Boy meets girl on the open road, the pair fall deeply in love, and then they start eating people. That premise belongs to the strongest film streaming this month, and it’s far from the most disturbing concept on this list.
October has arrived, and with it comes spooky season. All the big streaming services are stocking up on horror. This month’s additions mix undisputed classics with more recent titles that could keep you awake. Expect zombies, slashers, body horror and even some creepy romance. Pop some popcorn, wrap yourself in a blanket and keep the remote nearby, since hitting pause is allowed.
Kick things off with a cannibal romance
Bones and All turns the coming-of-age road movie into something bloody. Maren (Taylor Russell) has a habit of biting people. She hits the road on a journey across the country to track down her mother and learn why she has such grisly urges.
On the way, she crosses paths with Lee (Timothée Chalamet), who is also an “eater,” and the two fall in love. They then attempt to make a life together, which gets tricky when what binds them is a mutual hunger for human flesh.
One critic wrote, “Like Call Me by Your Name, Bones and All is a sensual movie, particularly visually,” and went on to note that “Guadagnino luxuriates in the kind of big-sky-country vistas that made Andrea Arnold’s similarly summer-break-themed American Honey so memorable, and he lights his leads warmly in the day and with skulking fervor at night.”
According to the same critic, the film’s real accomplishment lies in how it juggles its tones: “But it’s more remarkable for the way he and Kajganich navigate the push and pull between the story’s romantic elements and horror themes. There’s a big metaphor at play here about how parents, families, and friends enable aberrant behavior until it feels normal, and how being protected from the world can make it hard to properly enter it. And it plays in radically different ways at the same time: both through the lens of two young kids on a romantic road trip, and as two growing monsters seducing and killing other people for food.”
A double dose of vampires
Set 31 years after the events of The Shining, Doctor Sleep follows an adult Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor), who remains haunted by memories of his father’s murderous spree. This take on Stephen King’s novel digs deeper into Danny’s psychic abilities. He connects with a young girl who shares “the Shining” and sets out to shield her from a vicious vampire.
Next up is the cult favorite written by Tarantino, which opens as a crime drama before veering sharply into grindhouse horror. Bank-robbing brothers Seth (George Clooney) and Richie Gecko (Quentin Tarantino) flee toward the Mexican border, where they plan to meet a contact at a strip club that never closes. It turns out the strippers are vampires, leaving the siblings to fight for their lives until sunrise.
Small budgets, big scares
Another cult success, It Follows wrings every bit of value out of its modest budget. College student Jay Height (Maika Monroe) has sex with her boyfriend Hugh (Jake Weary) for the first time. He then reveals that a mysterious entity will stalk her from now on unless she passes it along to someone else by sleeping with them.
No one else is able to see what’s pursuing her. As Jay searches for answers and tries to stay a step ahead, the film delivers a concept that lingers in your mind long after the credits roll.
Perhaps the most disturbing premise here belongs to the genre-bending tale of Chloe (Lexy Kolker). The seven-year-old has never left her dilapidated suburban house, which might be haunted, because her father Henry (Emile Hirsch) insists that bad people are lurking outside. The film reveals the truth bit by bit as Chloe and Henry struggle over who gets to control their tense existence.
Prefer a haunted hotel in Ireland? There’s one of those too
In this one, Adam Scott stars as Ohm Bauman, an American writer who heads to the Irish hotel where his parents spent their honeymoon in order to scatter their ashes. The honeymoon suite is kept locked and is said to be haunted by a witch. As he navigates the strange townsfolk and hotel staff, Ohm must confront both his own history and the secrets the hotel is hiding.
Horror’s greatest hits under one roof
The whole point of A Nightmare on Elm Street was to make bedtime terrifying. Teenagers are stalked by Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), an undead murderer who kills his targets by slipping into their dreams. Widely regarded as one of the greatest horror movies of all time, it went on to produce a long line of sequels.
You probably know the shower scene from Psycho even if you’ve never watched the film, since it ranks among the most famous moments in cinema. With this tale, Alfred Hitchcock played a key role in creating the slasher genre. It follows Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), a secretary who steals money and lies low at the isolated Bates Motel, where something sinister awaits.
A Nightmare on Elm Street director Wes Craven joined forces with writer Kevin Williamson for Scream, a send-up of slasher clichés. Here, being a horror buff might just save your life. A group of high school students stalked by a masked killer attempt to stay alive by playing by the rules of the movies. All four Scream sequels are streaming on Pluto as well, so you can binge the entire franchise.
The twist that kicked off a career
When one of his patients takes his own life, child psychiatrist Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) finds a chance at redemption in Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), a young boy who sees ghosts. Together, they set out to help the spirits haunting Cole find peace.
The Sixth Sense marked the start of M. Night Shyamalan’s love of twist endings, and it remains one of his finest efforts. Chances are you already know how it ends. Give it a watch regardless and pay close attention to Willis in every scene, since the clues were hiding in plain sight all along.