Jesus, but October has crept up on us fast this year. One minute you’re thinking the summer heat might last till Santa arrives, the next you’re doubling up on socks, eyeing up the animatronic witches in B&Q, and wondering if fourteen bags of fun-size bars will see off the trick-or-treaters (and a few wee sly visits from yourself). The nights get longer, the curtains close earlier, and the living room once again becomes a place of ritual – blanket, snacks, low light… and something nasty on screen. Welcome to Film Ireland’s 31 Days of Halloween.
All month we’ll be serving up a horror movie recommendation a day. This list will have something for everyone – the curious and the jaded, the gore-hungry and the connoisseurs, the easily spooked, and the “I don’t really do horror” crowd who somehow end up watching the whole thing anyway. Expect monsters, witches, cults, curses, bad dates, worse families, questionable science, rubbery creatures, and at least one decision so stupid it could only be made by a man in a horror movie.
The aim here isn’t to dust off the same old heavy hitters. Freddy, Jason, and pals can enjoy a well-earned nap as they prepare for the big day. Here, we’re looking at oddities, overlooked gems, cult favourites, modern nasties, and under-loved sequels that deserve a revisit. Some are funny. Some are filthy. Some are clever enough to make you feel slightly attacked. Some will have you swearing off public transport, rural cottages, medical ethics, marriage, and Jeff Goldblum.
So clear your diary and dim the lights. Spooky season is short, and the watchlist is long. Do you hear that? Something is scratching at the window. We’d best not keep it waiting. Let’s begin.
17 - TerrorVision (1986)
Reviewed by Oscar Meagher
Today’s “beast” might lack the metaphorical sophistication of The Severed Sun’s, but who cares when it has that many teeth? Oscar Meagher takes a look at a prime slice of 80s creature-feature chaos…
It won’t take long to find out whether TerrorVision is your kind of film. After the first five minutes of slimy aliens, overacting, and kinky sex talk, sticklers for vérité might consider wasting their time elsewhere. To anyone left, however, I say good riddance!
TerrorVision is best described as a midnight movie for the MTV generation. It’s the kind of thing you may have watched late one night as an unsupervised child and spent the rest of your life wondering if you’d dreamt it.
You didn’t.
The plot? Well, an intergalactic space alien gets accidentally beamed through an Earth-bound satellite dish, giving it the power to jump between television screens and eat people. If you’re willing to go with that, no further explanation should be necessary.
The monster itself, a creation of the late John Carl Buechler, is definitely TerrorVision’s most noteworthy offering. It’s 70% tentacles, the rest being just eyes and teeth. Even more impressive is how at home it feels alongside the film’s other performances, with everyone acting as if their only instruction was to chew the Playboy Mansion-esque scenery. Genre fans might recognise some of the faces here, like Mary Woronov and Gerrit Graham, playing a couple of out-and-proud swinging parents. Then there’s Diane Franklin as their Cyndi Lauper-cosplaying daughter and Jon Gries as her rocker boyfriend O.D. – Christian name, I assume.
At no point does the film posture as scary; it’s having far too much fun for that. Rather, TerrorVision seems more focused on testing what it can get away with. It’s as if everyone on set was given free rein to do whatever they wanted, like no idea was off the table, however stupid. As a viewer, it’s better to throw your hands up rather than get too emotionally invested. You quickly learn to accept anything – like everyone on Earth could die, but who cares? The monster isn’t frightening; it looks cool, and that’s more important.
If you liked TerrorVision, check out: Night of the Creeps (1986), Stay Tuned (1992), Psycho Goreman (2020).
18 - The Severed Sun (2024)
Another folksy one today, and at first a congregation led by period stalwart Toby Stephens sounds like a ruddy good time. Then the sermons start obsessing over what women wear, say, and do, and the woods seem to develop their own appetite for abusive men. Dean Puckett’s The Severed Sun offers up an uncomfortable little life truth: when a community’s moral compass is beyond repair, maybe the monster lurking outside doesn’t look so monstrous after all.
Set in a post-apocalyptic near-future, Stephens plays the pastor of a remote, rural religious enclave, where blind obedience passes for virtue and men can pretty much get away with anything if they know their scripture. His daughter, Magpie (Emma Appleton), is stuck in an abusive marriage… until she isn’t. She kills her husband, inadvertently waking up something hungry in the forest. You can probably guess what follows – the villagers opt to blame a woman for the monster’s wrath, rather than take a hard look at their own rotten ways. Old habits die hard, I guess.
Puckett knows his folk horror, but The Severed Sun comes with added political edge. The village clings to ancient customs as if history holds all the answers, but the scarred landscape hints that they might’ve cobbled their religion together out of sheer nostalgia for the bad old days before the bombs dropped. There’s also an intriguing uncertainty – did they inherit this mess of a world, or recreate it from scratch? Either way, it feels unsettlingly familiar; yesterday’s bigotry packaged as tomorrow’s salvation.
Emma Appleton grounds it all. Her performance refuses melodrama, offering instead a taut, brittle portrait of a woman balanced on the edge, then pushed off it. Her Magpie is always watching – she’s learned exactly when to stay silent, when to bow her head, and when things are about to go wrong. Appleton builds her righteous fury in tiny increments, and when she finally fights back, you’ll punch the air. Stephens, meanwhile, brings the same regal magnetism he built his career on, ruling over everything with a heavy but seemingly fair hand – the kind of father and pastor who can twist rebellion into a betrayal of both family and faith.
The film cuts deepest when it looks at how the machine keeps running. Scapegoating only works if people play along, including the women propping up a system that gives them almost nothing. Magpie’s ordeal shows just how easily belonging can turn into a weapon – stay in line or help punish someone else. And then the monster (named ‘The Beast’ by the community) shows up, and the arrangement is flipped – suddenly, the village’s men get a taste of the wickedness they love to decry and punish. The setting does a hell of a lot of work, too. Mossy ruins, misty woods, and decaying buildings give the film a lush, rain-soaked atmosphere. There’s something deeply satisfying about a movie that doesn’t have to wait for nightfall to get under your skin – the 1960s and 70s were lousy with them, but they seem few and far between in today’s horror landscape.
There are a few hiccups along the way – if you’ve seen slow-burn folk horror before, you know the drill – the middle sags a little, conflicts circle around, and a few side characters feel undercooked. Sometimes, when the movie gets too smug or abstract, it shuts us out instead of drawing us in.
Still, The Severed Sun hangs onto its bite. The story drives home the cost of trying to claim autonomy in an oppressive community – liberating and tragic in equal measure; there’s no fluffy redemption waiting at the end. It’s a bold, prickly choice for a cold autumn evening, leaving you thinking about what you’d defend, what you’d excuse, and how easily it can be to mistake submission for safety.
If you liked The Severed Sun, check out: The Devil’s Bath (2024), Hagazussa (2017), Alucarda (1977).
19 - You Won’t Be Alone (2022)
Mr Frost’s (mostly) voiceless performance is joined by the subject of today’s entry. Eabha Leech looks at the eerie little marvel that defies the folk-horror trappings – get lost in the strange, sad territory of You Won’t Be Alone...
Classified as a folk-horror film, Goran Stolevski's You Won't Be Alone has its fair share of witches, grotesque bodily transformations, and bloodshed. But this film's horror lies not in witchcraft itself, but instead in the cruelty of human life. If you're looking for a traditional gory horror flick, I'm afraid this film is not for you, but you may end up enamoured with it if you give it a chance, thanks to its wonderfully poetic narration and Sara Klimoska's deeply affecting performance.
The story begins in 19th-century Macedonia, where Nevena, a mute young woman, is transformed into a witch by the terrifying and disfigured Old Maid Maria. After 16 years of isolation in a cave, Nevena begins inhabiting other people's bodies to experience human life from within. Through each of these transformations, she discovers that humanity is simultaneously beautiful and brutal. As she inhabits the bodies of different women, she experiences abuse, violence, and control at the hands of men, while also forming meaningful connections with other women. It is both tender and heartbreaking to watch Nevena discover womanhood and the restrictions imposed on women. Only when she inhabits a man's body does she fully recognise these inequalities and experience the freedom that comes with living as a man. You Won't Be Alone suggests that witches are not inherently evil but are instead feared and ostracised women who defy patriarchal expectations.
Along Nevena's journey, Old Maid Maria reappears to taunt and torment her for living life disguised as a human rather than embracing her true nature as a witch. It is only towards the end of the film that the reasons behind Maria's relentless harassment are finally revealed. The discovery of Old Maid Maria's past adds a compelling dimension to her character, casting her earlier cruelty in an entirely different light.
Watching this film is an almost sensory experience (especially if you like ASMR). The poetic narration, combined with the rural landscape, creates a flowing, hypnotic atmosphere, with occasional interruptions of visceral body-horror scenes. Nevena exudes an extraordinary childlike wonder and tenderness as she learns how to feel emotions and experience what a mother's love really feels like. The film's narration is profoundly moving, expressing tender feelings in ways that feel entirely unfamiliar. The meditative pace of this film may not be for everyone, but it helps to spark an array of emotions within viewers.
Ultimately, You Won't Be Alone is a delicate yet haunting exploration of womanhood, existence, and humanity, interspersed with disturbing imagery. With its mesmerising setting, eerie atmosphere, and fearless dissection of love, death, birth, and suffering, Goran Stolevski creates a poignant and unflinching folk-horror fairy tale. For those looking for something slightly different this Halloween, You Won't Be Alone is a perfect choice for viewers who prefer slow-burning, atmospheric horror films over cheap jump scares and predictable formulas. With dreamlike imagery, folkloric charm, and occasional unsettling body horror, this film will linger in your mind long after the credits roll.
If you liked You Won’t Be Alone, check out: The Vourdalak (2023), Gretel & Hansel (2020), and Lamb (2021).
20 - Mister Frost (1990)
Fancy another interesting spin on a classic baddie? You’re in luck: Mister Frost will be arriving presently. Don’t worry, he won’t announce himself with a puff of smoke or a spray of blood. He’ll just stroll in, perfectly polite and calm, and say hi. Oh, and then casually confess to burying bodies in his backyard. Then he’ll just kick back and watch while everyone’s skin crawls. Including ours.
After its underwhelming cinema release back in 1990, Mister Frost now lies tucked away in that strange corner of horror where cult favourites live and thrive. Director and co-writer Philippe Setbon starts with that clever serial-killer setup, but the story soon shifts into a tense chess match about faith and the nature of evil. Jeff Goldblum is his most Jeff Goldblum-y as the eponymous enigma. After confessing, he’s sent to a French asylum and goes silent for two years. No explanations, no tricks, just a cold, unsettling quiet. Legal move? Mental breakdown? Or maybe, just maybe, he’s the Devil on holiday?
Then Dr Sarah Day enters the picture. She’s a psychiatrist, and one who believes everything can be explained away. Frost will only talk to her. Of course. Evil never wastes time on true believers – it chases after the ones who prefer evidence over vibes – and he lays it all out for her. He’s Satan. Not possessed, not a minion, but the main bad guy. He’s not dangling a Faustian bargain; all he wants is for Sarah to murder him, to show he’s real, to put fear back into a modern world smug enough to think it can ignore him.
Frost offers no grand villain speeches, just weary amusement, like he can’t believe humans have reduced him to a fairy tale. Goldblum drops his usual warmth but keeps his dangerous, alluring aloofness. The way he speaks, the pauses, the signature tilt of his head – it’s typical Jeff, but without that famous comforting twinkle, he’s terrifying. Kathy Baker brings real heart opposite him. Her Sarah isn’t just the typical sceptical doctor. She’s sharp and compassionate, and her gradual unravelling is where the film hits hardest – doctor and patient, facing off under harsh lights, her clinging to science, him grinning like he sees through everyone. Frost keeps tightening the screws, making Sarah feel responsible for everyone until his murder starts looking like her only option. It’s darkly disturbing – no jump scares, just a constant, growing dread.
If you’re after a proper thinker for Halloween, Mister Frost is the right choice. It trips over itself sometimes, and the conversations it’ll spark probably outshine its plot. But for viewers who like their horror to whisper rather than scream, it makes the holiday a little colder and much more interesting. Much like Frost himself, it’s a slim, clever drink of unease that creeps in and stays awhile.
If you liked Mister Frost, check out: The Exorcist III (1990), The First Power (1990), Angel Heart (1987)
21 - Ganja and Hess (1973)
Much like Afflicted’s Derek and Hellbound’s Julia, today’s subjects are thirsty for the red stuff. Bill Gunn’s Ganja & Hessbegins with the faint outline of a vampire story, but soon wanders off into stranger, richer territory. Anyone expecting a tidy bloodsucker yarn may spend the first half wondering where the fangs went. Good. The movie is better for refusing the easy road.
Duane Jones plays Dr Hess Green, a wealthy anthropologist living in a mansion filled with African art, servants, and the sort of loneliness money can’t alleviate. After a night of despair, confession, and violence, his new assistant George Meda (played by Gunn himself with raw intensity) stabs Hess with an ancient dagger, kills himself, and accidentally gifts his host immortality plus a gruesome thirst for blood. Then Marlene Clark enters as Ganja, Meda’s widow, and Dr Hess falls. Hard.
Ganja could easily have been played as the victim, arriving to uncover her husband’s fate and scream on cue. Instead, Clark walks in with attitude sharp enough to pierce skin. She’s suspicious, funny, and gloriously unimpressed by Hess’s wealth and manners. When she discovers the gruesome truth, they soon become blood-drinking companions. Jones, already immortalised by Night of the Living Dead, gives Hess a weary, haunted dignity. While Ganja acclimates to their curse, his soul remains deeply troubled. Their relationship is less a tidy romantic resolution than a union as haunting and multifaceted as the concept of immortality itself.
For a movie sold in some circles as Blaxploitation, Ganja & Hess has almost no interest in playing the expected hits. Gunn isn’t chasing swagger, revenge fantasy, or cheap thrills. He’s making something a lot more interesting – a horror movie about contradictions. Wealth without safety, faith without peace, sex without liberation, Black identity viewed through rituals both African and Christian, both inherited and imposed. Gunn gives us Black characters rarely afforded this kind of richness in 1973 cinema: intellectual, erotic, cruel, lost, elegant, ridiculous, human. That alone feels radical, but the movie never turns into a lecture.
Spike Lee’s 2014 remake, Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, brought admirable new attention to Gunn’s original. But Gunn’s movie feels authentic in a way Lee’s take can only admire from a distance. For Halloween, Ganja & Hess is perfect if you’re craving something more than jump scares and rubber bats. It’s sensual and eerie, the kind of horror that lingers. It’s a ballad of desire and independence; a rare, personal film that still feels dangerously alive.
If you liked Ganja and Hess, check out: Tales from the Hood (1995), The Addiction (1995), Blacula (1972)
22 - Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)
Another monstrous rebirth inhabits this week’s Sequel Saturday pick, an overlooked follow-up to a body horror classic. Hellbound: Hellraiser II crashes in right after the first film’s gruesome finale and doesn’t waste time. Where Clive Barker’s adaptation of his own book stuck to gritty, suburban horror, Tony Randel’s sequel turns it up to a bizarre, theatrical spectacle. It’s louder, weirder, campier, and honestly, way more fun than you’d expect.
Shortly after surviving the first movie’s messy family reunion, our heroine Kirsty Cotton is confined to a psychiatric hospital. Her descriptions of resurrected corpses and the villainous Cenobites naturally fail to charm the medical staff, but head psychiatrist Dr Channard is listening very carefully. His interest in the Lament Configuration (the series’ sadistic puzzle box that opens the doors to Hell) has less to do with patient welfare than his own private obsession. After reviving Ashley’s wicked stepmother Julia, he follows her into the Cenobites’ world, dragging Kirsty and another patient, mute puzzle prodigy Tiffany, along for the trip.
This is a busier film than its predecessor. Randel swaps the original’s domestic claustrophobia for something closer to a nightmarish fantasy epic. Walls stretch in all directions for millennia, corridors loop infinitely, bodies are peeled and stitched back together, then peeled again. Hell has had many screen incarnations, from lakes of fire to brutalist offices, but few are as beautifully ugly as the stone labyrinth depicted here. Cold, wet, and ruled by a colossal floating diamond, it suggests that eternal damnation was designed by the same architect who dreamt up Dublin’s bus station.
Doug Bradley’s Pinhead (fun fact – in Barker’s book he’s nameless) is still the main attraction. He’s got that commanding presence and perfect posture, but Hellbound slips an interesting crack into his armour. The film hints at the Cenobites’ humanity without making them soft – they’re still terrifying, still serving their twisted cause, but a little backstory sneaks in, and the monsters get a welcome layer of complexity. Channard, meanwhile, is a genius addition to the rogues’ gallery. While Julia is driven by appetite and Pinhead by perverted duty, Channard is somehow worse. His lofty position at the hospital, treating patients not as human beings but as instruments for his private obsession, gives his villainy a grim real-world texture before the supernatural arrives. Once he becomes a Cenobite, the movie literalises what was already there – the surgeon, the experimenter, the authority figure who believes suffering is acceptable in the name of curiosity. He may be less iconic than Pinhead, but he expands the franchise’s universe by showing that Hell does not only employ the seduced, tricked, or desperate; it also welcomes professionals, intellectuals, men with big bunches of keys.
Not everything works. Sometimes the dialogue thuds, like the movie momentarily forgets it should intrigue, not explain. The story stumbles a bit in the middle, and a few side characters just exist to get eaten by the plot. Still, the highs easily outweigh the shortcomings. The movie’s ambition is contagious, and it looks far better than you’d expect given its meagre budget. The practical effects still look great; Julia’s gradual regeneration in particular is deliciously gnarly. Clare Higgins once again gives one of horror’s most memorable villainous femmes a commanding mix of elegance, appetite, and contempt, effortlessly gilding through the gristle and gore, using desire as both weapon and excuse. And the finale is flat-out bonkers, capped by Kirsty using someone else’s skin as a disguise – a nasty, clever jab at how women are expected to wear masks to survive.
For an October night, Hellbound: Hellraiser II is ideal viewing. Candlelit rooms, forbidden boxes, and more carnage than a drunken pumpkin carving competition. It’s loud, bloody, ambitious, and completely shameless, a sequel that takes the phrase “go to Hell” as good advice. Bring sweets. Avoid anything shaped like a puzzle box.
If you liked Hellbound: Hellraiser II, check out: Event Horizon (1997), Nightbreed (1990), From Beyond (1987)
23 - Afflicted (2013)
Werewolves, take a seat – here come the vampires for today’s Found Footage Friday pick. On paper, Afflicted sounds like a rummage through the usual bin of tricks. Yet Derek Lee and Clif Prowse (directors, writers, and co-leads… Derek and Clif) pull off a small miracle – they take a format famous for giving viewers motion sickness and excuses for bad acting and shoddy cinematography, and turn it into something lively, sad, funny, and completely original.
Two best mates decide to film their grand tour around the world for a web series. Derek has recently been diagnosed with a potentially fatal AVM, so the trip carries the melancholy weight of a last hurrah. They stop in Barcelona to meet old friends, and Derek hooks up with a mysterious woman named Audrey. Later, Clif finds him alone in his hotel room, semi-conscious, bloodied, and feverish. Soon enough, he begins displaying strange symptoms, eventually becoming a threat to himself and those around him…
What follows is basically a vampire story with the dusty old coffin lid kicked off. Afflicted keeps the familiar bits that work – sunlight is deadly, a need for blood becomes a problem, and Derek’s body starts doing alarming new things – but folds them into an effective travelogue and body horror combo. There’s no velvety cape or bat transformation nonsense here, and Derek’s transformation is not elegant or romantic. He pukes, sweats, breaks apart, and lashes out. Vampirism here feels less like a gothic curse and more like a foreign illness or drug comedown.
Derek and Clif aren’t your typical found footage protagonists (typically ghost hunters, journalists, or documentary makers), or the kind of horror leads who make dumb choices in abandoned buildings. They’re lads on a round-the-world trip, filming a web series because that is exactly what lads on a round-the-world trip would do. The early stretch has a loose, easy charm to it – the snappy, back-and-forth banter lands, making their friendship feel natural rather than screenwritten. That matters, because once Derek’s holiday hook-up leaves him for (un)dead, the movie has already done the hard part – it has made his decline worth caring about.
The best trick Afflicted pulls is making the camera feel necessary. Found footage always comes pre-loaded with the golden question – why are they still filming? – and the answer can make or break the movie. Here, it’s necessary; it’s how the friends communicate, document, problem-solve, and cling to reality while everything goes off the rails. It helps that the action scenes are a genuine blast, keeping us too entertained to notice when the format strains credibility. Once Derek’s strength and agility begin to spike, the movie moves with him, darting over rooftops and through cramped rooms with a feral glee. It’s impressively inventive, and every cent of its minuscule budget is visible onscreen.
For Halloween, Afflicted is a cracking watch. There’s blood, panic, night-time stalking, and that strange pleasure of watching someone become something. More importantly, it’s fun. Not silly fun, but the rich sort horror fans chase: brisk, creepy, sad in the right places, and clever enough to leave a mark.
If you liked Afflicted, check out: The Monster Project (2017), Living Amongst Us (2018), Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (2023)
24 - Howl (2015)
A late-night train grinds to a halt in the middle of nowhere. There’s no signal, no clear exit, a bunch of strangers at each other’s throats…and it’s a full moon. Today we’ve got another modern British fright-fest with Paul Hyett’s Howl, a lean, hugely enjoyable werewolf siege movie that perfectly showcases horror’s ability to turn an everyday space into a theatre of screams.
The story follows Joe Griffin (perhaps a clever nod to American Werewolf in London’s Griffin Dunne?), a train guard reluctantly covering a shift. Joe’s beat down, underappreciated, and still smarting from getting passed over for a promotion. The train’s passengers are a who’s who of archetypes – posh snob, loudmouth, smarmy businessman, obnoxious teenager, sweet old couple, and the inevitable nerd. Ellen, a tea-trolley attendant, is pretty much Joe’s only ally onboard. They’re off on an overnight run to Eastborough, but then everything grinds to a stop; a dead deer blocking the rail. The driver (Dog Soldiers’ Sean Pertwee, that guy has no luck with lycanthropes) disappears into the nearby woods to check it out. Of course, that’s not so much problem-solving as it is kicking off the all-you-can-eat buffet…
What comes next is a creature feature that plays it old-school, Evil Dead-style – banging doors, a string of bad decisions, panic rising with every scene. Hyett, who made his name in effects before directing, goes big on blood and jump scares. The werewolves themselves look wild and scrappy, more mangey than majestic. Sure, sometimes the costumes wobble, but there’s an energy to them – they’re not mopey, doomed types pining under the full moon; they’re angry, impatient beasts that bash windows and tear into the passengers like it’s pizza day in the office.
Howl shines whenever the train’s occupants clash. Class tension pops – Adrian, the smug suit, gets nastier with every self-serving move, while Joe slowly becomes the guy his job always needed, but never quite allowed. There’s a sly kick of social satire; as soon as things get rough, it’s the staff hustling to keep folks alive while the privileged whine, sabotage, or outright offer others up as monster snacks. The movie isn’t reinventing the wheel or saying something hugely profound, but it gets that public transport is already a high-stakes social experiment – just toss in a few werewolves and you’ll see people’s true colours.
Joe and Ellen’s relationship gives the movie a nice, subtle heartbeat. Ed Speleers brings real bruised charm to Joe, and Holly Weston gives Ellen just enough warmth and grit to make her stick. The ride can get a little bumpy. Some kills are obvious way before they happen, a few characters are there only to get picked off for being annoying. The middle of the movie falls into a bit of a loop – barricade, monster attack, regroup, repeat – but this cycle fits its scrappy B-movie vibe, and for the most part works well.
When you’re in the mood for a Halloween fright, Howl is a no-nonsense pick. It offers a classic setup, a long stormy night, great practical effects, and scary monsters on the prowl. It’s a sharp, bloody little midnight ride, and sometimes that’s all you really need.
If you liked Howl, check out: Dog Soldiers (2002), Creep (2004), The Midnight Meat Train (2008)
25 - Kill List (2011)
We’re following Possession with another movie that begins with a marriage under strain. Ben Wheatley’s Kill List is also a genre-bender; a vicious little masterpiece – part domestic melodrama, part hitman thriller, part ritual horror, all wrapped around one of British horror’s nastiest finales.
The movie opens like a Mike Leigh movie about a man who’s lost his way. Jay is a hired killer no longer able to sleep easy – his domestic life is creaking under money worries and shame, his friendship with fellow assassin Gal the only lifeline left. The plot moves at a deceptively casual pace as the lads accept a trio of assignments that escalate in cruelty and absurdity. The targets are by-the-book hits on paper, but in reality feel like someone else’s twisted game, with Jay and Gal as unwilling pawns…
Kill List’s descent into cult theatricality and symbolic violence could easily have landed as a gimmick. Instead, it feels earned because the earlier, quieter scenes ask us to stay alert to small tells: a laugh that feels forced, a client who behaves like a puppeteer, victims willingly accepting their fate. Some viewers will bounce off its grotesque final act, and fair enough – the shift into full pagan nightmare is sudden, arguably disconnected from the rest of the movie. But what makes it so effective is the rotten inevitability of it. Jay spends the film behaving like a man trapped by everyone else, only for the cruel punchline to be that his own nature and own decisions made him easy to steer to an unspeakable end.
Performance-wise, the movie is lean and hungry. Neil Maskell is frighteningly good as a man whose rage seems both personal and, increasingly, justified. His Jay is funny, charming, loving, pathetic, monstrous, sometimes in the same scene. MyAnna Buring gives Shel more than the usual anxious wife role, too; she’s not merely waiting at home while the men do grim business. She has her own steel, her own secrets, her own sense of what survival costs. Michael Smiley, meanwhile, brings his usual Norn Irish brand of warmth and weary humour as Gal, the poor sod trying to keep the job on course while his friend becomes less partner and more unexploded grenade.
Kill List enjoys upsetting expectations. It starts as a crime drama, then becomes a creepy folk tale, then descends into a nightmare about fate and submission. It’s unsettling in ways that matter, keeping the domestic and monstrous horror at the same level. It’s a brave, clever piece of work that rewards attention. A perfect pick for a stormy autumn night, abandoning cheap jump scares in favour of slow, creeping dread. Watch it with the lights off and let that dread stick with you long after…
If you liked Kill List, check out: A Field in England (2013), Dead Man’s Shoes (2004), Bull (2021)
26 - Possession (1981)
Still not had your fill of sex and monsters? Andrzej Żuławski has you covered, with a screaming, bleeding marital meltdown of a movie. Possession feels like a fever dream smooshed into a spy story, then let loose to spiral out of control.
Żuławski drops us into soggy, grimy West Berlin. The late, great Sam Neill plays Mark, a spy so worn-out he’s barely keeping his life and family from unravelling. He comes home from his job to find his wife – Isabelle Adjani’s Anna – demanding a divorce. There’s no tidy reason or tearful confession. Anna is already halfway out the door – and maybe halfway out of humanity.
Their apartment turns into a battlefield. Every argument feels like a grenade – screaming, bitterness, bruised egos everywhere. Their son Bob (weird name for a kid, or is it just me?) is caught right in the middle, trying to survive the wreckage as his parents poison each other. Mark discovers Anna’s new lover, Heinrich, a walking silk scarf who talks too much and somehow never gets told off for it. But there’s another lover lurking in a rundown apartment. And this one’s got tentacles.
Possession ignores genre entirely. You think it’s a Cold War thriller, then a nasty divorce drama, then, out of nowhere, a monster crawls across the floor. Is that… thing …a metaphor for grief? Addiction? Is it real, or part of an unending nightmare Mark and Anna can’t escape? Żuławski never says. Much like the monster, the truth is slippery.
The movie’s gender politics are painted with broad, messy strokes. Anna is granted a ferocious agency rare in an ’80s movie, but her body is also made into a spectacle. Mark’s rage isn’t defended, but the camera stays close enough during his outbursts to make you uneasy, maybe even sympathetic. Watching now, it feels less like an honest portrait and more like digging through the wreckage of a warped relationship. And the acting’s off the charts. Adjani is nuclear – fearless doesn’t even cover it. Neill simmers, always on the edge, with an untreated fury so intense it leaves bruises. There’s no healing for them to be found here – this is an autopsy. Whatever therapy tried, it didn’t work.
Possession tears up the ordinary and asks us if the person beside us, the person we love, might one day split open and reveal something dark and terrifying inside. Watch it when you’re ready for a film that nests under your skin. It lingers, leaving you unsettled and itching for answers with the credits still rolling. Shocking, dirty, deeply human – it’s still one of horror’s most unforgettable break-ups.
If you liked Possession, check out: Antichrist (2009), Mother (2017), Audition (1999)
27 - The Lair of the White Worm (1988)
From one page-to-screen adaptation to another. Ken Russell’s The Lair of the White Worm begins with Peter Capaldi digging up a strange skull in the Derbyshire countryside, and doesn’t that perfectly encapsulate British horror cinema? Off the bat, we also get unholy legends, weird relics, snake fanatics, posh weirdos, and, just to really drive it home, a young Hugh Grant in an RAF uniform. Rule Britannia.
Russell’s 1988 comedy horror loosely riffs on one of Bram Stoker’s lesser-known novels. We follow Angus Flint, a young archaeologist whose odd find seems tied to an old legend about the D’Ampton Worm, a serpentine monster that terrorised rural England centuries ago before supposedly being slain by an ancestor of local lord James D’Ampton. The Trent sisters, Mary and Eve, run the B&B where Angus is staying, and before long, weirdness starts circling their doorstep. The real trouble, however, is Lady Sylvia. She’s an immortal snake priestess with her eye on Eve, a taste for human sacrifice, and a wardrobe that Grace Jones would kill for.
Russell throws in some folk horror staples – haunted caves, ancient songs, creepy cults – but then douses them in his trademark erotic weirdness. If you want a classy affair like The Wicker Man or The Outcasts, keep walking – here it’s more Carry On Up the Pagan Temple, cranked to the hilt with tainted crucifixes, hallucinations of Christ tormented by phallic monsters, and enough snake symbology to make Conan the Barbarian run for the hills.
Russell, as always, directs like he’s got a personal vendetta against subtlety – filling every scene with gaudy colour and ridiculously blasphemous iconography. The tone swings from clever to goofy to bonkers, and whenever there’s a risk of the movie slowing down to catch a breath, her Ladyship pops up. Amanda Donohoe goes full tilt as Silvia – predator, aristocrat, dominatrix, pantomime villain – strutting around as if Derbyshire exists for her personal pleasure. Ironically, her scenery-devouring confidence keeps the whole thing grounded. She 100% understands the assignment, and this distracts from the other performances sometimes feeling a bit lost in Russell’s funhouse. Rough edges aside, Hugh Grant (years before he became the king of awkward charm) is endearingly eccentric and unflappable as Lord James, while Capaldi’s Angus gives future Hugh a run for his money, all floppy hair and nervous tics. Their collective energy keeps the movie zipping along, but, more importantly, none of them break the spell by mugging for the camera. Camp works best when nobody’s nudging you in the ribs about it, and there’s nary a side-eye to be found here.
If you’re looking for a Halloween movie for when you’re bored of creaky houses and wailing spirits, this is a bloody good pick. The Lair of the White Worm is funny, horny, utterly nuts, and weirdly gorgeous. A movie with fangs, sure, but its forked tongue is definitely tucked into its cheek.
If you liked Lair of the White Worm, check out: The Devils (1971), Killer Tongue (1996), From Beyond (1986)
28 - Color Out of Space (2019)
More sci-fi goodness today, with a banger of an oddity starring one of modern horror’s most faithful servants. We open with a meteorite dropping into a quiet New England yard, and end with a Lovecraft nightmare that knows better than to try explaining the unexplainable. Welcome to Color Out of Space.
We follow Nathan Gardner (Nicolas Cage, he of always bringing it no matter what the project), his wife Theresa (Joely Richardson), and their kids, Lavinia, Benny, and Jack. They’ve traded city life for a healing retreat on a little farm – tomatoes, alpacas, and off-the-grid living – after Theresa’s cancer battle. But then dat pesky meteorite crashes to Earth, and things start getting weird. The flowers turn colours you’ve never seen. Time feels slippery. The water tastes… off. The Gardners start coming apart.
Literally.
What works so well about Color Out of Space is how it turns contamination into more than just a monster. The alien force here isn’t running around trying to eat the Gardners. It just… seeps. Into the ground, into their heads. It’s a shapeshifter that could act as a metaphor for everything and anything: climate crisis, rural isolation, the destructive chaos illness brings to a family. Director and co-writer Richard Stanley keeps it vague on purpose. The less you know, the smarter – and scarier – it gets.
Visually, the movie is stunning, but in a way that feels deeply, worryingly uncanny. Neon magenta soaks everything, making the farm look beautiful and sickly at the same time, the apocalypse as imagined by Lisa Frank. The strange flora and shimmering trees are magical until the dread kicks in. And when the alpacas finally start acting up, you know things are fully off the rails. No farm animal has had it so rough since Babe: Pig in the City.
Richardson brings some grounding, giving us the emotional gut-punch as Theresa loses control over her own body and life. Madeleine Arthur, as slightly goth Lavinia, sees straight through the “fresh start” fantasy to the wreck inside, keeping the story sharp and real. The kids matter here; their fear is raw, and the family’s fate stings.
And then there’s Cage. You want him? Oh baby, you get him. He throws himself into Nathan – first as a determined, slightly overenthusiastic dad, desperately reinventing his life after everything went wrong. Then, as the colour takes hold, we get rage, panic, and those signature Cage freak-outs. Is it a lot? Absolutely, but this is Nic fucking Cage battling cosmic insanity. What did you expect?
Color Out of Space isn’t neat, sanitary horror. It’s sloppy, glowing, and uncomfortable. It drags the cosmic fear of Lovecraft’s short story source material into our world of trauma and eco-angst, then soaks it all in radioactive purple. Perfect for October – unsettling enough for Spooky Season, nasty enough to please hardcore horror fans, and weird enough to make reality feel a little dangerous for a while.
If you liked Color Out of Space, check out: Street Trash (1987), The Void (2016), Mandy (2018).
29 - Critters 2: The Main Course (1988)
Another fun one? Why not, let’s ease our way into the month with the first entry in our new “Sequel Saturdays” set. Critters 2: The Main Course showed up two years after the first, with O.G. hero Bradley Brown revisiting his hometown of Grover’s Bend. He’s not the only one returning. Eggs the titular “Crites” left behind at the climax of the original have hatched and are multiplying quickly. Space bounty hunters (just go with me here) Ug and Lee are back too, as is Charlie, the town’s lovable mess and Bradley’s best friend. This ragtag bunch of earthlings and aliens must kick ass and take names before the whole town ends up as indigestion.
The best part? Critters 2 just goes for it, with zero shame. It’s cheap-looking and ridiculous, but it’s got energy and attitude in spades. The Crites themselves are still a delight – snarling little puffballs, tumbling in packs, bickering in subtitled squeaks, and turning fun-sized violence into pure art. Much like Frogman, there’s also a sly little jab at small-town life hiding under all the mayhem. Grover’s Bend might cling to its church socials and beautifully crafted Easter baskets, but all it takes is one unexplainable death, and suddenly polite society is turning on itself. The Bend’s inhabitants soon find themselves torn between buying Bradley’s wild story about killer pom-poms or dismissing it as the ravings of a local who left their flock for big city lights.
While this commentary is welcome, let’s face it – it’s not what we came for. Thankfully, the Crites don’t care much about nuance. They’re all appetite; tiny, furry gluttons with fangs. They just want more – food, bodies, chaos – and they’re never satisfied. That Gremlins-esque anarchy keeps us watching; the “mega-ball” scene (where all the Crites merge into one giant, rolling sphere of teeth) is a particular standout. It’s the kind of gloriously deranged idea us creature feature fans pray for but are rarely granted.
Critters 2 is perfect if you’re craving something lighter between the heavy, moody Halloween horrors. It’s silly on purpose and charming as hell. Does everything work? Nope. The romance plot is about as filling as wet cardboard, and a handful of gags have not aged well. But who cares? It isn’t the smartest or most sophisticated horror-comedy of the ‘80s, but it’s one of the most enjoyable. Like the Crites themselves, once it starts rolling, there’s no stopping it.
If you liked Critters 2: The Main Course, check out: Hundreds of Beavers (1982), Ghoulies (1985), The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (1987)
30 - Frogman (2024)
We’re sticking in horror-comedy territory for Found Footage Friday, with a criminally overlooked little gem from a few years back. Movies about cryptids usually amp up the ridiculousness of their subject material – Harry and the Hendersonshad a Bigfoot more cuddly than scary, Trollhunter’s baddies could sniff out Christians, and Mothman looked and sounded like a rejected Batman villain. Frogman is no different. The four-foot amphibian said to haunt Loveland, Ohio, with a wand in hand has the energy of a rogue Saturday morning cartoon. Director Anthony Cousins understands the absurdity and leans into it, but also poses a very exciting question: what if the stupidest local legend you’ve ever heard could actually be… gasp … scary?
The setup is beautifully silly. In 1999, young Dallas Kyle accidentally films what appears to be the Loveland Frogman. The clip briefly makes him famous, then infamous, then a punchline. Years later, adult Dallas is still trapped in that shaky, grainy moment; less a moviemaker than a man using the camera lens as defensive bubble wrap. When a YouTube retrospective reopens the wound, he drags his friends Scotty and Amy back to Loveland to prove that he hasn’t wasted his life chasing slime-covered shadows.
That premise could easily produce yet another self-aware found-footage spoof. Thankfully, Frogman is smarter than that. It treats its rubbery nightmare with a straight-faced reverence usually reserved for ancient curses and demonic tomes bound in skin. And the movie never just says, “look, a man-sized frog”. It explores themes of belief, humiliation, male insecurity, and the small-town fear of outsiders. Not too shabby for a movie about a giant croaker with a magic stick.
Loveland itself is one of the best things about the movie – a cheerful tourist trap built on dubious folklore, novelty tat, and weird locals. It’s funny because it feels horribly plausible – give any town a single blurry photo and three podcast episodes, and within six months somebody will be selling T-shirts and themed craft beer. Beneath the satirical kitsch, we find something sharp and complex. Dallas is chasing proof – if he’s successful, does Loveland really stand to benefit from Frogman going legit?
As found footage, Frogman has the usual bumps. The early stretches lean heavily on bickering and awkward interviews, and not every gag lands cleanly. But once it descends into cult rituals, mysterious trails of goo, and psychic assaults, it becomes something brilliant. The creature effects have that lovely handmade quality where you can see every wobble, and there’s a gleeful stupidity aplenty when we finally get to see Frogman wielding his little wand. The movie commits so hard that laughter and unease become solid bedfellows. It’s weird, then tense, then properly gruesome, sometimes within the same shot.
For Halloween viewing, Frogman is a perfect oddball pick. It’s not the scariest movie in the pond, but it has exactly the right October texture: a small-town cryptid, a shadowy cult, the creeping suspicion that a tacky tourist shop might have a sacrificial altar in its basement. It’s the sort of movie best watched late, with friends, when everyone is willing to just go with it. Not every frog becomes a prince. Some become a legend.
If you liked Frogman, check out: V/H/S Halloween (1982), Exists (2014), The Last Broadcast (1998).
31 - Trick ’r Treat (2007)
You can’t really dive into a month of horror without the basic essentials – a pumpkin (or turnip if you’re old school) glowing out front, a bowl full of sweets to appease the tiny terrors arriving at your door, and a scary tale or two. Michael Dougherty’s Trick ’r Treat ticks all the boxes and starts the season the right way.
This fantastic horror anthology threads together several stories unfolding across one night in a small Ohio town. A woman snuffs out a pumpkin too early. A school principal with a murderous hobby disposes of a troublesome child. A group of kids stage a cruel prank around an old school bus legend. A shy young woman with a big, bad secret heads to a party in the woods. And lurking around all of it is Sam, a mysterious, pint-sized terror in jammies and a burlap mask, policing the spirit of the season with cheerful brutality.
What makes the movie such a treat (careful now) is the way it behaves like campfire stories being passed around. Characters brush against one another, segments bleed together, the structure loops and doubles back without becoming smug or breaking the fourth wall. Anthologies often live or die on keeping the energy up – one weak segment can derail the whole thing. With Trick ’r Treat, you won’t find a dud.
Dougherty understands that Halloween horror works best when it’s pure theatre, and his movie is all jazz hands, no filler. Its werewolf sequence is a belter, turning what first looks like a familiar setup into something wilder and cheekier. Elsewhere, the school bus tale taps into the sort of urban legend children repeat with total conviction, half thrilled and half terrified by their own interpretation. The mood does a lot of heavy lifting, too; everything has that Spooky Season glow. Porch lights flicker, colourful costumes are everywhere, streets are thick with leaves and fog. Make no mistake, this is not cosy horror – it’s got a mean streak a mile wide. But crucially, it never crosses into being miserable or – worse – dull. You get murder and gore, but they always feel like part of the same twisted carnival ride; funny, wild, full of sly little thrills. And Sam? Unsurprisingly, he’s become a bit of a horror icon, and a staple at conventions. It figures, he’s adorable enough to sell as a Funko Pop but menacing enough to make you wonder if that’s really a good idea.
Trick ’r Treat just gets Halloween. The holiday is about rituals, dressing up, sharing treats and stories, honouring the past, and half-believing the dead are waiting for us to let our guard down. It’d be hard to find a better movie to kick off the month.
If you liked Trick ’r Treat, check out: Slither (2006), Black Sabbath (1963), Southbound (2015)
Check out last year's list below!
Film Ireland Editor
