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Libraries are usually quiet, secluded spots. But not all are as peaceful as they may seem. These six supposedly haunted libraries are said to see more than just readers and scholars perusing their stacks of books...

• The New York Public Library // New York, New York, United States

• Senate House Library, University of London // London, England

• Marsh’s Library // Dublin, Ireland

• State Library Victoria // Melbourne, Australia

• Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University // New Haven, Connecticut, United States

• The Los Angeles Public Library // Los Angeles, California, United States

Skeletons are believed to dance beneath an old haunted Sussex oak tree once a year.

The Midsummer tree stands firm on a patch of green next to Grove Lodge roundabout in Worthing and is said to have been there for more than 300 years.

Nestled in the surrounding grass is a small plaque which signals the tree’s prominent position in local folklore.

Legend says that every year on Midsummer’s Eve, June 23, skeletons would rise from the roots of the tree and dance underneath it.

The plaque states: "This tree, believed to be over 300 years old, was once celebrated in local folklore. Every year, at Midnight on Midsummer's Eve, it was believed that skeletons would rise up from its roots and dance to the rattling of their own bones until daybreak"...

Thanks to both the low cost and high competition 0f streaming content, the lead-up to Halloween has become increasingly congested in recent years, each platform attempting to outdo the other with scares for all kinds of horror fans. This year, those looking for blood-sucking (Salem’s Lot), reality-shifting (Caddo Lake), body-swapping (It’s What’s Inside), footage-finding (V/H/S: Beyond) and dystopia-sequeling (The Platform 2) will be satiated – while this week, a more unusual horror fan is being targeted. House of Spoils, a low-budget Blumhouse offering for Amazon, is for the one who’s more affected by the fear associated with restaurant-opening, whose idea of a perfect night in involves oscillating between Food Network and Shudder...

The leaves are changing, the neighborhood decorations are getting spooky, and the air is (hopefully) getting crisper. It’s the Witching Season! And Halloween is finally upon us. Which means, more horror movies! So, with that in mind… here is your guide to seventeen brand new horror movies coming your way this Halloween season by theater, streaming, and video on demand.

• Salem’s Lot
• House of Spoils
• Hold Your Breath
• Monster Summer
• V/H/S Beyond
• The Platform 2
• Things Will Be Different
• Frankie Freako
• Spin the Bottle
• Little Bites
• Caddo Lake
• Terrifier 3
• Smile 2
• Die Alone
• Your Monster
• Don’t Move
• Rippy

Bob Clark’s “Black Christmas” (1974) is a petrifyingly scary film, easily one of the all-time most unsettling to take place during the yuletide holiday season.

While not a hit upon release (it left a very small impression), it was among the first of the Canadian Tax Shelter films made, so called because a budget was established to help create a Canadian film scene and allow budgets for films with commercial potential.

“Black Christmas” and the early works of David Cronenberg were among the Canadian Tax Shelter films; while Cronenberg eventually broke through to widespread success and acclaim, neither his earliest works nor “Black Christmas” were hits in their day.

The film that wound up super-charging the Canadian film industry was none other than Ivan Reitman’s “Meatballs” (1979).

Decades later, not only does “Black Christmas” stand out for being one of Clark’s best two Yuletide films (more on that later), but it also influenced dozens of subsequent horror films...

Hang on to your Jack-o'-lanterns, Netflix subscribers; Halloween month is here and the streaming service is serving up one of the year’s most anticipated horror sequels this Friday.

In March 2020 – yep, that memorable month – Netflix blessed its catalogue with a Spanish dystopian horror that became a regular fixture in its global ‘Top 10’ list over the following weeks – no doubt popularised in part due to its close-to-home social commentary during that difficult lockdown period for humanity. It was a bleak and disgusting yet captivating watch that combined political and social-economic allegory with human gluttony – and was not one for an empty (or for that matter, very full) stomach. Put your guess in the hat?

It was The Platform, ladies and gentlemen. The movie has a current Rotten Tomatoes score of 81 per cent, with its Critic Consensus describing it as “ an inventive and captivating dystopian thriller”. The Guardian called it a “gruesomely effective Spanish fable”, while The New York Times heralded it as “a gnarly mash-up of midnight movie and social commentary”.

On Friday, the sequel lands on Netflix to put you royally off your weekend takeaway. So what can we expect?

I’m a sucker for cosmic horror. Whether it’s the tales of H. P. Lovecraft, cinematic adaptations of his stories, or original films like The Endless and Event Horizon, I simply can’t get enough of this stuff. The idea that we’re not nearly as powerful as we like to think is utterly fascinating to me, so when I first got wind of The Veil, I knew I had to check this movie out. It promised to be a great new take on this mind-boggling subgenre, and I couldn’t wait to see what Lovecraftian thrills it had in store.

The Veil was written and directed by Cameron Beyl, and it stars Sean O’Bryan, Rebekah Kennedy, and Will Tranfo. In the film, Douglas is a retired priest who lives alone in rural Pennsylvania. He leads a fairly typical life for someone in his position, but one night, his entire world gets turned upside down. It all starts when a powerful solar storm knocks out his power and cell service, and right when his electricity goes out, the sky begins to emit a strange green light...

... The Veil is a diamond in the indie horror rough. It’s an eerie, intriguing, and heartwarming story of cosmic terror, and it’s brought to life with two excellent lead performances. It’s pretty much everything I wanted it to be, so if you’re on the prowl for something good to watch, I highly recommend that you give this movie a shot.

"An amateur photographer was spooked by an alien-like fungus that resembles a hand reaching out from a grave.

The bright red fungi is known as Devil’s Fingers due to its spindly tentacles that protrude from the ground.

It gives off a rotting flesh-like smell to attract flies and insects which it feeds on.

It is usually found in late October but has appeared early due to the wet weather, and Julia Rosser stumbled across the rare sight in the New Forest, Hants.

Mrs Rosser, 67, a retired teacher from Bournemouth, said: ‘I have found Devil’s Fingers in roughly the same area last year so I was on the lookout for them.

‘They burst out of the ground with these red tentacles or fingers. This one looked more like a hand than any I have ever seen before. It looked like it was reaching out from beyond the grave. It looked very creepy.’

The fungi is native to New Zealand and Australia and is believed to have been brought to France during the First World War in military supplies..."

I do not wish to dwell overly long on the incredible stop motion sheep in the trailer for folk horror game Daemonologie, because it’s got so much else going for it - from the gorgeously haunting vocal and string melodies to the extremely dark character interactions that offer your witch finder the choice between 'talk' and 'torture'. And yet, living in Wales for the last decade must have rubbed off. The sweet sheep, they sing to me. The relative rarity of stop motion and other practical effects in horror media is surely one of the greater tragedies of our age, although not too surprising given the incredible amount of work it takes. Flock toward the trailer below, and I’ll see you on the other side of the pasture, hopefully as deeply altered by the experience as I was.

"Daemonologie is a short folk horror story influenced by the Scottish witch trials of the late 1600s," bleats the Steam page. It didn’t actually bleat, to be fair, but bleating is all I can hear now. It’s a short one, apparently clocking in between 30 to 60 minutes for a single playthrough, but with secrets and other mysteries you’ll have to dig for. It’s from Katanalevy, who also made well-loved violin-em-up Symphony of Seven Souls. This one also started as an Itch project, though it looks to have come a long way in the intervening four years...

Available October 4th on VOD, Digital and on Film Movement Plus, we have an exclusive preview of The Wait, a new folk horror film from F. Javier Guttierez:

"Deep in the Andalusian countryside, Eladio (Victor Clavijo) has been hired to watch over the hunting grounds of Don Francisco’s estate, somewhere in rural Spain. The estate is divided into ten hunting stands, spaced far enough apart to avoid incidents. After three years of service, Don Carlos — Don Francisco’s second in command — offers him a bribe to add an additional three stands to the property. Eladio initially hesitates, but his wife eventually convinces him to take the money. Eladio’s greed has unfortunate consequences that drag his entire family to perdition, and plunges him into the depths of guilt, hatred, and revenge."

Miracle Media has shared a poster and trailer for The Witch Game, an Argentinian folklore horror from director Fabián Forte (La Corporaciòn) which is coming to the UK this October. Check out the trailer...

Mara (Lourdes Mansilla), a moody teenager obsessed with video games and the occult, would rather play than hang out with her family. So, when she unwraps a mysterious virtual reality game on her birthday, promising to teach her real witchcraft, she dives in without hesitation. But this is no ordinary game and what starts as a thrilling adventure quickly turns into a nightmare… Caught in a sinister web of magic, can Mara cast the spell that will set her sister free from The Witch Game?

Horror streamer Screambox, in collaboration with Cineverse and its horror division Bloody Disgusting, has unveiled “Tales From the Void,” a new horror anthology series based on stories from the subreddit page r/NoSleep. Two episodes will premiere exclusively on Screambox every Sunday from Oct. 13-27.

According to the official logline, “‘Tales From the Void’ covers a wide spectrum of horror, from creepy dolls to unborn children, unsolved mysteries to serial murders, and unexplained phenomena to creatures that stalk the night. Each unnerving tale blends genre thrills with social commentary to explore the darker side of the human psyche. Each episode of the series is accompanied by a post-show interview with the original r/NoSleep story author, hosted by ‘The No Sleep Podcast’ creator David Cummings”...