This Fall is going to be scary, very scary.
With September already here and October just around the corner, I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at the genre titles heading our way now that the Fall season is starting to settle in. It’s a good thing that the genre finally decided to show up because the last couple of months have been severely lacking in good horror titles. But not only is it exciting that we have a lot of films to look forward to, this is the first time in quite a while that we’re seeing September, and especially October, being taken over by the genre. It’s a strange thing, really, when you think about how rare it is to see a new horror film get a release during the Fall season. Why is that? Whatever the reason may be, it looks like 2014 is going to be the year that changes all of that. Between now and Halloween, we’ll see over 15 new horror films. This is a list of what should be on your radar. (Click the titles for a trailer).
September 12: Honeymoon
Director: Leigh Janiak
Cast: Rose Leslie, Harry Treadaway
Synopsis: Young newlyweds Paul (Harry Treadaway) and Bea (Rose Leslie) travel to remote lake country for their honeymoon, where the promise of private romance awaits them. Shortly after arriving, Paul finds Bea wandering and disoriented in the middle of the night. As she becomes more distant and her behavior increasingly peculiar, Paul begins to suspect something more sinister than sleepwalking took place in the woods.
September 17: The Guest
Director: Adam Wingard
Cast: Dan Stevens, Maika Monroe, Lance Reddick, Brendan Meyer and Leland Orser
Synopsis: A soldier introduces himself to the Peterson family, claiming to be a friend of their son who died in action. After the young man is welcomed into their home, a series of accidental deaths seem to be connected to his presence.
September 19: Tusk
Director: Kevin Smith
Cast: Justin Long, Michael Parks, Haley Joel Osment and Genesis Rodriguez
Synopsis: A modern-day monster movie that follows a journalist named Wallace (Long) who finds the story of a lifetime in Mr. Howe (Parks), a worldwide adventurer with amazing tales and a curious penchant for walruses.
September 26: Asmodexia
Director: Marc Carrete
Cast: Clàudia Pons, Luís Marco
Synopsis: Eloy de Palma is an exorcist pastor roaming the darkest corners of the country with his granddaughter, Alba. Their mission is to help those possessed by The Evil One, an infection of the soul that is spreading fast, especially among the most vulnerable members of society: children, mental patients, and drug addicts. There is also a mysterious cult following them, making it more difficult to help those in need. Each exorcism is tougher than the one before, and every battle with Evil reveals a piece of young Alba’s forgotten past – an enigma that if unconcealed could change the world as we know it.
September 30: Motivational Growth
Director: Don Thacker
Cast: Jeffrey Combs, Adrian DiGiovanni, Danielle Doetsch, Ken Brown, Samori Sykes, Robert McConnell, Laura Carlson and Hannah Stevenson
Synopsis: n Motivational Growth, Ian Foliver (Adrian DiGiovanni), a depressed and reclusive man in his 30s, finds himself taking advice from a growth in his bathroom after a failed suicide attempt. The Mold (‘Re-Animator’ star Jeffrey Combs), a smooth talking fungus born of the filth in a neglected bathroom, works to help Ian clean himself up and remodel his lifestyle. The Mold has big plans for Ian, but they may not be as innocent as they seem. A labyrinthine-narrative follows, full of colorfully-drawn characters and gruesome body horror.
October 3: Annabelle
Director: John R. Leonetti
Cast: Annabelle Wallis, Alfre Woodard, Ward Horton
Synopsis: John Form thinks he’s found the perfect gift for his expectant wife, Mia—a beautiful, rare vintage doll in a pure white wedding dress. But Mia’s delight with Annabelle doesn’t last long. On one horrific night, their home is invaded by members of a satanic cult, who violently attack the couple. Spilled blood and terror are not all they leave behind. The cultists have conjured an entity so malevolent that nothing they did will compare to the sinister conduit to the damned that is now… Annabelle.
October 10: Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead
Director: Tommy Wirkola
Cast: Vegar Hoel, Stig Frode Henriksen, Martin Starr, Ørjan Gamst, Ingrid Haas, Jocelyn DeBoer
Synopsis: If the worst day of your life consisted of accidentally killing your girlfriend with an axe, chain-sawing your own arm off, and watching in horror as your closest friends were devoured by a zombified Nazi battalion, you’d have to assume that things couldn’t get much worse. In Martin’s case, that was only the beginning.
October 10: Dracula Untold
Director: Gary Shore
Cast: Luke Evans, Sarah Gadon, Dominic Cooper, Diarmaid Murtagh, Samantha Barks
Synopsis: A Transylvanian prince risks eternal damnation in order to save his wife and son from a Turkish horde. Barks will play a figure in Eastern European folk tales known as a baba yaga, a beautiful young woman who turns into a savage witch. Kristjansson will play Bright Eyes, an Eastern European taken as a slave as a young boy and now a vicious assassin in the Ottoman Army. Parkinson will play Dracula’s son, named Ingeras.
October 10: The Canal
Director: Ivan Kavanagh
Cast: Rupert Evans, Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Hannah Hoekstra, Kelly Byrne, Steve Oram
Synopsis: The Canal tells the story of David Williams and his wife, Alice, who move into a beautiful period house by the canal with their small child, Billy. As David begins to suspect that his wife is cheating on him, he also starts to have nightmarish visions of an evil presence he believes inhabits his home.
October 16: The Town that Dreaded Sundown
Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Cast: Addison Timlin, Gary Cole, Spencer Treat Clark
Synopsis: Set in a world in which the original film exists and is very much part of popular consciousness, this update sees the quiet streets of Texerkana plagued by a maniac who bears striking resemblance to the same Phantom Killer who wreaked havoc on the town decades before. Is history repeating itself? Or has somebody just seen the original film too many times?
October 17: Extraterrestrial
Director: Colin Minihan
Cast: Brittany Allen, Freddie Stroma, Melanie Papalia, Jesse Moss, Gil Bellows
Synopsis: Five friends set out to a cabin in the woods for a fun weekend getaway—that is, until extraterrestrial visitors turn it into a fight for their lives. The group is pulled from their reverie when a flickering object crashes deep in the woods. As they investigate, the friends stumble across an alien spacecraft, and its inhabitants have not arrived in peace.
October 17: Housebound
Director: Gerard Johnstone
Cast: Morgana O’Reilly, Rima Te Wiata, Glen-Paul Waru, Cameron Rhodes, Millen Baird, Ross Harper, Bruce Hopkins, Ryan Lampp, Ian Mune, Wallace Chapman
Synopsis: Kylie Bucknell is forced to return to the house she grew up in when the court places her on home detention. Her punishment is made all the more unbearable by the fact she has to live there with her mother Miriam – a well-intentioned blabbermouth who’s convinced that the house is haunted. Kylie dismisses Miriam’s superstitions as nothing more than a distraction from a life occupied by boiled vegetables & small town gossip. However, when she too becomes privy to unsettling whispers & strange bumps in the night, she begins to wonder whether she’s inherited her overactive imagination, or if the house is in fact possessed by a hostile spirit who’s not particularly thrilled about her return.
October 17: See No Evil 2
Director: Jen Soska, Sylvia Soska
Cast: Katharine Isabelle, Danielle Harris, Kaj-Erik Eriksen, Chelan Simmons, Lee Majdoub, Greyston Holt, Michael Eklund
Synopsis: Jacob Goodnight fell to his apparent demise from high atop the Blackwell Hotel in See No Evil, and this terrifying sequel picks up where the last one left off. With Jacob’s body lying on a cold sub-basement slab in the city morgue, Amy, a mortician, is surprised when a group of friends pay her a late-night visit for her birthday. But the surprise soon turns deadly when the psychopath everyone believed to be dead sets-out on a horrific killing spree, and Amy and her friends must do whatever it takes to survive.
October 23: V/H/S: Viral
Director: Todd Lincoln, Nacho Vigalondo, Marcel Sarmiento, Gregg Bishop, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead
Synopsis: The segments in V/H/S: Viral include the story of a deranged illusionist who obtains a magical object of great power, a homemade machine that opens a door to a parallel world, teenage skaters that unwillingly become targets of a Mexican death cult ritual, and a sinister, shadowy organization that is tracking a serial killer. The segments are tied together by the story of a group of fame-obsessed teens following a violent car chase in LA that unwittingly become stars of the next internet sensation.
October 24: Ouija
Director: Stiles White
Cast: Olivia Cooke, Daren Kagasoff, Douglas Smith, Bianca Santos, Ana Coto
Synopsis: In Ouija, a group of friends must confront their most terrifying fears when they awaken the dark powers of an ancient spirit board.
October 31: Horns
Director: Alexandre Aja
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Juno Temple, Max Minghella, David Morse, Joe Anderson, Kathleen Quinlan, James Remar
Synopsis: Hungover from a night of hard drinking, Ig awakens one morning to find horns starting to grow from his own head and soon realizes their power drives people to confess their sins and give in to their most selfish and unspeakable impulses – an effective tool in his quest to discover the true circumstances of his late girlfriend’s tragedy and for exacting revenge on her killer.
How’s that for a list of horror movies? And what’s great about this lineup is the fact that these aren’t just some throwaway titles, they’re some of the most anticipated films of the year! Alright, folks, let me know which films on this list you’re looking forward to the most.
Pretty damn pumped about all of them, but Annabelle….. holy tits! Excited!
Great post dude. Tusk is strangely the one I’m most excited for. Isn’t Annabelle going to be a 12 (or pg-13 whatever the hell you US folk call it) rating?! I hope I’m wrong but I’m sure I read that. Good times for horror lovers anyway :)
Thanks, man! Always nice to see you around here my friend. As far as the rating for Annabelle goes, it’s actually going to be “R” for “Intense sequences of disturbing violence and terror”. The Conjuring had the exact same rating.
I’d be here more if I got your notifications! Whatever I try doesnt work. Im following you, by email too but never get them. Luckily I always check in ;)
As for Annabelle, thats good news. Some shitty horror sites reporting incorrect ratings talk then. Wasn’t The Conjuring rated high because it was just too scary? I loved that excuse, made me anticipate the movie even more :)
Dude, that sucks! Sometimes unfollowing and refollowing will fix that. I post every article on my facebook page, so there’s always that route if you want.
And you’re exactly right, The Conjuring got an R for being terrifying as shit. It’s essentially the same excuse for the R rating for Annabelle as well, but something tells me they’re just trying to sell it like The Conjuring because that movie made soooooo much money.
I have tried unfollowng and everything. About to be starting a new site though as Ive had lots of issues with wordpress and followers, so maybe I’ll have more luck with that.
Worry with Annabelle is the downgrade in cast and obviously director. Hope its not just a cash grab.
Hit me with the new site once you get it up and running! The bright side is that the cinematographer who worked on The Conjuring is directing Anabelle, so it’s at least going to LOOK similar!
AWESOME stuff coming up Ryan. I must admit I am the most psyched for Horns. I hope we get it in time, I really don’t want to have to wait an age to see it!
Agreed. Horns is one of my top as as well. We’ve already been waiting for what feels like forever! Hopefully you can catch it around the same time everyone else does!
I’m in for all of these except for Tusk….. I might even go see a couple of em in the theater!
Tusk is one of those movies that I think you’ll either love it or hate it. Yea I might actually leave my cave for a couple of these :)
I am already shivering in my boots :D
Lol, then it’s going to be a long Fall season! I guess that’s a good thing, though.
Certainly is :D
There’s a lot of good stuff here! I’m looking forward to Tusk, Horns, and The Green Inferno, personally.
Tusk and Horns both look great, The Green Inferno is in limbo right now. It was supposed to have already been released but it recently lost its distribution deal or something. No one really knows when we’ll see it now. Hopefully soon!
Nice work, I hadn’t heard of about half of these! Some of them are surely going to be rubbish, but it looks like there should be a few gems in the mix (hopefully!)
Yeah, some will no doubt be terrible but that’s the horror genre for you! It just makes the goods ones that much better.
“Tusk” sounds intriguing. I’m a big sucker for a monster movie, probably because it’s a physical antagonist which makes you feel like you have a chance to defeat it.
Tusk is definitely the craziest looking movie on here. Really interested to see how it turns out!
Gotta say I look forward to Horns and The Guest the most out of these, but Annabelle could be really terrific as well.
I have GOT to see Motivational Growth just to see how they can pull that kind of stunt off. . .
And how’s Asmodexia for one of the coolest titles in recent memory? :D
I’m mostly curious about The Guest because everyone has been saying how ridiculously good it is. Motivational Growth looks crazy weird!
Looking forward to seeing a good few of these! I don’t know if they’re coming out at the same time as these ones, but I’m also looking forward to The Babadook and Jessabelle.
The Babadook comes out in November but it looks amazing. One that I’ve been looking forward to for a very long time as well.
A great roundup as always Ryan. Love your previews as I have never heard of a bunch of the stuff.
I’ll start with the one I have managed to see – Housebound. Holy shitballs it is amazing. I saw it at the Sydney Underground Film Festival (review coming in the next week or so). Put it at the top of your list. It is so hard for a horror-comedy to work in both genres, but it does. Probably my favourite or second favourite comedy of the year so far. And it got an incredible audience reaction too. Masses of laughter as well as legit screams, the whole way through. I love that poster for the film you shared there as well. Classic.
Aside from that, I’m well keen for: The Guest, Tusk, Annabelle and Motivational Growth (which I had never heard of).
Thanks man! Excited to read your review of Housebound, I’m only hearing great things about it. I’m surprised to see how many people are intrigued by Motivational Growth. That’s one of the films I haven’t seen many reviews for so I have no idea what to expect. It looks nutso, though!
I think that’s the thing about Motivational Growth. That idea, as silly as it could turn out, is something pretty damn original.
Nice roundup, but I’d rather have a barbed wire colonoscopy than watch Tusk.
Haha! I don’t even know what to say.
Horns and The Guest are the ones I’m most looking forward to see :) Tusk also has me intrigued along with Honeymoon, of course :)
Same here, really looking forward to Horns and The Guest, especially after all the buzz!
Ryan i’m having surgery in October but first I have to see Annabel and Dracula, you might think i’m nuts but my recovery time is 2 months. So it has to wait, and by the time I can go out they will be gone.