Here are some recommendations if anyone’s looking for something beyond ELM STREET and FRIDAY THE 13TH this Halloween Season.

I Paid for Netflix and Like TV Shows!
THE SANDMAN – faithful (well, faithful to me) to the comic book series, The Sandman follows the Lord of Dreams as he tries to put his realm back together after being imprisoned for a century. Philosophical, creepy, and sometimes disturbing. No one touches author Neil Gaiman for a well-told story.

I Like Seeing Underdogs Kick a Monster’s Ass!
PREY – I really could give two shits when internet folk on both sides of the aisle snark about how PREY’s lead is a Mary Sue example, or that this film proves the original PREDATOR movie is a synonym for toxic masculinity. I have no time for that noise. What I do have time for is watching a vulnerable character using their cunning and determination to go toe-to-toe with a seemingly invincible villain. PREY delivered on that promise.

I Want to See a Well Told Film about Kids that isn’t STRANGER THINGS!
THE BLACK PHONE – the child actors in this are spot-on, dealing with domestic abuse, bullies at school, and the lurking threat of a sinister child killer prowling their streets. Smart, disturbing, and hooks you in from the start to finish.

I Want to Watch a Movie Where Animals Eat People!
ALLIGATOR (1980) – Well-acted “animal attacks” picture with Robert “Breaking Bad, The Black Hole, Jackie Brown” Forrester in the lead. A detective tries to figure out what’s eating friendly canines in the Chicago sewers before it moves up the food chain (spoiler alert: it does). It’s got an awesome practical alligator wrecking havoc in the third act — what else do you want?!

I Like Bizarre Movies that Drive my Significant Other Out of the Room to Watch Kardashian Bullshit!
MAD GOD – you have to have Shudder to watch this, but it’s a passion project from stop-motion animator Phil “I-seared-AT-AT’s-into-your-memory” Tippett. It took him 30 years (!) to complete, and revolves around a post-apocalyptic wasteland, an assassin’s quest, and abject madness.

I Want to Watch Something Overlooked from the 1980s!
WITCHBOARD – I always passed this off at the video store when trolling for movies. I caught it on Shudder a few weeks back and was surprised at how much I dug it. Tawney “I-can-wax-a-car-like-no-one-else” Kitaen slowly gets possessed by a not-so-friendly ghost and needs both her boyfriend and an ex-lover to save her.

I Want to Watch a Good Remake that isn’t THE THING!
EVIL DEAD (2013 ) – Bruce Campbell may not be present to save the day, but what you do get is a brutal, gory, unrelenting film that’s been amped up to 11. As far as I’m concerned, they knocked it out of the park with this one. There’s a reason why it isn’t called the Morally Ambivalent Dead.

I Like TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and Mid-70s Pornography!
X – great concept film by Ti “House of the Devil” West. A band of pornographers head to the boonies and rent a farmer’s cabin to shoot their XXX movie. They do not reach the happy ending they were expecting. A well-crafted flick revolving around the frustration of having snow on the roof, but still wanting to stoke the ambers in the fireplace.

I Like Seeing Rock Bands Dismembered!
STUDIO 666 – I would have to say any film that serves as a vanity project for a band is running some pretty rough odds for a “fresh” score (see KISS MEETS THE PHANTOM). But the Foo Fighters seem to know just how and when to wink at the camera, which made this one a pretty fun ride. The basic gist? The band can’t come up with the hook for a new album, so their manager sends them to a haunted house where a mid-‘90s band died conjuring the forces of darkness. Hilarity, insanity, and gore ensue.

I Like Films that Feature Bicycles!
I mean who doesn’t, right? Check out AND SOON THE DARKNESS, a 1970 British thriller about two besties on vacation, cycling through rural France. It’s more Hitchcock than DePalma, with a nice atmosphere of dread and anxiety over gratuitous gore (wait! I like gratuitous gore, too!)

I Really Like the Term “Elevated” Horror!
MIDSOMMAR – Florence Pugh plays a very, very wounded woman doing her best to keep it together. Her boyfriend invites her to tag along on an extremely secretive and secluded pagan ritual in the wilds of Sweden. Who could expect anything bad could happen after reading that sentence out loud? MIDSOMMAR clocks in at 2 hours and 46 minutes (doesn’t every film nowadays?) But it’s worth its weight in gold in its performances and the slow-burn build-up of dread.

I Want to Watch a Normal Movie that Looks Like a Horror Movie (but Really Isn’t)!
NIGHTMARE ALLEY – whether you watch the 1947 version or its 2021 remake makes no difference to me. All I can tell you is they both locked me in during their runtimes. Both are deep dives into fatalism, cynicism, and the inability to outrun your own nature. I do have to give Guillermo del Toro’s version an edge over the original: his cinematography is completely awe-inspiring.

I’m Going Through a Divorce and Need to see it Metaphorically Played Out!
THE BROOD – There’s a texture to David Cronenberg’s earlier work (the Ontario locations, the lighting, the muted colors, the sound design, his choice of actors) that goes beyond other film directors. They’re the perfect capsules of Canada for that time. The idea itself (a self-help guru shows his patients how to give literal birth to their negativity) is brilliant and simply told without a lot of unneeded flourishes if redone today.

I Love SHAUN OF THE DEAD but My Husband Needs a Break This Year!
LAST NIGHT IN SOHO – it may not contain the humor or bromance from SHAUN, but SOHO still carries Edgar Wright’s style, which in the landscape of cookie-cutter cinema today, is a signature I desperately crave. A student of fashion design starts experiencing a form of psychometry when she moves into a London flat. It’s a stylish ghost story and a whodunnit. SOHO’s narrative falls flat for me about three-quarters in, but holy cats, Wright’s visual flare is worth the rental alone.

I Want to Watch a Horror Movie on the Couch while Drinking Wine and Picking Away at a Charcuterie!
THE NIGHT HOUSE – I know everyone was gushing over Scarlett Johansson when VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA came out, but man, for me, it was Rebecca Hall that grabbed my attention. In THE NIGHT HOUSE, she channels grief, curiosity, and obsession when her character discovers there may be more to her dead husband’s past than originally suspected. The film reminded me of both THE CHANGELING and THE RING (each focussed on believable actors dealing with the supernatural). There is a wonderfully thought-out visual representation of the film’s Entity that (to my knowledge) hasn’t ever been done before.

I Want to Watch a Movie Where I have to Pay Attention!
THE EMPTY MAN – based on a graphic novel, and made for a lot more than the $500K distributors say you have to make a horror film for, THE EMPTY MAN was finished right before 20th Century Fox got sold to Disney….and then dumped into oblivion on its release. I was only able to catch it on Crave TV and really dug it. To explain its plot would be a futile effort; all I can say it involves an ancient evil, a missing girl, a bizarre cult, and one hell of an opening sequence. This film won’t be for everyone, as its story goes off the rails onto other tracks at least a couple of times. But through its faults, there was something that really held me in tight during its 2-and-a-half-hour runtime.

Alright, there you have it. I’ve done my part to try to keep you entertained. But please, please watch responsibly. I implore you to not (under any circumstances) turn on any of the LEPRECHAUN movies. There is no joy in their low-budget appeal. There is only shame.