It’s that time of year again. With Spooky Season in full swing, I’m once again counting down a collection of under-the-radar horror gems you can stream right now. Scrolling through all your streaming services for the perfect Halloween movie night can be a daunting task, especially if they’re spitting out the same recommendations time and time again. For this list, we’re skipping right past the old favorites, the classics, and the genre mainstays for some deeper cuts - truly scary and unnerving horror movies that just might have escaped your attention, all a click away.

After multiple COVID-related delays and years of anticipation, Dune is finally here. Capturing the majesty and scope of Frank Herbert’s tome of myth, Denis Villeneuve’s vision is faithfully immense, transportive, and most importantly, accessible. Like its title states, this is very much a Part One, so any review or evaluation rests upon provision, but it’s difficult to defy the gravitational pull of Dune’s meticulous world-building and gorgeous craft, even as it keeps its characters in the shadows of its sprawling grandeur. Minor spoilers ahead…

Jane Campion’s first film in over a decade, The Power of the Dog, is making waves at the New York Film Festival. A simmering domestic drama amidst the rolling mountains of cowboy country, Campion’s welcome return to cinema delivers poetry in motion and Benedict Cumberbatch’s career-best performance. Upending the rawhide masculinity of turn-of-the-century Montana, The Power of the Dog’s seeping venom sneaks up on you in an arresting slow burn. Minor spoilers ahead…

The fourth installment of the found footage anthology series, V/H/S, hits Shudder today. A collection of four short horror vignettes sandwiched within a sinister frame narrative, V/H/S/94 continues the tradition of its predecessors delivering nasty - and uneven - chills. Running the gamut of sewer-dwelling cryptids, haunted wakes, and outrageous mad scientists, there’s a little something for everyone within the creepy walls of V/H/S/94. Minor spoilers ahead…

After a decade-and-a-half and five films, Daniel Craig’s tenure in 007’s tuxedo is coming to an end. With No Time to Die, franchise newcomer Cary Joji Fukunaga bids farewell to the latest iteration of James Bond with a stylish, overstuffed finale. It’s a gorgeously realized endcap with hard-hitting action and some gutsy, emotional choices, but the shadow of Spectre - the worst of the Craig Bonds - and a weak villain hamstring the film. Minor spoilers ahead…

The New York Film Festival lineup is full of winners this year, but even in a field of remarkable cinema, Julia Ducournau’s Titane stands out. A film that contains multitudes, Ducournau’s followup to 2016’s Raw navigates the horrorscapes of the New Flesh, exploring gender, sex, violence, and the enveloping desire for human connection. Titane is shocking, sweet, and shockingly sweet - one of the year’s best films. Minor spoilers ahead…

My coverage of this year’s New York Film Festival begins with Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth. An abridged, yet faithful, adaptation of William Shakespeare’s famed play, Coen’s black and white stunner gives captivating reason for its own existence. With stark, gorgeous visuals and dynamic performances, The Tragedy of Macbeth finds crevices and spaces unexplored in a familiar story. Minor spoilers ahead…

As hard as it might be to believe, 2021’s New York Film Festival marks my first ever in-person film festival as accredited press. After two years of covering film festivals virtually, it’ll be an exhilarating new experience to finally take in NYFF the way it was meant to be: with packed crowds at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center. This year’s lineup is killer: the highly anticipated Dune, and new films from legends such as Jane Campion, Paul Verhoeven, Wes Anderson, and this year’s Palme d’Or Winner Julia Ducournau. Below, you can find my entire coverage - all the reviews and dispatches - from the festival…

Midnight Mass is the best thing Mike Flanagan has ever done. A searing, complete work at the intersections of faith and doubt, life and death, it’s genre storytelling at its most emotionally rich. Contemplative, dialogue-driven horror that paints its themes with a dark and heavy brush, Midnight Mass is utterly transfixing with its layered performances and shocking swerves. The entire cast is fantastic, but people will be talking about Hamish Linklater’s turn as Father Paul for a very long time. Minor spoilers ahead…

Another entry in this year’s Midnight Madness slate, Congolese filmmaker Jean Luc Herbulot’s Saloum is a confident genre mashup. Part Spaghetti Western, part crime thriller, part folk horror, the film packs a potent cocktail of tones within its brisk 84-minute runtime. With tinges of Robert Rodriguez and John Carpenter, coupled with a crackling performance from Yann Gael, Saloum is a lean, breakneck journey into the terrifying unknown and the wildest surprise at TIFF this year. Minor spoilers ahead…

Kicking off TIFF’s documentary slate is Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vaserhelyi’s The Rescue, a deeper look at the daring mission to save 12 children and their soccer coach from a flooded cave in Thailand. A film naturally picking up the mantle of the filmmakers’ Oscar-winning Free Solo, it’s a rousing tale of humanity that crescendoes into an unbelievable climax of selfless individuals coming together.

I may be missing the big headliners of TIFF, but that only gives me more time to cover Midnight Madness and the festival’s less splashy titles. My first review roundup from this year’s TIFF includes an alien invasion road trip with Riz Ahmed, Jake Gyllenaal in a remake of a Danish hidden gem, and Naomi Watts in a misguided school shooting thriller. Here are the capsule reviews for Encounter, The Guilty, and Lakewood…

My TIFF 2021 coverage starts here! Kicking off this year’s Midnight Madness slate is Rob Savage’s followup to his 2020 “screenlife” hit, Host. Extrapolating COVID found footage beyond just a Zoom lobby, DASHCAM doubles down on pandemic horror to very mixed results. Ramping up the scope and intricacy - but not the ingenuity - of Host, the film gets wildly uneven mileage out of its grating protagonist and its everything-but-the-kitchen-sink terrors. Minor spoilers ahead…

This marks my second year attending Toronto International Film Festival virtually. And while I won’t be able to access some of the biggest screenings - here’s looking at you, Dune, Last Night in Soho, Spencer, and Power of the Dog - this allows me to cover a wide range of smaller films, and my favorite slate of TIFF: Midnight Madness. Some of my planned coverage includes Antoine Fuqua’s remake of the Danish thriller The Guilty, Jimmy Chin and Chai Vaserhelyi’s cave rescue doc The Rescue, and Rob Savage’s second pandemic-era horror film DASHCAM. All reviews in viewing order…

More Saw and Dead Silence than The Conjuring and Insidious, James Wan’s Malignant takes a gruesome detour from mass appeal horror back into the land of subversive terror. A Frankenstein’s amalgam of giallo, camp, and body horror, Wan’s latest takes pages from Argento, Cronenberg, and even De Palma to deliver the wildest of gory rides. Nothing will really prepare you for the nasty surprises Malignant has in store for you. Minor spoilers ahead…

Junta Yamaguchi’s brilliantly clever Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes is my favorite film of Fantasia 2021 so far. A high-concept, single-take masterwork that melds small stakes sci-fi with lighthearted sweetness, it spins intricate gears inside a deceptively simple framework. Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes pushes lo-fi, low-budget filmmaking to its absolute limit. Minor spoilers ahead…

A cynical, rage-fueled film carried by its no-holds-barred violence, gore, and depravity, Rob Jabbaz’s The Sadness is the most difficult watch of 2021’s Fantasia Festival. Crossing lines and spilling copious amounts of blood, Jabbaz’s feature-length debut strikes at the heart of our depraved, animal nature. For better or worse, The Sadness is like no zombie movie you’ve seen before. Minor spoilers ahead…

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is as fresh as Marvel has been in years. A moving tragedy about fathers, sons, and the crushing weight of filial expectations, director Daniel Destin Cretton wraps affecting drama within an effortlessly cool superhero origin story. The MCU’s first film with an Asian lead doesn’t disappoint - even with its muddy, CGI soup third act, there’s a voice within Shang-Chi’s kinetic action, and a powerful performance from screen legend Tony Leung as one of the MCU’s best villains. Minor spoilers ahead…