When it comes to Halloween slashers, John Carpenter’s Halloween still reigns supreme all these years later. Not only did it launch an enduring franchise, but it inspired a slasher craze. Of course, it’s far from the only slasher movie set around our favorite holiday.
This week’s streaming picks are dedicated to Halloween slashers beyond the Halloween franchise that similarly bring the carnage and holiday spirit in equal measure.
These slashers unleash buckets of blood (and then some), using Halloween as a stunning backdrop for the mayhem, from pumpkins galore to haunt attractions from hell.
Here’s where you can stream them this week.
For more Stay Home, Watch Horror picks, click here.
Dark Harvest – MGM+, Prime Video
Director David Slade (30 Days of Night) and screenwriter Michael Gilio (Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves) adapt Norman Partridge’s 2006 Bram Stoker Award-winning novel Dark Harvest, unleashing Halloween carnage that upstages the barebones story. Every Halloween, the legendary Sawtooth Jack rises from the cornfields, where he must fight through a gauntlet of murderous teen boys, all eager to snuff him out lest he make his way to the town’s church by midnight. It’s kill or be killed, with the town awarding a hefty prize to the boy who takes out Sawtooth Jack to ensure the town’s survival. Dark Harvest combines folk horror with the slasher, unleashing a surprisingly gory bloodbath set on Halloween.
Haunt – Prime Video, Tubi
A college co-ed group looking for thrills and chills find themselves instead fighting for their lives when they enter a Halloween haunt in Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’ (Heretic, 65) Halloween slasher movie. The haunt and its masked killers are the main attractions in this visually inventive slasher. Gorgeous, crisp cinematography that highlights the production design and great killer masks that evoke retro Ben Cooper, Inc. style costumes elevate the simple setup of this straightforward holiday-themed affair. And Beck and Woods certainly don’t skimp on the gore when it comes to culling this unlucky herd one by one.
Hell Fest – Peacock
Gregory Plotkin’s Halloween slasher sees a masked killer using a Halloween scream park as his slaying grounds, committing murder in plain sight under the guise of Halloween fun. That’s bad news for the group of friends targeted by the psycho; the patrons think their terror is all part of the event. Hell Fest uses a requisite holiday pastime- the haunt attraction- as the center stage for this slasher that seeks to retool the definition of “Final Girl.” Plotkin delivers a no frills slasher without any meta layers, putting the Halloween revelry front and center. Hell Fest features costumes, props, and scare actors from Netherworld Haunted House, one of the nation’s largest haunts, for that added Halloween authenticity.
Satan’s Little Helper – SCREAMBOX
Jeff Lieberman’s (Squirm, Blue Sunshine, Just Before Dawn) cult horror comedy follows Dougie, a boy obsessed with a video game that has him playing as Satan’s helper. While out trick or treating, he comes across someone in costume arranging a dead body, assumes the costumed person is Satan, and asks Satan to send his sister’s boyfriend to Hell. He then becomes the unwitting pawn of a serial killer. Lieberman plays with slasher tropes using a dark, demented sense of humor that makes Dougie just as much of a maniac as the killer he idolizes.
Terrifier 2 – freevee, Hoopla, Prime Video, SCREAMBOX
Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) currently dominates both the box office and Christmas, with Terrifier 3 now in theaters, but this horror icon is synonymous with Halloween. No film dominated the zeitgeist in 2022 quite like Damien Leone’s megaslasher, Terrifier 2. The Halloween slasher sequel introduced an epic new final girl in Sienna (Lauren LaVera), expanding the lore and set pieces in the process, with gore aplenty and grisly deaths to match. Whether you’re in the mood for Halloween carnage or need to catch up before seeing Terrifier 3 in theaters, there’s no better season than now to watch Leone’s insanely ambitious Terrifier 2.
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