It might be time we Brits stop trying to make Halloween happen. Spooky Season, as the Americans call it, has never really taken root over here. Trick-or-treating is indulged with an air of wary obligation. Decorations are laid around half-arsedly, if at all. But there’s one area of life where Halloween has naturally, fulsomely come into its own: at the movies. If there’s one thing the holiday is good for, it’s for manifesting an annual spike in horror films. It’s a crying (or screaming) shame, then, that Halloween 2023 has left horror fans cold – and thoroughly un-chilled.
Those wishing to go to the cinema on 31 October this year will have a few options to choose from, each less appetising than the last. The big Halloween weekend release is Five Nights at Freddy’s, an adaptation of a schlocky video game franchise starring Matthew Lillard and Josh Hutcherson. “What should’ve been an intricate, twisted, and absurd treat is demoted to generic horror movie sludge,” wrote Clarisse Loughrey in a two-star review of the film, also criticising the film’s “bloodless” PG-13 age rating (15 in the UK). There are alternatives, of course – the tamer still (but markedly more enjoyable) Hercule Poirot adaptation A Haunting in Venice, which will be in its seventh week in cinemas, or the truly execrable franchise sequel The Exorcist: Believer. Look further down the menu and the festive spread is even more meagre: there’s the dismally received Dear David, adapted from a viral Twitter thread, the lacklustre Stephen King prequel Pet Sematary: Bloodlines on Paramount+, or the insipid time-travel slasher Totally Killer on Prime Video.
