Happy Halloween in 2020!
Right now, the only thing that has the potential to be scarier than the outdoors is your home. Not to sound like all of these commercials that have been trying to tug at our heartstrings, but our homes are everything right now. What if these walls decided to turn on you, and every dark corner promised dread?
We’ve been warned against costume parties, midnight movies, and trick-r-treating, so you’re probably stuck at home this Halloween. While AMC is running their usual marathon of slasher classics and season must-watches, you might be craving something different - especially something that can actually give you the creeps. This seems like the perfect time to do a deep dive into the haunted house subgenre. Here are four lesser-known suggestions for when you feel like you’ve heard every creaky floorboard and seen every pale-faced entity lurking behind a closet door.
Hausu (1977, Japan, dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi)
Okay, so it might not necessarily be that scary. But if you haven’t already heard of this Japanese psychedelic horror classic that’s well-loved by genre fans, there is so much to sell you on. A young girl invites six of her ridiculously-named friends to her aunt’s house for summer vacation and as it turns out, everything in the house is paranormally booby-trapped. We’re talking mattress attacks, piano attacks, and cat painting attacks. It’s an over-the-top, hallucinatory, giddy nightmare that you won’t be able to get enough of; the runtime flies by faster than you can say, “What the hell did I just watch?”
Gore meter: 4 out of 5 (an extremely goofy 4 out 5)
Pairs best with: Inebriation and a FaceTime viewing party
Streaming on: HBOMax, Criterion Channel, Amazon (behind paywall)
Trigger/content warnings (may contain spoilers)
Pengabdi Setan/Satan’s Slaves (2017, Indonesia, dir. Joko Anwar)
Take a word of advice: do NOT sleep on Indonesian horror. This reboot/prequel of a 1980 Indonesian classic is spooky as hell. It centers on a family that starts to have brushes with the paranormal when the once-famous matriarch dies of a mysterious illness. You may recognize a lot of haunting tropes and cliches here, but they are done so well that the scares manage to be genuinely effective. It’s also incredibly paced - it hits the ground running and doesn’t give the characters a freakin’ break right up to the chilling ending.
Gore meter: 2 out of 5 (one brief scene in particular is a 4 out 5)
Pairs best with: All the lights out and a throw blanket
Streaming on: Shudder and Sling. Behind the paywall on all other outlets.
Trigger/content warnings (may contain spoilers)
The Beyond (1981, Italy, dir. Lucio Fulci)
Liza inherits an old hotel in Louisiana and promptly begins renovating it to her liking, but the construction accidentally opens a portal to hell, letting loose creatures that are pretty much obsessed with gouging eyes out. Been there, am I right? This is by far the goriest film on this list (and ranks amongst the goriest of all time without a doubt), but it’s not cheap. Director Lucio Fulci is considered one of the greats for a reason; he had as much talent for creating dread and terror as he did for making the human body seem as fragile as paper and as gooey as baked ziti.
Gore meter: 5 out 5, even earns bonus points
Pairs Best With: Protective eyewear and a barf bucket
Streaming on: Shudder, Showtime, Dark Matter TV, The Roku Channel
Trigger/content warning (may contain spoilers)
Relic (2020, Australia, dir. Natalie Erika James)
This one goes out to all you sensitive souls that are craving to be emotionally terrorized! When a woman finds out that her elderly mother has gone missing, she heads to her childhood home to find her, dragging her daughter along for the ride. As soon as grandma gets home, she’s behaving very strangely, and the three generations of women are thrown into a nightmare of delusion and doubt. This is an emphatically slow burn with a rewarding, batshit-insane last act that will send shivers down your spine while simultaneously breaking your heart, serving as a solid metaphor for the intensity of dementia. Bonus: it’s a major Bechdel pass.
Gore meter: 2 out of 5 (subjective depending on what you consider gory)
Pairs best with: A phone on standby to call your grandparents
Streaming on: Still behind the paywall on all services, but worth the splurge
Trigger/content warning (may contain spoilers)
With any luck, this inspired you to stay in and become paranoid every time your cat makes a noise. Maybe you’re still hitting up a socially-distanced gathering or attending a drive-in screening. No matter what you do: have a super fun, super spooky, and super safe Halloween. It’s the most wonderful time of the year.
A very small sample size of people watched over 100 hours of horror movies while their heart rates were being tracked. The result? We now know what is scientifically the scariest movie on iMDB’s top horror list. And it’s another great haunted house movie.
Just can’t stop looking at these photos from the set of Scream 5 that show Courteney Cox’s return as Gale Weathers. No, you’re crying.
Forbes compiled a ranking of the most profitable slasher franchises and the results are actually pretty surprising.
Known irreverent weirdo Ben Wheatley has been announced as the director of The Meg 2. Fingers crossed he brings some major Sightseers energy to this project!
News keeps trickling in about the Dexter reboot. Most importantly, they show runners have promised to right their wrongs.
…the original When A Stranger Calls (1979) was released.
…Graveyard Shift (1990) was released. Happy 30th anniversary to one of the best of the worst!
… actor Cary Elwes, favorite of the genre, was born in 1962.
…comedian/horror enthusiast and dear friend of The Nightlight, Tabitha Jones was born. Happy birthday Tabitha!
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What a great time to launch a horror movie blog! Great reviews. These films are definitely out of my radar and thanks for letting us know where to find each one!
Perfect Halloween site! Great descriptions and reviews!