Spooky season is finally here — but you can only rewatch Hocus Pocus, ScreamandPractical Magic so many times. Luckily, the Halloween classics have some serious competition this year.
October is stacked with spooky new TV shows and movies, including fresh takes on old favorites Carrie and Friday the 13th, while Jessica Chastain’s supernatural horror Other Mommyhas landed in theaters.
How scary you want to go is up to you. Some of these picks are firmly in horror territory, while others lean more into suspense or simply give you the creeps. There are also lighter options for families, so younger viewers can get in on the Halloween fun.
Here are 12 new movies and shows worth adding to your watchlist.
‘Coven Academy’
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Where to watch:Freeform, Disney+ and Hulu
Magic school is in session. This new supernatural series follows young witches and warlocks at a New Orleans academy. It’s on the lighter end of the Halloween lineup, with enough magic and teen drama to make it suitable for families.
‘Bite Size Terror’
Tubi’s Bite Size Terror is built for viewers who want a quick scare. The 10-part anthology tells a different story in each short episode, covering everything from monsters and the occult to body horror and dark comedy.
‘Verity’
Looking for something more sinister than scary? Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson star in Verity, a psychological thriller about a ghostwriter who makes a disturbing discovery while working in a bestselling novelist’s home.
‘Carrie’
Prom night is about to get bloody, as showrunner Mike Flanagan reimagines Stephen King’s supernatural classic Carrie for the small screen. Summer H. Howell takes over the role of the bullied teenager with telekinesis made famous by Sissy Spacek in the 1976 movie.
‘Below’
A remote fishing community finds itself under attack from a mysterious sea creature in Netflix’s miniseries Below. Josh Hartnett and Mackenzie Davis star alongside Stranger Things actor Charlie Heaton.
‘Other Mommy’
Get ready for some terrifying jump scares. A young girl begins to see a sinister woman hiding in the shadows of her home — and calling her “Other Mommy.” Jessica Chastain plays both the girl’s mother and the entity haunting the child.
A student accidentally revives an ancient curse after discovering a forbidden spellbook, unleashing pumpkin-headed children on a small town’s harvest festival. Cassandra Peterson, aka Elvira, joins the fun as a mysterious witch who may know how to stop them.
‘Crystal Lake’
The Friday the 13th franchise is heading back to where the bloodshed began. Linda Cardellini stars as Pamela Voorhees, the mother at the center of the original movie, in this prequel set in the town of Crystal Lake.
‘Crawlers’
Arachnophobes, you’ve been warned. Crawlers turns an apartment building into a nightmare when a spider infestation triggers a quarantine, trapping residents inside with the multiplying creatures.
‘Clayface’
Batman’s shape-shifting villain is getting the body horror treatment. Tom Rhys Harries, the star of Netflix’s White Lines, plays an actor left disfigured by a crime boss. After an experimental treatment, his face and body begin to grotesquely transform.
‘YAGA’
The disappearance of a young man (Heated Rivalry‘s Hudson Williams) casts suspicion on Carrie-Anne Moss’s enigmatic professor in YAGA. The supernatural mystery series draws its scares from the legend of the witch Baba Yaga.
‘Balaraw: Blood Island’
Arriving just in time for Halloween, Balaraw: Blood Island sends a woman to a remote island in search of her mother, who vanished years earlier. The Filipino horror series soon turns her search into a fight to escape the island.
