Pumpkin spice season, spooky season … whatever you like to call this time of year, 12-foot skeletons are popping up left and right and Halloween is just around the corner, which means it’s the perfect time of year to watch horror movies. Sometimes you want a Halloween classic, but sometimes, you want something brand new.
Fortunately, October always has a robust lineup new horror movies to stream, and 2024 is no different. In fact, the first week of the month is positively packed with new streaming debuts, from a new spin on Stephen King’s beloved novel “Salem’s Lot” to the body-swap thriller Netflix dropped $17 million to acquire. Here’s your guide to all the new horror movies streaming this week.
Streaming On: Max
Release Date: Oct. 3
Stephen King‘s celebrated (and rather lengthy) vampire novel “Salem’s Lot” gets a film adaptation from “Annabelle Comes Home” director and “IT” screenwriter Gary Dauberman. Naturally, King’s sprawling, detailed sketch of an entire town and its vampire plague is significantly condensed in a film that’s just shy of two hours, but that also makes for an action-packed piece of vampire cinema. Would it benefit from some time to breathe? Certainly, and book fans will no doubt mourn the characters and themes lost in the brevity, but if you’ve been craving a straightforward vampire horror movie with some rather lovely imagery and sufficiently spooky vibes, “Salem’s Lot” has you covered. My prediction is this one, like the “Fright Night” remake, will fare better with time as the sting of expectation works its way out of the conversation.
Streaming On: Prime Video
Release Date: Oct. 3
Oscar-winning “West Side Story” star Ariana DeBose stars as an ambitious chef in a film that’s “The Bear” by way of Brujeria, “House of Spoils.” After giving up a high-paying gig in a dream kitchen, Chef heads to a dilapidated estate where she plans to start her own restaurant with the help of a nervous investor (Arian Moayed). But when the spirit of the previous owner sabotages her big deubt, Chef has to leave behind her old tricks and embrace the singular gifts of the grounds she’s working on. While it’s never terrifying, “House of Spoils” serves up some enchanting witchery and a commanding performance from DeBose.
Streaming On: Shudder
Release Date: Oct. 5
The latest installment in the horror anthology franchise “V/H/S” takes one giant leap toward sci-fi and emerges as the new benchmark for the film series. Featuring segments from Kate Siegel (hers is also written by husband and frequent collaborator Mike Flannagan), Justin Long alongside brother Christian Long, Justin Martinez, Jordan Downey, Virat Pal and Jay Cheel, “V/H/S: Beyond” tilts its horror toward robots, aliens and spacecraft, with several of the best shorts in the whole “V/H/S” run. Of course, as with all anthologies, there are highs and lows, but “Beyond” is one that can easily claim more of the former. You don’t need to have seen any previous “V/H/S” films to enjoy this one, but as audiences have come to expect from these films, you can count on a gory good time.
Streaming On: Netflix
Release Date: Oct. 5
Netflix picked up this body-swapping indie for an eye-catching $17 million when it debuted at Sundance, and it’s not hard to see why. Written and directed by Greg Jardin, the movie has a killer concept — a group of old friends reunites and gets their world turned upside down by a body-swapping device that sets loose their suppressed desires and long-hidden secrets. Colorful with a game ensemble cast and budget-stretching creativity, “It’s What’s Inside” does a great job of building a world within a single location. Not so much scary as kind of psychologically nauseating, the film doesn’t tip too much into the body horror you might expect from the premise, but it offers an inventive new slant on the body-swap genre that sets the imagination alight.
Streaming On: Netflix
Release Date: Oct. 5
Netflix’s Spanish-language, early pandemic hit “The Platform” gets its long-awaited sequel this October, and if you were hoping for more deranged social-experiment-style musings on the breakdown of society, returning filmmaker Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia certainly recommits to the bit. In some ways, “The Platform 2” plays as more of a re-imagining than an outright sequel. The premise remains the same: the prisoners of a tower-like structure dubbed “The Pit” have to survive on the food that descends from the top on a platform each day. Live on top and eat well, live below and starve — if everyone just at their share, everyone would live, but the social order always dissolves. This time, it’s not the greed of those at the top tearing everything apart, but an oppressive regime of enforcers who’ve decided their way is the only way. Every bit as bleak and brutal as the first, “The Platform 2” is ultimately a bit more baffling, but still packed with outstanding performances and plenty to ponder.
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