October 2024: your favourite Halloween movies

Saint Maud (2019) | directed by Rose Glass | reviewed by Lucy Schwindt

Saint Maud (Rose Glass, 2019) follows the story of Maud (as played by Morfydd Clark), as she assumes the role of caretaker for Amanda (Jennifer Ehle) who is afflicted by a chronic illness and the tensions created between their lifestyle differences. Saint Maud is a complex and layered psychological horror that speaks on themes of religion, obsession, and the effects of internalized homophobia with these strong outer influences bearing down on Maud’s consciousness. Saint Maud is not only one of only two feature length films Rose Glass has made to date, but it is also her first. And she knocks it out of the park right off the bat, as she definitely does not disappoint. Glass thrives in creating intimate and thrilling movies that tackle taboo subjects of society, and she guides her audience through processing these complexities of life. She has a very distinct style and likes to play with powerful visual effects, colors, and vivid visual horror. Making it hard to look away from the freaky and truly unsettling kind of possession Maud undergoes as she dives deeper into a lifestyle guided by religious enlightenment and the path of god. All of this creates the perfect choice for horror enjoyers to end the month of October off on!

Donnie Darko (2001) | directed by Richard Kelly | reviewed by Anna Nieuwenhuis

Each Halloween season, I find myself returning to Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko. Though not particularly scary on the surface, the film’s eerie atmosphere comes from it being a psychological drama rooted in reality. Situated in a suburban area of Virginia throughout October 1988, we follow Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal), a distraught and troubled teenager led by the presence of a foreboding rabbit and his own cloudy judgment. There’s something quite unsettling about Donnie’s helplessness - brought on by what originally seems to be just a psychosis but quickly spirals into something more complex. The film manages to be somewhat literary, posing questions relating to destiny and the influence we have on the lives of those around us. Through the introspective and strangely philosophical nature of the plot, Donnie Darko is able to subvert common tropes of many genres, allowing the film to be a fresh take on a Halloween-themed movie.

The Wailing (2016) | directed by Na Hong-jin | reviewed by Zack

The Wailing is an intense, thought-provoking, and genuinely scary horror movie. If you're looking for a film that will keep you on edge, making you think and feel along with the main protagonist, this is it. The way the characters interact feels real and are very rational, and the scares are not the cheap jump scares we’ve grown used to. This movie will actually creep you out and stick with you long after it's over. When I first watched it with my buddy, we were in shock and awe throughout, and left absolutely speechless at the end, just reflecting on the masterpiece we had witnessed. The story is amazingly written, and the actors truly display the raw emotions of their characters. This movie is a must-watch for horror fans who want something different from the usual Western horror experience.

[REC] (2007) | directed by Jaume Balagueró | reviewed by Daniel

​It’s March 2020. As we see the damned weave tapestries, there is a growing realization that nobody will watch our vlogs, crying out the worthless dribble of “justice”, of eyes to see beyond It. To sue… to go to the papers. To want to be heard… to prevent our being marked “abandoned” by the world. This is what we find in [REC]: a black patch to Science, a rotten xenomystical terror churling inside an aseptic holo-sphere, within which an apartment building rapidly sinks into the Earth’s co-error. All ties are severed. They die, by the eye. The politick of human warmth and comfort becomes the irrelevant vector of disease. “Nobody will save us… open your eyes.” It is a movie filmed inside a nuclear bomb. “Turn on the light!!!!!!! Turn on the light, please!!!!!!” The final scene: a jangling, putrid “Old Believer” baroque tome-trinket museum of Natural Evil fit for the nation that birthed Palmarian Catholicism. “Don’t move— I’m turning on the night-vision.”

Messiah of Evil (1974) | directed by Willard Hyuck | reviewed by Dylan Mansfield

Willard Huyck — a contemporary of George Lucas and co-writer of Indiana Jones — directed two films. The first was Messiah of Evil, an independent horror film released amidst the New Hollywood; the second was Howard the Duck. I defy you to name a better career. The story is simple. Artley (Marianna Hill) is searching for her father, an estranged artist who went missing following a fit of paranoia. She returns to the coastal town of Point Dume, where she meets a series of peculiar residents — groupies, aristocrats, cult members — all connected through the titular “Messiah of Evil.” As the sun sets and the sky turns red, Artley is hit with the same paranoia that struck her father. The seedy underbelly of Point Dume is revealed. Ultimately, Messiah of Evil’s plot is second base to the vibe. The film operates on nightmare logic, a poisonous stream of consciousness. That feeling of “something is wrong, but I can’t tell you what” is entirely enhanced by shots of empty space, inexplicable fog, and flat, Colville-esque portraits of figures in black. It is a horror film focused less on gore and jumpscares and more on primal unease. It should come as no surprise that art director Jack Fisk would become David Lynch's go-to hire, inspiring the looks of Eraserhead, Twin Peaks, and Mulholland Drive. Howard the Duck is also scary, but like, unintentionally so.

The Brood (1979) | directed by David Cronenberg | reviewed by Hazel Cochrane

​Clever horror tactics meet genuine and seemingly prophetic motives in David Cronenberg’s The Brood. It’s charmingly weird and unsettling, and very well could be one of the most obviously Canadian horror films ever, but manages to climb its way out of the bottomless pit of fun low-budget horror films with its doomful, depressed characters and their struggle with the blood ties which bind them. Frank must fight between his duties as a loving father, and his absolute fear of his emotionless young daughter and her mother who is kept in a strange mental hospital but willing to do anything to claim custody of her daughter. As well as mental illness and alternative psychological practices, The Brood is an intellectual commentary on divorce and the right to one’s own child. And, it’s got creepy humanoid children and breathtaking body horror! Let it work your fears, and laugh at the absurdity of this classic horror film as you keep Cronenberg’s own divorce in mind as the context in which the film was made.

Leave a comment about an all-time or recent favourite Halloween-y (horror, gothic, etc.) movie, and stay updated for more collaborative lists in the future, to have your own short review published! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!