Summer is done, and spooky season is officially upon us, which means there’s plenty of creepy films and TV series coming to streaming services in October.
It’s not all skeletons, ghouls, murderers and machete-wielding lunatics coming to your television screen this month, of course – you’ll also find rugged horseback lawmen, AI superheros and supervillains, a tactical Chris Pratt and an action movie (incredibly loosely) based on Matchbox cars arriving on streaming services this month. So read on to find out all about them.
East of Eden
Zoe Kazan’s grandfather Elia directed the 1955 film of John Steinbeck’s Salinas Valley epic. Now she’s written a seven-part TV version that shifts the spotlight onto Cathy Ames (played here by Florence Pugh), a character most readers – and arguably Steinbeck – view as the novel’s villain. And while the California sunshine looks genuine enough, it’s actually filmed on New Zealand’s South Island. But purists needn’t worry: it’s clear the Trask brothers (Christopher Abbot and Mike Faist) are still circling one another in true Cain-and-Abel fashion.
S1 / Netflix, 1 Oct
Marshals: A Yellowstone Story
Every month seems to see the arrival or return of some Taylor Sheridan-spawned Yellowstone spin-off or other, and October is no exception. Season two of Kayce Dutton playing good cop resumes more or less where the last cliffhanger left off, with Montana’s crime rate as sky high as ever.
S2 / CBS/Paramount+, 4 Oct
Carrie
Mike Flanagan has adapted so much Stephen King by now that we’re surprised he’s taken so long to reach the great man’s debut novel. This is the first Carrie adaptation made for TV rather than cinema, and its modern-day high-school setting promises to bring social media and active shooter drills into the mix.
S1 / Prime Video, 7 Oct
Matchbox The Movie
After Masters of the Universe and Barbie, Mattel’s toy-to-film pipeline reaches a brand born in 1950s London. Sadly, pocket-sized die-cast cars barely feature – we may have to wait for the Hot Wheels movie (yes, it’s happening) for that. Instead, we have John Cena as a spy whose hometown visit goes catastrophically sideways.
Film / Apple TV, 9 Oct
VisionQuest
Marvel’s strangest TV trilogy – WandaVision, Agatha All Along and now this – reaches its close with the memory-scrambled White Vision attempting to establish who or what he actually is. Paul Bettany returns as the AI superhero, as does James Spader’s Ultron, this time turning up in human form inside Vision’s own head.
S1 / Disney+, 14 Oct
Crystal Lake
The first Friday the 13th TV show arrives – but sadly not on Friday the 13th. This A24-produced prequel is centred on Pamela Voorhees (Linda Cardellini) a year after her son Jason’s tragic accident, and promises to flesh out horror’s original grieving mother as a person rather than just another machete-wielding lunatic.
S1 / Peacock/Sky/Now, 15 Oct
The Terminal List
It’s been four years since the first season. Then again, James Reece did complete his list, so arguably he’d earned the lie-in. Season two trades domestic bloodshed for vengeance of the globetrotting kind, with a shredded Chris Pratt traipsing off to Africa, the Middle East and Europe for more tacticool posturing.
S2 / Prime Video, 21 Oct
Dexter: Resurrection
Michael C. Hall’s serial killer anti-hero just keeps going. He survived the original series, survived New Blood, survived his own resurrection, and now has to survive yet another new rival – or two, in fact. This second season sees Dexter facing off against the flashy Five Borough Killer alongside Brian Cox’s ageing New York Ripper
S2 / Paramount+, 30 Oct
Nocturne
Apple’s gritty crime drama sees Liev Schreiber’s soldier-turned-detective swap Philadelphia’s urban grind for some small-town serenity, only for a vicious murderer (Stephen Graham) to show up and shatter the calm. Meanwhile, Schreiber’s surrogate daughter (Zazie Beetz) goes undercover to delve into the killer’s past.
S1 / Apple TV, 30 Oct
