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From slashers to comedies, 2024 continues to be a strong year for horror movies, and I've had fun checking out the latest releases, including Blumhouse's remake of Speak No Evil. There's an upcoming Netflix horror movie called Time Cut that also looks promising, but I have some thoughts about the plot and the main trope that it's using.

Time Cut stars Madison Bailey as a teenage girl named Lucy Fields who travels back in time to stop her sister, played by Antonia Gentry, from being murdered. The two leads are strong actors who are both known for their main roles on Netflix shows. Bailey plays Kiara "Kie" Carrera on Outer Banks and Gentry plays Ginny Miller on Ginny and Georgia, which is getting a third season. While I'm excited to check out Time Cut, I don't always enjoy the way that the horror genre uses time travel tropes...

The inevitability of even more Stephen King adaptations, in the wake of It’s record-breaking success back in 2017, has rarely felt associated with all that much necessity. There have been about 13 on the big and small screens in the years since, mostly a mix of sub-par second-go reworks of classics (Firestarter, Pet Sematary, The Stand) and an unnecessary stream of little-known short stories (The Boogeyman, Mr Harrigan’s Phone, Chapelwaite), with only the odd bright spot in-between (Doctor Sleep, The Outsider).

The more we’ve seen of him, especially in his lesser works, the more we’ve been made keenly aware of his recurrent themes and tropes. They’re front and centre in a new take on his 1975 novel Salem’s Lot, the third adaptation after two miniseries attempts. It was supposed to be the first big-screen transfer but the film has had a rather cursed journey, announced in 2019, shot in 2021, moved off a 2022 release date, moved again from a 2023 slot and then finally downgraded to a streaming premiere in the US (it will hit cinemas in the UK the week after). It’s not quite the ungainly disaster that timeline would suggest but it’s also not really distinctive enough to warrant much fanfare, the strategy to offload it (especially during a difficult year for big-screen horror) making perfect sense.

It’s a musty grab bag of Kingisms – small town, plucky kids, male novelist, age-old evil – that would have felt fresher back in the 1970s but at this point in the adaptation cycle, it’s just all too familiar. There’s maybe a more vibrant remix to be done but it’s not what The Nun and Annabelle director Gary Dauberman has in mind, giving us a competently made yet hugely uninvolving retread that never once finds a way to explain why this particular novel needed a third adaptation...

Do you feel that? That chill in the air, that tingling sensation at the back of your neck? It can only mean one thing. That’s right: Halloween season is once again upon us!

Here at Polygon, we love horror. We cover it all year round, whether it’s ranking the scariest new releases of the year or curating lists of the spookiest horror movies to watch on Netflix.

We especially love Halloween, though, a holiday dedicated to all things scary and spooky. Which is why, every year for the past four years, Polygon has put together a Halloween countdown calendar, selecting 31 of our staff’s top horror-themed or Halloween-adjacent picks across movies, TV, and online videos throughout the month of October, all available to watch at home. It’s been so much fun, in fact, we’re doing it again — with an all new batch of films, shows, and videos to choose from.

Every day for the month of October, we’ll add a new recommendation to this countdown and tell you where you can watch it. So curl up on the couch, dim the lights, and grab some popcorn for a spine-tingling marathon of Halloween-adjacent delights...

Fans of mockumentary horror such as Ghostwatch or the more recent Late Night With the Devil prepare to add another to your nightmarish collection with Haunted Ulster Live, which takes viewers back to Halloween night, 1998, where a live broadcast from a haunted house in Belfast goes hauntingly wrong. The footage is so disturbing that it hasn’t been seen in 25 years.

Bloody Disgusting is excited to share the trailer for Halloween-themed horror that will release across all platforms...

The appeal of disturbing horror movies is one of the few aspects of the horror community that has remained alive throughout the evolution of the genre. Trends and filmmakers have sailed through decades where censorship has tried to avoid the consumption of graphic horror movies and has often failed. It seems there's always a new way to shock, and viewers are always exploring new ways to be shocked.

However, in the case of the following movies, you may find yourself witnessing films that are not only hard to endure, but they're also movies where excessive violence has a purpose. Regardless, you will probably only watch them once and then deal with the aftermath of such a horror experience in your own way. Fortunately, streaming service Shudder has made them available, even if you will most likely cover your eyes from the carnage and gore.

• Zombi 2 (1979)
• Faces of Death (1978)
• Hunter Hunter (2020)
• The New York Ripper (1982)
• Nekromantik (1987)
• Speak No Evil (2022)
• When Evil Lurks (2023)
• Mandy (2018)
• The Sadness (2022)
• Kidnapped (2010)

The thing with Midsommar is that the ending is no mystery. For eagle-eyed viewers, the fate of Florence Pugh’s character, Dani, is revealed from the very beginning. Hiding in plain sight, the ending of Ari Aster’s 2019 folk horror is on the screen repeatedly as Easter eggs throughout make it clear how the tale will end...

XYZ Films has shared a poster and trailer for Falling Stars, the upcoming folk horror from directors Gabriel Bienczycki and Richard Karpala.

The film follows three brothers as they set off into the desert to take a look at the body of a witch, but after accidentally desecrating the corpse, a terrible curse befalls their family.

The cast includes Rene Leech, Shaun Duke Jr., Andrew Gabriel, Diane Worman, and Greg Poppa. Watch the trailer...

Enys Men is one of those movies that shows a stark contrast between critic and audience scores. On Rotten Tomatoes, critics gave the 2023 film an 86% fresh score, while audiences had a whopping 22% rotten score. This contrast makes sense, as anyone who went into Enys Men assuming it would be a modern, entertaining horror film was about to have their expectations thrown out the window. Enys Men, which is the Cornish translation for "Stone Island," is not fast-paced, nor explicitly horror, and not even a full comprehensive narrative. It’s more so an experience — a portal into a Cornish Island in 1973, witnessing the repeated mundane tasks of a scientist making daily nature observations on an island that becomes stranger each day. Director Mark Jenkin did this intentionally and wanted audiences to view the film and make their own interpretations of the themes, such as manipulating the concept of time and using repetition and nature as pieces to his intricate, unsolvable puzzle.

What makes Enys Men memorable and respected by critics is how well it transports audiences back to the 1970s. Jenkin not only directed the film, but also wrote, edited, and did the cinematography and music. His complete creative control resulted in a strong, unsettling mood and sense of isolation throughout its entirety. The cast is limited, with Mary Woodvine as the lead, only identified in the credits as “The Volunteer.” The only other notable characters are John Woodvine (“The Preacher”), Edward Rowe (“The Boatman”), and Flo Crowe ("The Girl"). The cast is small, the cottage is tiny; hell, even the island itself is minuscule, helping reinforce the theme of isolation, which also limits what the audience has to pay attention to. The characters, everyday items used, clothing, setting, nature, edits, zooms, atmosphere, and sound all contribute to its vintage feel. Enys Men is not as much entertainment as it is a portal to another place at another time that is interchangeably familiar and foreign...

Strange Darling—Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner’s critically acclaimed serial killer thriller—debuts this week on digital streaming.

The film opened in limited release in theaters on August 23. Written and directed by J.T. Mollner, Strange Darling features actor Giovanni Ribisi’s debut as a cinematographer.

Told is a fractured narrative format akin to Pulp Fiction, Strange Darling is presented in six chapters out of order.

The film begins with Chapter 3, where a character only identified as The Lady is seen running in slow motion through an open field. As it turns out, The Lady is being chased by a man with a shotgun called The Demon (Gallner) and he is determined to kill her.

As the chapters unfold, it’s revealed that the cat-and-mouse chase at the beginning of the film stems from an erotic encounter between The Lady and The Demon that’s spun out of control.

In addition, as each chapter is told, it becomes apparent that the scenario in Strange Darling isn’t as cut-and-dry as it seems...

One of the year's most controversial horror films is finally makes its way to a streaming service, allowing a ton of genre fans the chance to finally check it out. The movie in question is the independent slasher sequel Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2. The first Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey drew a ton of interest for making iconic children's characters into slasher killers after they entered the public domain, but it debuted to some pretty awful reviews last year. The sequel, which had a very limited theatrical release earlier this year, received more positive marks from those who saw it, leaving many wishing they'd made the trip out to see it on the big screen.

Starting October 1st, Blood and Honey 2 will finally be available for horror fans to stream on Peacock. The streaming service already has the first Winnie-the-Pooh slasher film in its streaming lineup, so it doesn't come as much of a surprise to see it land the sequel as well.

The first two Blood and Honey films are just the start of an entire connected film franchise from Jagged Edge Productions. It's called the Twisted Childhood Universe, and will soon include films that focus on horror versions of Peter Pan, Bambi, and Pinocchio. Those will all culminate in an already announced "team up" movie, Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble, which hasn't yet gone into production...

With Fall already here and October kicking off this week, peak Halloween season is officially upon us. Seasonal fall flavors are lining the store shelves, the leaves are starting to turn, and the summer sun is on its way out, vacating to make room for that crisp, cool weather.

In other words, it’s the perfect time to cozy up and watch more horror movies, and this week’s streaming picks are dedicated to Fall-centric horror movies that exude a pitch perfect autumn atmosphere. Some of them even embrace the Halloween holiday we all love so much.

Here’s where you can stream them this week...

• Dark Night of the Scarecrow
• Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers
• The Mutilator
• Sleepy Hollow
• The Witch

Lee Hwa-rim (Kim Go-eun) and Yoon Bong-gil (Lee Do-hyun) are a shaman duo that offers their services to those that are plagued by the vengeful spirits of deceased family members… like the one plaguing the wealthy Park family, and let me tell ya, this one’s a fuckin’ doozy of a creepy case.

So complex is the job, that our heroes call in the help of geomancer Kim Sang-deok (Choi Min-sik) and his coroner partner Go Yeong-geun (Yoo Hae-jin) to assist in the exhumation of the relative’s coffin via a traditional ceremony after which the coffin and remains will be cremated.

No matter how seasoned our shamans are, things go tits up with the quickness once a rain delay keeps that corpse from getting crispy (can’t burn ’em on a soggy day… bad luck) and of course some ass just has to go and open the coffin setting the evill spirit free to go on a supernatural bender that spells bad times for the Park’s.

But as horrible as events become, they don’t hold a candle to the hell that’s unleashed from a second, rather large coffin that is found at the exhumation site. Do shamans have health insurance, because these folks are going to need it!

... Bottom line: Exhuma is a fantastic slice of Korean folk horror mixed with the dynamics of the modern world and shouldn’t be missed by lovers of the arcane!