It’s tough keeping up with all the new movies being released on home video formats and in theaters, so each month I’ll do my best to compile a list of as many new and upcoming horror, thriller, and other genre films as I can. Release dates will, of course, be subject to change, and these lists will be updated as much as possible, but the goal here will be to keep some attention on these movies so they don’t get lost in the deluge of new movies that constantly pass us all by.
October 2019 Theatrical Releases
Wrinkles the Clown
October 4 (limited theatrical, VOD on the same date)
Interest: Moderate
This is supposedly a documentary on a real-life scary clown living in Florida, though some brief research on my part reveals that the legitimacy of the background to the story is questionable. Regardless, this could be an interesting and personal look at the scary clown phenomenon that spread throughout the internet a few years ago, even if it isn’t true.
Official Synopsis
In late 2014, a low-res video of a person in a clown mask emerging from underneath a sleeping child’s bed appears on YouTube. The description below the video claims that the clown is named “Wrinkles,” that he lives in southwest Florida, and that he’s been hired by the child’s parents to frighten her for misbehaving. The video goes viral. Soon, more mysterious videos of Wrinkles scaring children appear online, along with a phone number to hire him for “behavioral services.” Wrinkles becomes internet lore – a whole genre of YouTube videos of kids filming themselves calling him appears online, and over a million messages are left at the number. Voicemails range from disturbing to hilarious to terrifying: parents use the number to terrify their children, kids who are obsessive fans of creepy clowns reach out to make a new friend, children threaten to inflict wildly creative violence if he comes anywhere near them. But who is Wrinkles, and why is he doing this? With incredible access to the mastermind behind the mask, Wrinkles the Clown is a cryptic and playful exploration of these questions, as well as an inside look at myth-building and the unpredictable spread of imagination in the Internet age.
Interest: Moderate The Dead Center is produced and stars Shane Carruth (who wrote, directed, and produced Primer), so that has me interested. The trailer doesn’t show a whole lot, but that could be a good thing. I like creepy, psychological horror, so this might be pretty good.
Official Synopsis Troubled psychiatrist Daniel Forrester (Shane Carruth, Primer, Upstream Color) is drawn to help a mysterious patient who is brought to the emergency psych ward in a catatonic state with no memory of how he reached the hospital. As if to exorcise his own demons, the doctor feverishly tries to break through to his mysterious patient. But as a spate of mysterious deaths shake the ward to its core, Forrester comes to suspect that there is more to his new ward than meets the eye. As he comes to realise what he’s unleashed, a desperate race against the forces of evil threatens to swallow him whole.
Interest: High
I think Bong Joon-Ho is a filmmaking master (he did The Host and Snowpiercer among other great movies), so I’m definitely going to see this. It’s tough to tell exactly what’s going in in Parasite, but that’s a good thing. It definitely looks like it gets dark.
Official Synopsis Meet the Park Family: the picture of aspirational wealth. And the Kim Family, rich in street smarts but not much else. Be it chance or fate, these two houses are brought together and the Kims sense a golden opportunity. Masterminded by college-aged Ki-woo, the Kim children expediently install themselves as tutor and art therapist, to the Parks. Soon, a symbiotic relationship forms between the two families. The Kims provide “indispensable” luxury services while the Parks obliviously bankroll their entire household. When a parasitic interloper threatens the Kims’ newfound comfort, a savage, underhanded battle for dominance breaks out, threatening to destroy the fragile ecosystem between the Kims and the Parks.
Official Site:
Zombieland: Double Tap
October 18
Interest: Low
I wasn’t crazy about the first Zombieland, and I’m betting this one is more of the same. All four of the lead actors are back which is nice, and the additions to the cast look good, but this will definitely be towards the bottom of my list.
Official Synopsis
A decade after Zombieland became a hit film and a cult classic, the lead cast (Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Abigail Breslin, and Emma Stone) have reunited with director Ruben Fleischer (Venom) and the original writers Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick (Deadpool) for Zombieland: Double Tap. In the sequel, written by Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick and Dave Callaham, through comic mayhem that stretches from the White House and through the heartland, these four slayers must face off against the many new kinds of zombies that have evolved since the first movie, as well as some new human survivors. But most of all, they have to face the growing pains of their own snarky, makeshift family.
Interest: High
Written and directed by Robert Eggers (who previously wrote and directed The Witch from 2017), The Lighthouse looks like a psychological horror movie about isolation and madness. There looks to be a fair amount of black (and white) comedy as well, and possibly some Lovecraftian allusions. Plus, Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattison are probably amazing in this.
Official Synopsis
From Robert Eggers, the visionary filmmaker behind modern horror masterpiece The Witch, comes this hypnotic and hallucinatory tale of two lighthouse keepers on a remote and mysterious New England island in the 1890s.
Interest: Low I first saw a shorter version of the trailer for Countdown in a theater, and I 100% thought it was a parody trailer trying to tell everyone to turn off their cell phones. I had to look it up online to make sure it’s a real movie, and I’m still not completely convinced. This does not look interesting to me, but since it is a horror movie I might end up seeing it anyway.
