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
Hocus Pocus is classic 90s comedy/super-light horror. It’s gooooood.
edit: and OP says in another comment that they want to avoid it. Noooooo! …I get the sentiment, but noooooo!
For “funny and spooky” I’d suggest Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness. The gore is over the top to such a degree that it becomes just ridiculous!
For shows, I’ve been digging “From” on MGM+. First season (10 episodes) is free. 3rd season just started, new episode tonight!
Trailer:
I love Army of Darkness. I’ve had Evil Dead II on the to watch list, but it has to wait for my SO to be in an adventurous enough mood since they’re more squeamish than I am.
From looks interesting. I’m curious how satisfying it is as a story. The premise seems like the kind of thing that would work best with a more stand alone story structure, so the fact that it has multiple seasons makes me worry about it either dragging on until it gets bad or getting cancelled without wrapping things up.
they left season 2 with a crazy cliffhanger, I NEED season 3
Season 3 is out, just not all of it yet.
yeah, just waiting. no time lately to get back to it.
Under the funny and spooky category, one of my favourite movies is Murder Party.
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).
If you haven’t seen it yet, I can’t recommend Midnight Mass highly enough! Probably my favorite horror/spooky thing ever. Best to go in blind, I think. It’s not a mystery per se, but figuring out what’s going on is part of the fun for sure.
Candyman Candyman Candyman Candyman … … . … … <draws breath> Candyman
I thought Insidious was good, and not annoyingly gratuitous with the violence.
A couple old ones:
The Serpent And The Rainbow directed by Wes Craven.
Arachnophobia with Jeff Daniels, John Goodman.
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 TV show version of What We Do in the Shadows is also quite good, I think, and very much traffics in the same themes as the movie, if even a bit sillier.
We both liked What We Do in the Shadows, but neither of us loved it. I’ve been suggesting giving the show a try but my SO is always a bit resistant to starting a new show, and the prospect of trying to squeeze a season into a limited time frame only has only made that worse. But it’ll probably happen sooner or later.
Hubs and I didn’t love the movie, but we totally adore the series.
It’s worth it. Such a great show.
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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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Dead Zone with Christopher Walken is amazing. Glad to see it on this list.
Some more classic Stephen King you might enjoy if you haven’t already seen it:
- Salems Lot (the original 1970s mini series)
- Carrie (the original Spacek version, not the remakes)
- Firestarter (original with Drew Barrymore)
Edit: The Fog isn’t Stephen King. But it’s still good. I don’t remember it being too gory because everything happens in “the fog” but there might be a neck slicing. It’s been a looong time since I last watched it.
- The Fog (original with Adrienne Barbeau)
We recently threw the Fog on the list but know nothing about it beyond it being early John Carpenter. Didn’t even realize it was Stephen King.
Salem’s Lot is something I keep remembering exists and then forget to add to the list. Neither of us have seen it but I have a vague awareness of it.
I know my SO hated Carrie, so probably not something we’re watching together. I’ve never seen it, I’ve just seen the ten million things parodying it.
I completely forgot about Firestarter. I never saw the original, I think I saw the sequel that people hated, though all I remember is Dennis Hopper playing a guy who they establish sees the future with perfect clarity, and then immediately gets his predictions wrong.
The Pirates of the Caribbean movies fit I think. Skeleton pirates, curses, sea-zombie pirates, giant squid attacks, the East India Trading Company…
The Haunting of Hill House is a phenomenal show. Incredibly creepy, and one of the most emotionally powerful things I’ve ever watched.
I recommend:
- The Cabin in the Woods
- Tucker and Dale versus Evil
- Midnight Mass
Midnight Massterpiece is more like it. Anything from Mike Flannigan is great. Also check out Midnight Club. It’s not particularly scary, but more touching and sad, in a good way.
He’s honestly the only reason I’ve still got a Netflix subscription at this point.
He did one of the segments in the new V/H/S Beyond movie as well, although I’m pretty sure that falls under gore for this question.
Tucker and Dale is awesome.
And completely fails the “no gore” requirement.
Yeah… but it’s funny gore.
This is the second time I’ve seen this movie genuinely recommended for a spot where it doesn’t belong. I swear, y’all horror movie watchers lose track of just how horrifying your movies get.
The other time it was suggested as a kids movie.
It’s not really a gore movie, though. It’s funny gore. It’s different. Have you seen it?
Yes. It’s why I know they weren’t appropriate suggestions for the requests.
