rating: **½

Oddity (2024)

written and directed by Damian McCarthy

The first fifteen minutes or so of Oddity, the second feature from writer/director Damian McCarthy, are pretty damn good. One night, a woman renovating an isolated country house, realizes someone’s at the door. On the other side of the peephole is a man with long hair, a creepy glass eye, and an anxious demeanor. He introduces himself as a former mental patient of her husband’s (red flag), and urgently implores her to open the door. Someone is inside the house with her! Is he telling the truth, or is he an insane criminal?

I won’t give it away, except to say that a wooden mannequin figures into the story… and it will likely give you more nightmares than the rabbit from McCarthy’s Caveat (see above). While the filmmaker once again stumbles a bit in the plot department, there are enough disturbing moments here to make me eager for whatever dark visions he dreams up next.

Rating: **½

반도 (Peninsula – 2024)

written by Yeon Sang-ho and Ryu Yong-jae

directed by Yeon Sang-ho

An action-packed heist movie that plays like a low-rent Escape from New York (1981), 반도 (English title: Peninsula) is a substandard sequel to the zombie flick 부산행 (2016). I can’t say I wasn’t intermittently entertained by the story, in which a team of thieves enters Undead South Korea in order to locate twenty million dollars in cash. But did it all have to be so generic? 반도 is pretty forgettable.

Rating: **

Prince of Darkness (1987)

written and directed by John Carpenter

After Big Trouble in Little China (1986) failed at the box office, writer/director John Carpenter decided to go back to the type of low-budget filmmaking that he was originally known for. The first of these was Prince of Darkness, in which a priest (Donald Pleasance) and a team of scientists team up to investigate a strange cylinder hidden in a Los Angeles monastery. Despite some silliness, this is probably Carpenter’s last solid horror film, with a cool concept (liquid Antichrist!), suspenseful setup, and a terrifying climax involving mirrors and Beelzebub himself. Get your crucifix.

Rating: ***

Scream (1996)

written by Kevin Williamson

directed by Wes Craven

Just before the climax of Scream, nerdy teenager Randy (Jamie Kennedy) tells his pals there are specific rules to follow if a character wants to survive a horror movie. Sex is a no-no, don’t drink or do drugs, and never say stuff stuff like “I’ll be right back”  – you’ll be dead for sure. This slasher from veteran director Wes Craven (1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street) ushered in a new generation of self-referential horror flicks in which meta awareness was part of the fun. As a masked killer stalks the town of Woodsboro, Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson play with audience expectations, scaring us silly in the process. Scream is a terrifying good time.

Rating: ***

Someone’s Watching Me! (1978)

written and directed by John Carpenter

Continuing with the fourth John Carpenter appearance in this post, we get to Someone’s Watching Me!, a television job he took between Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) and Halloween (see above). Shame on me for not watching it sooner. A young woman (Lauren Hutton) moves from New York to Los Angeles and rents an apartment in a high-rise building, becoming the target of a stalker who lives in the building across hers. It’s a pretty good flick, with plenty of similarities to Halloween and a cool sequence which pays homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954). For Carpenter completists like me, this was a hidden treat.

Rating: **½

Tenebre (Tenebrae – 1982)

written and directed by Dario Argento

Does anyone ever know what the hell is going on in a Dario Argento film? I certainly have trouble keeping track, and yet that’s part of the horror maestro’s appeal. In Tenebre (English title: Tenebrae), Anthony Franciosa plays Peter Neal, a famous writer who travels to Rome in order to promote his latest novel. But then a real serial killer, inspired by the writer’s work, begins to murder people, prompting Neal himself to investigate. The whole thing is rather nonsensical, but you can’t dismiss Argento’s surreal visuals, crazy twists, and just plain love for the giallo genre. The final reveal is also pretty neat.

Rating: **½

Underwater (2020)

written by Brian Duffield and Adam Cozad

from a story by Brian Duffield

directed by William Eubank

Take a bit of Alien (1979), add a lot of The Abyss (1989), sprinkle some Pacific Rim (2013), and shake it up with a bunch of other sci-fi/horror movies and you’ll get Underwater, in which a group of workers at a deep-sea drilling station let loose a bunch of sea monsters. It mostly works, partly because it’s zippy and simple – the film literally begins with the facility collapsing around the crew, and then it’s a matter of getting from point A to point B without getting killed by the creatures. Underwater doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it’s a fun enough ride. Plus, is that Cthulhu making a cameo at the end?

Rating: **½

Carlos I. Cuevas