8 horror movies coming to Netflix in October (and which are actually worth watching?)

September went by so fast this year I feel like my head is still spinning, but on the plus side, we’ll start seeing streaming services and networks airing horror and Halloween content in the coming weeks! Netflix already has a lot of horror movies available to watch, but they’ll be adding some more for the month of October.

Admittedly, Netflix doesn’t have a lot of new horror movies being added this year (they seem to be skipping their annual “Netflix and Chills” lineup altogether), but on the plus side, most of the additions are worth watching!

Here’s a bulleted list of all the spooky stuff coming to Netflix in October (and when). Then we’ll get into the nitty-gritty of what you can skip.

• War of the Worlds, Oct. 1
• The Fall of the House of Usher, Oct. 12 (series)
• It Follows, Oct. 11
• Deliver Us From Evil, Oct. 12
• The Conference, Oct. 13
• The Devil on Trial, Oct. 17 (documentary)
• Bodies, Oct. 19
• Sister Death, Oct. 27

In addition to the above films and shows, Netflix will also be adding a couple of family-friendly options, including Casper (Oct. 1), Strawberry Shortcake and the Beast of Berry Bog (Oct. 2) and the new quirky fantasy show I Woke Up a Vampire (Oct. 17).

Out of the nine additions to Netflix’s catalog coming in October, there is only one I would label with a big fat “SKIP” and that’s Deliver Us From Evil, the 2014 movie starring Eric Bana and Edgar Ramírez. It’s boring, cliché, and literally too dark to see what’s going on in some scenes. Seriously. The lighting budget must have been nonexistent. Not to mention the fact that the close-to-two-hour-runtime will really test your patience.

Beyond that, the other horror movies on the show on this list are comprised of an excellent film (It Follows), a highly-anticipated Mike Flanagan series (House of Usher), and a couple of brand-new projects that look interesting!

Netflix’s upcoming documentary might interest fans of The Conjuring universe. The Devil on Trial is a UK doc focused on the first time someone ever tried to use demonic possession as a legitimate excuse in the court of law. That same case was the basis for the plot of The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It.

Let’s dig into some of the upcoming horror movies and shows, like the cerebral series Bodies, Flanagan’s final Netflix project, and the follow-up (well, technically, a prequel) to the 2017 Spanish horror film Verónica.

The Fall of the House of Usher

The Fall of the House of Usher isn’t a movie, but it’s easily Netflix’s most anticipated October title. Mike Flanagan has been churning out masterpieces for more than a decade now and fans are eager to see his latest.

This particular series, which is based on some of Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous works, has been praised as one of his best shows thus far, with some even labeling it Flanagan’s “magnum opus.” While most agree that The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass are among the best of Flanagan’s Netflix series, it sounds like The Fall of the House of Usher could be a serious contender for a top position in the official ranking of all of his works.

Bruce Greenwood and Mary McDonnell star as Roderick and Madeline Usher, the two heads of the Usher family dynasty, known for their Sackler family-esque ties to a massive pharmaceutical company.

Throughout the years, the Ushers have been accused of using underhanded tactics to stay ahead. When members of the family begin dying off one by one, all of the family’s secrets threaten to come to light. In addition to Greenwood and McDonnell, the series also stars other Flanagan regulars like his real-life wife Kate Siegel, Carla Gugino, Rahul Kohli, Zack Gilford, T’Nia Miller, Samantha Sloyan, Michael Trucco, Lulu Wilson, and more.

The Conference

What starts as a fun, team-building experience for a group of public sector employees quickly spirals into a night of bloodshed and torment in this Swedish slasher comedy based on Mats Strandberg’s book of the same name.

Based on the film’s trailer, the movie has a relatively lighthearted vibe, though it also looks like there are some gruesome traps and deaths awaiting several of the characters. One snippet shows someone getting caught on what looks like razor wire strung up in the woods and, since this is a slasher movie, there’s a masked killer running around killing the employees one by one.

It’s too early to say if this will be a good movie or not, the trailer was a little run-of-the-mill and didn’t get me super hyped, but given Netflix isn’t releasing a lot of new horror content this month, I’m willing to give it a chance.

Bodies

Seemingly in the vein of other mind-bending Netflix series like DARK and 1899, Bodies is a new series from showrunner Paul Tomalin based on the graphic novel by Si Spencer. The series starts as your average police procedural, but with a significant twist.

The show takes place across four different timelines where the same exact homicide victim is found on the same street in London’s Whitechapel in 1890, 1941, 2023, and 2053. How can one body exist at four different points in time? And what does the mysterious political leader Elias Mannix (Stephen Graham) have to do with it?

In each timeline, one detective is assigned to investigate the case and they soon begin to realize they’re collaborating with people out of time on a conspiracy spanning more than a century.

Sister Death

Sister Death is one of my most anticipated new horror movies coming to Netflix in October as it’s a prequel to the fantastic 2017 film Verónica. Director Paco Plaza returns to direct the next film in the Verónica universe. Set in post-war Spain, Sister Death will provide us with the origin story of the character from the previous movie.

You might recall that the girls at Verónica’s school would refer to one of the older nuns, a blind woman, as “Sister Death” because she used to have supernatural visions courtesy of a malevolent spirit and blinded herself to stop seeing them.

In the upcoming film, we’ll meet the sister, Narcisa (Aria Bedmar), when she was just a novice training at a convent-turned-school to become a teacher. We’ll see what horrific events led Narcisa to becoming the titular sister.

If you, like me, were disappointed by The Nun II, hopefully this will be a legitimately scary film about a nun. I have faith in Plaza’s directorial abilities.