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After a hard day's editing articles about three Disco Elysium spiritual successors - each more politically outspoken than the last, in a kind of Sophisticated Pooh collage of escalating Marxism - I like to kick back with a nice chill game about Lovecraftian space monsters.

That game is Konafa Game's Starless Abyss - a roguelite tactical deckbuilder published by Descenders and Yes, Your Grace outfit No More Robots. It puts you in command of a fleet of upgradeable spaceships, who must chase away invading Eldritch aliens hex by hex... and also, hex by hex. This is both hex-based and a game in which you can cast hexes, you see. Oh, don't look at me like that. I had to distil several manifestos into an article half-an-hour ago. I need this.

In Starless Abyss you play a Proxima, the possibly-human agent of a motley crew of scientists and occultists called Counter Horror. There are five Proximas in all, each with different skills and attributes. There are over 160 cards to discover, divided between six faction groupings, and each campaign run spans three acts with several randomly selected bosses. Visually, it's a writhing pixelart buffet of toothy tentacles and flying eyeballs and spacetime rifts, set to menacing chipset. Here's a trailer...

Scream TV, the free new horror channel launching on Oct. 13, just announced a spooky programming run for its launch.

Per a press release, “Halloween is finally on the horizon and Scream TV’s Oct. 13 launch is just around the corner. The brand new, free-to-air and free-to-stream (or scream!) TV channel dedicated to horror will be bringing viewers the very finest in horror entertainment from around the globe as well as celebrating the golden years of genre cinema. So get ready for the dark ride of your life, and don’t forget it’s all free to view.”

For launch month, Scream TV is running some titles as seen on Variety‘s recently-published 100 Best Horror Movies of All Time list, including “Halloween” and “Freaks,” classics like “White Zombie” and “The Last House on the Left,” essential cult titles like “Motel Hell” and “Demons 2” and more recent fare like “Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire” and “Restitution.”//

Additionally, there are multiple themed blocks during the week, including:

• Weekdays: Classics
• Mondays: Chris Alexander’s Sinister Cinema
• Wednesdays: Elvira‘s Movie Macabre
• Fridays: Fright Premiere, Late Night
• Saturdays: Frightfest Saturday Scares with Alan Jones
• Hammer Sunday

Through the years, the horror genre has evolved into various outlets and formats, giving its fans a plethora of options to choose from when they want that occasional ghost story or entertaining scare. Television has taken the genre by storm with countless series, including anthology horror series which reign as some of the spookiest and scariest contributions to the iconic genre.

While the serialized series is always enjoyable, the beauty of the anthology formula is the consistent unpredictability and guaranteed variety that keeps audiences hooked. There are some notable series, such as Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone and Netflix's Black Mirror that occasionally toe the line of horror, but both series, as excellent as they are, fall more into the science-fiction category compared to others like Tales from the Crypt and American Horror Story. Both series are phenomenal sci-fi anthology series, but when it comes to more horror-filled television series, there are some that simply stand out with their level of chills and thrills...

• 'Goosebumps' (1995-1998)
• 'Are You Afraid of the Dark?' (1992-2000)
• 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' (1955-1962)
• 'Creepshow' (2019-2023)
• 'Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities' (2022-)
• 'Masters of Horror' (2005-2007)
• 'Tales from the Crypt' (1989-1996)
• 'Channel Zero' (2016-2018)
• 'Night Gallery' (1969-1973)
• 'American Horror Story' (2011-)

THE RESURGENCE OF FOLK HORROR—an ancient subgenre of horror that concerns itself with nature and the attendant superstitions that mankind has connected to it—in recent years has been largely cinematic in nature. Examples include Robert Eggers’s tremendous film The Witch (2015), or Ari Aster’s Midsommar (2019), the latter of which owes an immense debt to one of the towering folk horror films, Robin Hardy and Anthony Shaffer’s The Wicker Man (1973). This is a welcome change in the horror film landscape, though in my experience, in horror literature folk horror has never really fallen out of style. It’s always been there, though it’s been a while since it could be considered part of horror’s mainstream. One of the most recent folk horror novels to enjoy widespread success is Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, and that came out in 1983.

This hasn’t stopped serious horror writers from taking their own swings at it. One of the best and most prominent folk horror writers working today is the English writer Andrew Michael Hurley. Before turning to novels, Hurley published two collections of short stories, neither of which are easily acquired (I simply can’t find them, affordably priced or not). But since 2014, Hurley has written three novels, all of them folk horror: The Loney, Devil’s Day, and, most recently, Starve Acre (a film adaptation of which has been playing festivals overseas, to positive reviews). I’ve read all three, and I recommend each without reservation. Today, I want to focus exclusively on his second, Devil’s Day (2017), which I believe in some key ways is one of the purest, and most interesting, examples of folk horror that I’ve encountered in some time...

Team Firestorm is thrilled to announce that the narrative-driven gothic murder mystery Blood on the Thames will officially launch on October 24, with a demo being available to play during Steam NextFest, starting October 14. Releasing just in time for Halloween, the game invites players to solve perplexing puzzles, interrogate suspects, and piece together cryptic clues to uncover a chilling conspiracy. Steeped in Lovecraftian horror, Blood on the Thames tells an atmospheric tale of supernatural forces and a woman's relentless search for answers in a city gripped by terror...

... In the dark and dingy streets of Victorian London, Minerva Ernest has lived a peaceful life - that was until her husband's savaged body was found in the Thames River. Returning home after police questioning, Minerva discovers her maid collapsed in a pool of blood - sending the trajectory of her peaceful life into a terrifying spiral of death and destruction. As she digs deeper into these terrifying events, Minerva realizes that there is a sinister force at play, one that threatens the very beating heart of London itself.

As Minerva navigates the shadowy underworld of London, she must use her keen detective vision to spot crucial clues. However, it will be down to players to use their cunning and wit to understand how these strands might weave their way to the answers they seek.

A cast of captivating characters brings this world to life, but be warned that some don’t mind dirtying their hands to come out on top. You’ll have to build strong relationships to earn their trust and uncover new secrets. You’ll have to decide who has your back - or face the twisting, turning machinations of a cult whose goals are fixed on weaponizing an unknowable entity that could change the world forever...

Shudder has unveiled a new trailer for upcoming horror movie MadS – and it looks quite the drug-fueled nightmare...

The film, which was shot with just five takes captured over five days but unfolds in one uninterrupted shot, sees 18-year-old Romain (Milton Riche) pay a visit to his dealer in the hope of having a fun, trippy night. Things take a turn, though, when he picks up an injured woman on his drive home, an act that kickstarts a violent, surreal descent into bloodsoaked chaos. Watch the intense promo above.

"MadS is viciously bleak and yet, moments of sharp, wicked humor are embedded in the bloody momentum," writes RogerEbert.com's Brian Tallerico. "Horror fans always look for new ways to tell some of the most timeless stories, and I think they’ll flip for it. We've seen so many tales about the end of the world. We've never seen one quite like this"...

While there's nothing better than taking a trip to your local cinema to eagerly consume the latest in big-screen horror film - especially with the genre having served up so many great offerings in more recent years - there have been times when the small screen has played host to some truly terrifying horror pictures.

The term made-for-TV is one that may instantly scream low budget, low effort, and low quality to some, but that doesn't always have to be the case. For horror fans, the decades have seen the world of TV serve up plenty of fantastic movies - and that's what the focus is on here.

And for those wondering, Tommy Lee Wallace's 1990 take on It isn't included here. While that is a fantastic adaptation of Stephen King's source material, led by a magnetic, majestic, maniacal Tim Curry, Wallace's It is technically a two-part miniseries rather than an outright TV movie, per se.

So, with all of that in mind then, here are ten TV horror movies absolutely worth going out of your way to track down...

• Body Bags
• The Norliss Tapes
• Hotline
• The Curse Of The Blair Witch
• Psycho IV: The Beginning
• Ghostwatch
• Stalking Laura
• The Baby's Room
• Someone's Watching Me
• Ring (1995)

Horror movies have the ability to scare and exhilarate us in equal measure. Whether it’s a jump scare that leaves your heart pounding or the sight of something so disturbing it’ll give you sleepless nights, horror’s ability to present us with the most depraved aspects of humanity is what makes the genre so captivating.

However, no matter how traumatic the things we are seeing on screen, we can rest easy in the knowledge that no one in these movies is actually being harmed or in distress. Or so we’d like to think...

Throughout the history of cinema, filmmakers and actors have attempted to push themselves to the absolute limit in order to realise their vision. When it comes to horror, that can often mean raising the bar too far, leaving cast members emotionally devastated and struggling in their lives away from cameras.

Here are 16 horror movies so scary that even the actors in them were traumatised...

• Psycho (1960)
• Midsommar (2019)
• Halloween (1978)
• Possession (1981)
• The Birds (1963)
• Hereditary (2018)
• The Shining (1980)
• It Chapter Two (2019)
• The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
• The Blair Witch Project (1999)
• Alien (1979)
• Suspiria (2018)
• Martyrs (2008)
• Poltergeist (1982)
• The Amityville Horror (2005)

Severin Films is prepping a second boxed Blu-ray Disc set of international horror classics for Nov. 12 release.

The 13-disc All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror, Volume 2 is a followup to the 15-disc original, which Severin says is the most successful boxed set in the company’s history.

Volume 2 includes 24 folk horror films from 18 countries, with more than 55 hours of special features — including trailers, interviews, audio commentaries, short films, video essays, historical analyses and bonus feature-length films — and a 252-page hardcover book of folk horror fiction by such luminaries as Ramsey Campbell, Cassandra Khaw and Eden Royce.

Many of the films have never before been available on disc. The set also includes two new Severin Films original productions: To Fire You Come at Last, directed by Sean Hogan, and the documentary Suzzana: The Queen of Black Magic, directed by Severin Films cofounder David Gregory, which will have its world premiere at the Sitges Film Festival on Oct. 12...

The films include:

• To Fire You Come at Last (Sean Hogan, UK/US, 2023)

• Psychomania (Don Sharp, UK, 1973)

• The Enchanted (Carter Lord, US, 1984)

• Who Fears the Devil (John Newland, US, 1972)

• The White Reindeer (Erik Blomberg, Finland, 1952)

• Edge of the Knife (Gwaai Edenshaw and Helen Haig-Brown, Canada, 2018)

• Born of Fire (Jamil Dehlavi, UK, 1987)

• IO Island (Kim Ki-young, South Korea, 1977)

• Scales (Shahad Ameen, Saudi Arabia, 2019)

• Bakeno: A Vengeful Spirit (Yoshihiro Ishikawa, Japan, 1968)

• Nang Nak (Nonzee Nimibutr, Thailand, 1999)

• Sundelbolong (Sisworo Gautama Putra, Indonesia, 1981)

• Suzzana: The Queen of Black Magic (David Gregory, US, 2024)

• Beauty and the Beast (Juraj Herz, Czechoslovakia, 1978)

• The Ninth Heart (Juraj Herz, Czechoslovakia, 1979)

• Demon (Marcin Wrona, Poland, 2015)

• November (Rainer Sarnet, Estonia/Poland/Netherlands, 2017)

• Litan (Jean-Pierre Mocky, France, 1982)

• Blood Tea and Red String (Christiane Cegavske, US, 2006)

• Nazareno Cruz and the Wolf (Leonardo Favio, Argentina, 1975)

• Akelarre (Pedro Olea, Spain, 1984)

• From the Old Earth (Wil Aaron, Wales, 1981)

• The City of the Dead (John Llewellyn Moxey, UK, 1960)

• The Rites of May (Mike De Leon, Philippines, 1976)

AMC’s genre streamer Shudder has picked up North American, U.K., Irish, Australian and New Zealand rights to “Fréwaka,” billed as the first Irish-language horror.

Written and directed by Aislinn Clarke and starring Clare Monnelly, Bríd Ní Neachtain and Aleksandra Bystrzhitskaya, the film — which features both the Irish and English language — recently world premiered at the 2024 Locarno Film Festival, and will have its U.K. premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on October 11, 2024. “Fréwaka” will debut on Shudder in 2025.

“Fréwaka” following home care worker Shoo, who is sent to a remote village to care for an agoraphobic woman who fears the neighbors as much as she fears the Na Sídhe — sinister entities who she believes abducted her decades before. As the two develop a strangely deep connection, Shoo is consumed by the old woman’s paranoia, rituals, and superstitions, eventually confronting the horrors from her own past...

In V/H/S/Beyond, the latest installment in the found footage anthology series, genre icon Kate Siegel makes her directorial debut with the final segment “Stowaway”, which stars game developer Alannah Pearce as a woman searching for the truth. And that truth just so happens to be aliens. But when she does find out the truth, things start going spectacularly wrong for her.

What starts as a slower examination of a woman with an obsession becomes a horrific cosmic horror nightmare the likes of which you’ve never seen, at least in a V/H/S/ movie.

We spoke with Pearce over Zoom about the joys of working with Kate Siegel, her special butt fan, and her experience with prosthetics...