The Halloween Countdown: 31 Days of Horror to Watch

Do you feel that? That chill in the air, that tingling feeling at the back of your neck? It can only mean one thing. That’s right: the Halloween season is just around the corner!

Especially us Love However, Halloween is a holiday dedicated to all things scary and spooky. That’s why every year for the past four years, Polygon has put together an annual Halloween countdown calendar, selecting 31 of our staff’s best horror-themed or Halloween-adjacent picks in movies, TV and online videos throughout the month of October, all available to watch at home. to look at. It was so much fun that we’re even doing it again, with a whole new range of movies, shows and videos to choose from.

Every day for the month of October, we’ll add a new recommendation to this countdown and tell you where to watch it. So curl up on the couch, dim the lights and grab some popcorn for a hair-raising marathon of Halloween treats.

Where to watch: Available to stream on Plex and Pluto TV with ads and to rent on Amazon

Kicking off the Halloween horror movie season is a delicate art. Just a few days after fall officially begins, it’s important to choose just the right movie to subtly change the cold from cozy to eerie as gently as possible. With that in mind, we’re going to lighten up Halloween this year with Dario Argento’s Phenomenaa perfect mix of creepy, campy and somber that sets the stage just right for the scares to come.

Phenomena is set in a remote town in Switzerland at a boarding school where Jennifer Corvino (Jennifer Connelly), the daughter of a famous American actor, is the newest student. The only problem is that a serial killer is also rampaging through the city, and when Jennifer witnesses one of the murders, her life is suddenly in grave danger. The good news is that she has an inexplicable telekinetic power over insects to keep her alive.

And while the film isn’t as silly as its premise suggests, it is one of the most bizarre and fun of the many filthy slashers of the 1980s. But what really elevates it to a special place is that it’s one of the rare horror films where the supernatural is seemingly entirely on the side of good. It’s rare that a film makes us make an unequivocal case for the mystical force at its center, giving the whole thing the strange, otherworldly feel of a particularly grotesque fairy tale.

This all makes for a hugely entertaining and strange mystery film, and a great way to start a month of horror movies. —Austen Goslin