Have you been going back and forth on what movies you’ll be watching during the greatest month of all, October? Never fear, as the folks over at HBO Max have you covered with more blood and guts than a zombie at a brain buffet.
The streamer is celebrating Halloween with “Horror Comes Home,” a dedicated collection bringing together a massive lineup of horror movies and series throughout October. Whether you’re looking for old-school nightmares, modern horror, killer franchises or something creepy enough to keep the lights on, HBO Max is basically turning the whole month into one giant horror shelf.
The Halloween programming kicked off early with the streaming debut of A24’s Backrooms, and October keeps the horror coming with new arrivals including Evil Dead Burn on Oct. 2 and the HBO Original documentary series The Pet Cemetery Murders: A Ghost Story on Oct. 11.
The new stuff is only part of the fun, though. HBO Max has pulled together movies spanning decades of horror, giving fans plenty of excuses to spend an unreasonable amount of time on the couch this month.
FREDDY, JASON AND A WHOLE LOT OF NIGHTMARES
One of the collections that immediately caught our attention is “A Killer Movie Marathon,” because HBO Max apparently understands that October is no time for moderation.
The lineup includes Final Destination, Final Destination 2, Final Destination 3, The Final Destination, Final Destination 5 and Final Destination Bloodlines, along with Freddy vs. Jason, Friday the 13th (2009), Halloween H2O: 20 Years Later, Halloween: Resurrection, Pearl, X, MaXXXine and Trap.
That means you can spend an entire evening watching people make increasingly questionable decisions while death patiently waits around the corner.
For Freddy fans, the “Must-Scream Horror” collection brings A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) into the mix alongside Hereditary, Midsommar, The Exorcist, The Lighthouse, Talk to Me, The Cabin in the Woods, The Craft, Us, Weapons and Final Destination Bloodlines.
There is also something pretty great about seeing Wes Craven’s original A Nightmare on Elm Street sitting alongside some of the films that helped define modern horror. Freddy may have started invading dreams in 1984, but the nightmare clearly never left.
THE CLASSICS ARE STILL HERE
HBO Max isn’t treating Halloween like it began sometime around the release of The Conjuring. The collection reaches much further back, with genre landmarks including Carrie, The Exorcist, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Poltergeist, Gremlins and The Shining.
The “Haunted Hall of Fame” collection adds even more heavy hitters, including The Conjuring, The Conjuring 2, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, Annabelle, The Nun, The Curse of La Llorona, Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, Evil Dead Rise, It, It Chapter Two, Talk to Me and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.
Naturally, Evil Dead Burn joins the party on Oct. 2.
SOMETHING A LITTLE STRANGER
For viewers who prefer their monsters to come with claws, fangs, tentacles or questionable scientific origins, HBO Max has also assembled “Creature Features.”
That collection includes Gremlins, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Interview with the Vampire, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, The Brood, The Cabin in the Woods, Tusk, The Wolfman, Vampyr, Zombieland, Zombieland 2: Double Tap and The Walking Dead (1936), among plenty of other creature-filled selections.
Then there’s “What’s Around the Corner,” debuting Oct. 2, which is pretty much exactly what you want from a Halloween collection with a name like that. Night of the Living Dead, The Conjuring, The Strangers: Prey at Night, Thanksgiving, Insidious: The Red Door, Us, Salem’s Lot, Backrooms and Evil Dead Burn are among the titles waiting there.
HBO Max is also launching a new virtual channel called “Essential Horror,” featuring a rotating mix of horror films and series from the service’s catalog. For anyone who would rather hit play and let the nightmares choose the movie, that’s probably going to be the easiest way to spend an October evening.
The bigger takeaway is that HBO Max isn’t limiting its Halloween lineup to one particular flavor of horror. You’ve got slashers, supernatural horror, monsters, vampires, zombies, psychological nightmares, classics and modern genre favorites all living under the same roof.
Which means the real problem this October may not be finding something to watch.
It may be figuring out when the hell you’re supposed to sleep.
“Horror Comes Home” is available now on HBO Max and continues throughout October.