In the month of October there comes an onslaught of new horror and genre shows and movies, and hoo boy, there’s a lot coming. This week delivers a small but generous sampling with scares ranging from fun to gorey. Though for those of us scaredy-cats, there are still two great palate cleansers in Prime Video’s Catherine Called Birdy and a whole three-day livestream of the Austin City Limits Festival on Hulu. Here are the rest of this weekend’s picks:
Catherine Called Birdy
Known from her absolutely fierce turn as Lady Mormont in Game of Thrones, Bella Ramsey comes back as another fierce girl named Birdy. Adapted from Karen Cushman’s novel and directed by Lena Dunham, Catherine Called Birdy follows Birdy as she constantly goes against the grain of her life in 13th-century England as her hot father (played by former hot priest Andrew Scott) attempts to set her up for marriage.
Hellraiser
The long-gestating reboot of Clive Barker’s 1986 Hellraiser is finally coming out of its box. (Cue nervous chuckling.) Jamie Clayton stars as the new Pinhead who encounters a young woman struggling with addiction (played by Odessa A’zion) trying to rescue her brother from the fearful Cenobites. Will the new Hellraiser be as scary and horny as its predecessor? You’ll see. (I, for one, absolutely cannot stomach it, so let me know.)
Werewolf by Night
The MCU has been chugging along with Disney+ shows, but Werewolf by Night is a little different. It’s one of their first “Special Presentations†for the service, meaning it’s an hour-long one-off. Directed by composer Michael Giacchino — his debut behind the camera — Werewolf by Night stars Gael GarcÃa Bernal as monster hunter Jack Russell-slash-the hunted monster (a.k.a. the titular werewolf). It’s the MCU’s first foray into campy, scary, Universal Monsters–inspired territory, even featuring debuts of rare comic favorites, and it’ll be fun to see how well they can pull it off — and to see if Bernal’s character will stick around.
Austin City Limits Festival Livestream
Hulu has been streaming huge festivals like Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza, and now it’s time for Texas’s ACL Festival. Starting today, Hulu is livestreaming the entire weekend showing a variety of artists from Jazmine Sullivan and Flume to Spoon, the Marias, and Paramore. The whole lineup is here if you want to take a closer peek. It’s a perfect opportunity to watch Paramore sing “Misery Business†again (!!) in crystal-clear 4K.
Let the Right One In
John Ajvide Lindqvist’s vampire novel has gotten a lot of mileage on the big screen between Tomas Alfredson’s Swedish film and the American remake Let Me In by The Batman director Matt Reeves. Now, Showtime is premiering a ten-episode series on the chilling story of a recently turned vampire girl (Madison Taylor Baez) and her human father (Demián Bichir) navigating this new situation.
The Midnight Club
A spooky annual Mike Flanagan show is quickly becoming a tradition for Netflix subscribers, and the latest offering from the horror director is The Midnight Club, a YA show based on the Christopher Pike book series of the same name. It stars a cast of mostly fresh faces as they play terminally ill teens who gather together in the library of their hospice to exchange scary stories, though, of course, they sense something creepy lurking within their walls. It wouldn’t be a Flanagan without the threat of trauma manifesting as ghosts, am I right?
Also! Read our streaming recommendations from the weekend of September 30. Vulture’s next list of weekend streaming picks goes online Friday, October 14.