Is God Is directed by Alesha Harris
I always get nostalgic around this time of year. I’m reminded of walking through the pumpkin patches at the arboretum, being terrorized by costumed teenagers while trick-or-treating, and movie marathons on Cartoon Network. While Halloween is my favorite holiday and I love all that “spooky season” entails, I use this time of year as an excuse to discover and revisit movies that remind me of those experiences.
I recently watched Alesha Harris’ Is God Is, a Southern Gothic revenge thriller that was released earlier this year. The movie follows twin sisters, Anaia and Racine, as they search for their father after reconnecting with their mother, whom they refer to as “God.” She gives them simple instructions to “make [their] daddy dead. Real dead.” Throughout the film, they encounter people who have interacted with their father, including his ex-wife and son, and his former defense attorney…There is also a lot of murder.
It is not the kind of film you would necessarily associate with fall, October, or Halloween. The majority of the scenes take place in broad daylight; there are no autumn-specific seasonal indicators, and it’s not even particularly scary. However, while I watched the movie, it invoked those same feelings of nostalgia— I would also argue that Southern Gothic media inherently feels like fall. Is God Is is about revenge and murder, but it’s also about sisterhood and embracing and overcoming your past. It is oddly a feel-good movie and, in my opinion, a great way to enjoy the season.
Chosen by Jamari Bass
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
If you gather two of your closest friends, grab a cauldron, and throw in some eye of newt, a dragon scale, along with a few other household items, you too can set up the downfall of your enemies. William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is the perfect play for this spooky time of year.
I first read the play as a sophomore in high school, during the month of October. It was the start of the season of the witch and the beginning of my interest in early modern literature. Shakespeare wrote the play to warn against political uprising after the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and as a way to appeal to interest in the supernatural. Witches weren’t the end of Shakespeare’s terrifying tale. An ambitious woman brought down by the weight of her consciousness, Lady Macbeth slowly descends into madness over the course of the play before meeting her demise off stage. The tragic hero of Macbeth is haunted by not only witches and ghosts, but the consequences of his actions, specifically regicide. What could be scarier than a man in power with an unchecked ego?
Besides the witty one liners — such as, “what, you egg?” — the play also offers plenty of costume inspiration. If witches and murderous tyrants aren’t your thing, you could always dress up as the ghost of your (ex)best friend, a forest moving on its own, or one of the two princes who have a knack for running away when trouble arises. And speaking of trouble, the iconic witches’ line, “Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble,” also comes from this infamous Scottish play.
Beware of saying the name of the play in a theatre though, something wicked may come this way.
Chosen by Allison Blair
Dracula Daily and Re:Dracula
Dracula is one of the books that always makes my heart race. Vampires are a cultural touchstone this time of year, from Twilight to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I often come back to Dracula. I first read the book via email, after Dracula Daily went viral. Dracula Daily is a free Substack that takes full advantage of the epistolary nature of Dracula: you get emailed the novel in “real time” as it happens to the characters, from May to November. I read the novel piece by piece on the train on my way to class from spring to fall, along with some of my friends and a surprisingly large portion of the internet.
The success of Dracula Daily led to the audio drama Re:Dracula, a podcast that uses the same chronological format in fiction podcast format. The sound design is immaculate, and the cast is stacked with horror audio drama fan favorites like Jonathan Sims (creator and actor of The Magnus Archives).
Neither Dracula Daily nor Re:Dracula sticks to the order that Bram Stoker set out for the events in the book. Yet the titular villain remains a hypnotic, monstrous, and curiously compelling predator. Although the text has been reimagined and rearranged over the course of more than 120 years, the core of Dracula is very hard to kill. The scariest thing in the world may very well be the kind of man who uses his wealth, power, and privilege to violate those with the misfortune to be nearby.
Chosen by Riona Duncan
Over the Garden Wall created by Patrick McHale
I do not like winter. I’d rather be photosynthesizing in the grass than curled up under a blanket, and to me, the beauty of autumn is just the summer’s swan song–a harbinger of the oppressive months to come. When I feel like Earth’s revolution is leaving me behind, a seasonal piece of media can be a good antidote, reconnecting me to the present. For fall, my favorite show is Over the Garden Wall. It’s a cartoon, ostensibly for children–yet underneath its nonsensical humor and whimsy is a surprisingly potent coming of age tale.
Over the Garden Wall follows the story of Wirt and his younger brother Greg, who mysteriously find themselves in “the Unknown,” a forest full of talking animals, haunted pumpkin-people, magic, and adventure. Wirt is like me–anxious, indecisive, self-conscious. Greg is uninhibited, silly, more open to risk. Watching them navigate through this haunted landscape is like watching my two remaining brain cells try to make it through each day–ego and id at a constant tug of war (largely at the expense of my executive function). The show is complex and nonlinear in its storytelling, and the setting and plot are as disorienting as this time of year feels to me– somehow a liminal state between life and death, between memories of summer and the looming, unknown darkness of winter.
Can we claim Over the Garden Wall as a comfort show? I don’t know–it’s not particularly “comforting.” But it is relatable, and it treats the loss of childhood innocence with a wry sense of humor that eases the discomfort of change. As the sun sets earlier each day and the cold, grey winter looms, Over the Garden Wall reminds me to find wonder and enchantment in the rhythm of the seasons.
Chosen by Alexander Johnson
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
With all of the fuss around Narnia’s famous lion deity (merci, Ms. Gerwig) I imagine that a glance is finally due at Aslan’s malevolent counterpart. The series’ fourth entry, The Horse and His Boy, introduces Tash—dark lord over the southern desert country, the physical form of whom is left to the imagination. After this novel, Tash does not reappear until The Last Battle, when Narnia experiences its Revelation story and the realm is remade. It is here that Tash is finally given physical form, taking on the body of a frightening avian hybrid, with a “cruel” beak and “four arms…held high above its head…as if it wanted to snatch all Narnia in its grip.”
For a children’s book, C.S. Lewis certainly strays towards modern body-horror practice. As in the aforementioned quote, he plays on the physicality of gender, exchanging male form for something more convoluted—something not immediately visible to a spellbound observer, vis à vis the blunt pronoun “it.” This is, of course, in direct contrast to Aslan, whose male form is only amplified by his animal qualities. Take his mane, for one obvious example. There is an implied dichotomy between body as pride and body as shame, between showing off and hiding. The cult of “Tashlan” is meant to be ridiculous—such a concept would break the rules of creation, parallel to that old, perverse sardonicism “can God create a stone too heavy for Him to lift?” Of course He can’t. If God—or Aslan—is in fact one and the same with the rules of creation, rather than just the creator, exceptions cannot exist. We might catalogue their existence, hypothetically, as “horror.” Happy Halloween.
Chosen by Stephen Makin
Blood on the Tracks by Shūzō Oshimi
When I think of horror, what immediately comes to mind is the blatant and obvious—werewolves with strings of sinew hanging off their teeth, vampires with their fangs poised over the carotid artery, masked men wielding chainsaws or bloody knives. But that kind of horror is comprehensible—easy to understand and fun to watch.
No. The horror that interests me—or rather, scares me—the most is the horror found in the mundane: the hand of a lover pressed a bit too hard into the small of someone’s back, the judge who doesn’t think twice before cleaving a family in two, the person who claims their possessiveness is simply an extension of their love. Blood on the Tracks, a manga written by Shūzō Oshimi and published by Shogakukan Inc., captures this horror so well.
We follow the story of Seiichi Osabe, a young, shy middle-school boy who has an overprotective mother, and whose life gets unraveled when the mother’s facade shatters on a family trip. After pushing Seiichi’s cousin to his potential death off a cliff in retaliation for teasing him, the mother’s carefully crafted persona shatters. Seiichi finally sees his mother for what she is, and she does everything in her power to reclaim her title as the mother who only wants what’s best for him.
It’s an affair that’s deeply unsettling yet somehow impossible to look away from. But at the time I read this manga (around high school), I, sadly, blamed Seiichi for not being strong enough to resist his mother’s attempts to pull him back into her grip. Now that I’m older, I realize that Seiichi was just a boy—a young, helpless boy who only knew what he grew up with for, at that point, virtually his entire life. Asking him to give up his mother is an impossible ask.
Therein lies the deeper horror: everyday there are people who are powerless to escape their situation, either because they are too young or don’t have the capital or connections to do so. And every day, there’s people on the outside looking in who don’t understand the impossibility of their statement when they ask, “Why don’t you just leave?” Too often we attribute inability to escape as a character flaw—a weakness that can be overcome by just “trying hard enough.”
Sometimes trying isn’t enough. Sometimes those who are trapped simply get swallowed whole, never to be seen or thought of again by the people who feigned concern by asking, “Why don’t you just leave?”
Chosen by Saty Mukherjee
Halloween directed by John Carpenter
One quintessential piece of American horror is the 1978 film Halloween, directed by John Carpenter. It is the first depiction of Michael Myers, one of the most iconic villains in movie history. While it can feel somewhat dated to watch now, this film helped pioneer the slasher genre, alongside others like Psycho (1960) and Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974).
Many of the most common tropes used in horror movies today were first used in Halloween, including first-person perspective shots of the killer and assigning a unique score to the villain. The score is one of the best parts of the movie and has become iconic in its own right among horror fans. It is, in large part, why the film works so well. The eerie sound of the piano and the irregular 5/4 time signature create an air of suspense that holds the viewer on edge throughout the whole movie.
Halloween is also more thematically complex than you might expect from a slasher movie. It explores many uniquely American themes such as the (lack of) parental responsibility and white flight into suburban communities through the setting and cast of characters. It turns the idea of the safe, picturesque suburb on its head and shatters the illusion of the white picket fence that was all-encompassing in the 1970s. In a broader sense, it tackles the idea of an ever-present evil that can’t ever be fully stopped.
Michael Myers is unkillable; that’s a big part of what makes him an effective villain. The protagonists can only slow him down, yet they still persevere in the face of an unstoppable threat. Despite its datedness, Halloween is still a movie I’d highly recommend watching.
Chosen by Elliot Polikowski
1999 by Camden Lamont
From folklore whispered around firesides to urban legends spread over generations and across great distances, we have been telling tales of ghouls and monsters for years. As times have changed, so have the ways we tell those stories. In the early 2000s, the first online generation saw the rise of the “creepypasta,” a mix between “copypasta,” or something copied and pasted repeatedly across forums, and, well, something creepy. These stories spread across internet platforms like Reddit, Facebook, and YouTube, where they were often turned into narration-style videos accompanied by unsettling sound effects and a single disturbing image.
The creepypasta 1999, which first appeared on the now-defunct blog Slack LaLane in 2009, and was written by Camden Lamont, is one that has stuck with me for a while. The story follows Elliot, a grown man who looks back on a strange part of his childhood in 1999, when he remembers the mysterious Canadian public-access television station called Caledon Local 21. What begins as an innocent fascination with the station’s strange children’s programming, particularly a show called Mr. Bear’s Cellar, slowly becomes something much more disturbing. As Elliot begins looking further into the station, the story becomes less about what he remembers, and more about what he might have uncovered.
What makes 1999 so unsettling is the way it exists outside of the usual boundaries of storytelling. There is no publisher, studio, or production company packaging the story as a finished product. It simply appeared online, where it could be read, narrated, discussed, and pasted again and again. 1999 is written as a series of blog entries, making its fictional world feel strangely embedded in the same internet where the story is being read. The questions it leaves behind never have to be answered, the interactions with the audience are entirely fake, and the more Elliot tries to understand what he found, the more unsettling it becomes. It captures something uniquely frightening about the early internet: the idea that there was always something strange waiting to be found in a place where anyone could post anything. And every time I return to it, I find myself thinking the same thing as Elliot: “You can find a lot of terrible things on the internet, but I had never seen anything like this.”
Chosen by Hailey Price
Mad God created by Phil Tippett
I have absolutely no idea what possessed me to watch Mad God while eating, but I can confidently say I won’t make that mistake again.
I first found Mad God through a Fallout New Vegas game theory video on YouTube that used clips from the film as filler visuals, and I was immediately intrigued. I already love stop-motion and horror, so the combination felt like it was made specifically for me. Did I completely cover my eyes at points? Yes. Did the stop-motion body horror freak me out way more than I ever thought clay could? Also yes. But I was hooked.
Mad God is a dialogue-less, apocalyptic journey following a nameless Assassin through a world of monsters, violence, grime, and surreal industrial nightmares. It doesn’t really explain what any of it means. Instead, it feels like a glimpse into someone else’s twisted nightmare, making you sit with the images and experimental sounds and decide what they mean. That is part of what I love about horror as an art form. It can take something difficult to put into words—fear, disgust, anxiety, the feeling that something is deeply wrong—and turn it into something physical.
But hearing creator Phil Tippett talk about making Mad God in interviews makes the film even more profound to me, and I highly recommend reading his interviews on the film. He spent over thirty years building its creatures and environments from models, scraps, and objects he had collected through a process called “kit bashing.” He describes the project as something that almost consumed him, adding, “My unconscious guides me, and a lot of times, I don’t know what I’m doing until it strikes me.” There’s something unsettling about how much of himself he poured into this gruesome world. Maybe that is why Mad God feels less like a movie and more like being trapped inside someone else’s unconscious. It is weird, creepy, detailed, disgusting, and beautiful all at once, and I think that is what horror can be at its best.
Chosen by Violet Shields
In the Company of Witches by Auralee Wallace
I don’t understand why some would willingly want to be scared. My entire life I’ve avoided any media that had any synonyms of “scary” attached to it. Thus, October is my worst nightmare. The janky animatronics in the local Spirit Halloween with their delayed jump scares make me terrified. Rated-R movie trailers make my heart stop.
For those similarly afflicted, who would rather ingest content labeled as “cozy” rather than “scary,” I recommend the novel In the Company of Witches, by Auralee Wallace. This book is witchy, cozy, and a murder mystery, perfect for Halloween. People call this book “Gilmore Girls” meets “Practical Magic” taking place in a cozy New England town, with a quirky family living under one roof. We follow Brynn Warren as she tries to prove that a death that takes place in her family’s Inn wasn’t her Aunt Nora’s fault. Follow along as Brynn both tries to recover her magic and find out who killed Constance Graves.
This whimsical fall read is perfect for people who don’t want any horror this Halloween, and I fully recommend this book. No need to worry about jump scares in this one!
Chosen by Casandra Skebeck
Goth: A History by Lol Tolhurst
Ahh, October. Ghost stories, leaves falling off the trees, and swapping the public park for the cemetery. An entire month where the unsettling thrives and gets the attention it deserves. In a time where being alternative doesn’t necessarily make you an outcast, I think it’s important to pay homage to those who came before us, those who helped create a subculture that will be misunderstood for years to come. In its most basic form, Goth is a subculture whose foundation is half-music, half-morals, and a whisper of black get-up, so who better than Lol Tolhurst, co-founder of The Cure to write a book called Goth: A History.
Published in 2025, Tolhurst touches upon early whispers of what it meant to be goth as well as more modern groundwork like the importance of goth music, notably his own band. In preparation for a month full of ominous aesthetics, I intend to read this book as a way to get more acquainted with a subculture whose members feel that their identities are being warped by posers and stereotypes. Touching on this theme slightly, Tolhurst writes, “It’s more of a philosophy in a way of being, a way of approaching the world. And I think that ensures its longevity. It’s malleable, but its sort of basic premise is always the same,” the premise being strong support of progressive movements, inclusivity, and an interest in goth music.
Chosen by Morgan Tarr
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
When I was little, I was convinced I’d never get over my phobia of blood and gore. Most kids my age were scared of more “normal” things. Ghosts, for instance, seemed considerably more plausible than a monster living under one’s bed. Thankfully though, I gradually became desensitized and started to see the predictability of horror movie plots, and along with that developed a keen interest in psychological thrillers.
I wasn’t familiar with gothic horror, but my friends had raved about The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, saying it was the best book of all time. By the time I got around to it myself, the timing couldn’t have been more ironic. I had just returned from a difficult year overseas that felt like it took away a good five years of my lifespan, and a few of the people I knew back home had changed too. I could no longer confidently say that I really knew them as I began to see addiction take hold.
Addiction can make people largely unaware of the effect their actions have on those closest to them, and Dorian’s portrait transforming throughout the novel reminded me of the way addiction can create a disconnect between someone’s sense of self and the world around them. Lord Henry is reminiscent of the devil on one’s shoulder, which becomes apparent in his philosophy that if you resist temptation, “…your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden itself”. Wilde’s prose is captivating, and the story leaves an ambiguous, unsettling feeling characteristic of the genre. He cleverly paints a picture of the struggles people may face when confronted with the demons in their own minds, which I realized are far more disturbing than any of the ones I grew up hearing about in legends.
Chosen by Isabel Weaver
