NetflixForget getting all dressed up for Halloween, using up the last of your toilet roll as an emergency mummy outfit, just stay in and watch scary films instead.
Because watching scary films during the arbitrary ‘holiday’ that is Halloween is the tradition, they’re not scary any other time of the year.
And, if you’re not up for leaving the house to get to the cinema – don’t want to have to confront any trick or treaters, do we – Netflix have come to your aid once again, offering a whole host of frightening flicks to enjoy from behind your own cushions.
Check out the trailer for ‘Netflix and Chills’ here:
As the streaming service themselves say:
Something streaming this way comes… Netflix has a slew of NEW films that will provide all the thrills and chills you need to survive the Halloween season.
These new films include: The Shadow of the Moon, coming September 27, In the Tall Grass on October 4, Fractured on October 11, Eli on October 18 and Rattlesnake on October 25.
The films range from psychological thrillers to all out horror, though Netflix are also adding a few child-friendly Halloween films too, and some classics, for good measure.
Firstly, In the Shadow of the Moon is described as:
A Philadelphia detective slowly unravels as he nurses a lifelong obsession with an enigmatic female serial killer whose crimes defy explanation.
Not to be confused with David Sington’s 2007 documentary of the same name, of course.
NetflixThen there’s In the Tall Grass (lots of ‘in the…’ titles going around), whose synopsis reads:
After hearing a boy’s cry for help, a pregnant woman and her brother wade into a vast field of grass, only to discover there may be no way out.
Sounds like that time I went to Leeds festival and someone slipped something into my drink.
It stars Patrick Wilson, of The Conjuring, so worth a shout from horror fans I’d say.
NetflixFractured, meanwhile, tells the story of a man who, along with his wife, takes his daughter to hospital after she breaks her arm. Exhausted from the trip, the dad falls asleep while his wife and daughter go to have her arm X-rayed. As he wakes, however, the hospital has no record or knowledge of the man’s family being checked in…
It stars Sam Worthington, of Avatar fame, alongside Lily Rabe and Groundhog Day‘s own Ned Ryerson, Stephen Tobolowsky.
Another psychological thriller/horror combining both In the Tall Grass‘ claustrophobia and Fractured‘s creepy hospital vibe is Eli, about a young boy who is undergoing treatment for a rare disease at a ‘secluded clinic’, which becomes a haunted prison.
NetflixFinally, Rattlesnake tells the story of a mother who accepts help from a ‘mysterious woman’ after her daughter is bitten by a rattlesnake. According to IMDb, the mother then ‘finds herself making an unthinkable deal with the devil to repay the stranger’.
Spooky stuff.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.