Haunt Your Own House II: The Shriekquel! 31 MORE Spine-Chilling Movie and Short Story Pairings for Another Eerie October
I’m baa-aack!
A single October wasn’t nearly enough time to fit in all the chills and thrills that you, my fellow horror lovers, deserve, so I have returned from the proverbial grave that I crawl into the other eleven months of the year to deliver you this SHRIEKQUEL! Like last year, I have curated delightful daily duos of horror movies and contemporary speculative fiction to satisfy your curs’d thirst every day in October! This year, buckle in for a month full of werewolves, creepy creatures, doppelgängers, evil androids, killers, witches, and a bit of bad romance before closing out the month with another classic horror comedy musical!
Though I still couldn’t fit in every movie or story I wanted to here, I hope you are inspired to not only revisit familiar favorites, but to find something new and thrilling to love! A final note: I did not include content warnings here, since everyone has different triggers, but I recommend you check Does The Dog Die and/or Unconsenting Media before watching if you have specific concerns, since horror can be an especially intense genre. Happy haunting!
WEREWOLVES
OMG, is that a full moon outside, or are you just happy to see me??? (Not unless you’re reading this on October 17, but play along!) These werewolf stories explore the monsters slinking just beneath our skins, whether the transformations represent burgeoning adolescence, a mysterious enemy, or the evil that resides within all of us.
Day 1
Film: Ginger Snaps (2001) Dir. John Fawcett
Short Story: Help Me Follow My Sister Into the Land of the Dead by Carmen Maria Machado
Published in Lightspeed
Start the month with two tales of spooky sisters! Cult Canadian classic Ginger Snaps explores the growing rift between goth siblings as the older girl, Ginger, is bitten by a werewolf on the night she gets her period, and Brigitte is left trying in vain to bring back the sister she knew as Ginger blazes a path of sex and violence through their suburb. Pair it with Carmen Maria Machado’s “Help Me Follow My Sister Into the Land of the Dead,” which tells another grim story of sisterly connection through a bleak Kickstarter campaign.
Day 2
Film: Werewolves Within (2021) Dir. Josh Ruben
Short Story: My Best Friends Ranked by the Amount of Blood I’ll Donate to Save Their Lives by Mayur Chauhan
Published on Medium
Let’s get silly! Werewolves Within is a supernatural whodunit in which the residents of a small town barricade themselves in a lodge to protect themselves from a werewolf, only to find that the real monsters might be the friends you made along the way. Pair it with Mayur Chauhan’s “My Best Friends Ranked by the Amount of Blood I’ll Donate to Save Their Lives,” a fun, dark read!
Day 3
Film: Cursed (2005) Dir. Wes Craven
Short Story: You Were Once Wild Here by Carlie St. George
Published in The Dark
More were-siblings! Though Cursed was studio-notes’d into a sanitized, CGI-heavy PG-13 caper, much to the chagrin of legendary horror director Wes Craven, it’s still a fun romp through Los Angeles, and it stars a young Jesse Eisenberg (!), Milo Ventimiglia (!), Christina Ricci (!!!), and Judy Greer (!!!), so you really can’t go wrong! Pair with Carlie St. George’s “You Were Once Wild Here,” a sharp, poignant story of queer teen longing as told by the daughter of a pair of monster hunters after her best friend’s body is discovered clawed apart beneath a full moon.
Day 4
Film: Dog Soldiers (2002) Dir. Neil Marshall
Short Story: Hunt by A.D. Sai
Published in Apparition Lit
Despite having a somewhat convoluted plot, Dog Soldiers, which follows a squad of British soldiers trying to survive a horde of bloodthirsty werewolves in the Scottish Highlands, boasts some surprisingly good effects, gorgeous scenery, and amazing acting performances. For the flipside of this tale, read A.D. Sai’s “Hunt,” in which a woman killed by a soldier is granted a second life as a vengeful creature of the forest.
Day 5
Film: The Wolf House (2018) Dir. Cristóbál León & Joaquín Cociña
Short Story: If you were red riding hood by Hannah Grieco
Published in Fairy Tale Review
The Wolf House is one of the strangest and most singular films I’ve ever seen, exploring themes like motherhood, power, colonization, and white supremacy in an uncanny fairytale, combining stop-motion murals, structures, and figurines to tell the story of a woman creating children out of pigs as she hides from the wolf that looms outside her cottage door. Pair that with Hannah Grieco’s prose poem “If you were red riding hood,” a queer reimagining of a classic fairytale.
CREATURE FEATURES
Though creature features have historically been the stuff of high camp B-movies (think The Blob or The Creature from the Black Lagoon), many of the movies below employ monsters as stand-ins for some of the horrors of living in our real world, such as the violence faced by Indigenous women, the pain of raising a child as a widowed parent, or the brutality lurking within families.'
Day 6
Film: The Host (2006) Dir. Bong Joon-Ho
Short Story: Whale Fall by J.L. Akagi
Published in Strange Horizons
Fish Fear Me, You Need Me by Tiffany Xue
Published in Clarkesworld
Though The Host contains all the elements of a classic creature feature, it is also the story of a dysfunctional family rocked by a major trauma, the story of a government that lies to and abandons its citizens, and the story of an avoidable environmental catastrophe wrought, in part, by an interfering white military presence. Pair it with either J.L. Akagi’s “Whale Fall,” the story of two scavengers picking over the corpse of a creature that has fallen out of the New York City sky, or Tiffany Xue’s “Fish Fear Me, You Need Me,” another story of mutated aquatic animals. (Or better yet, read both!)
Day 7
Film: Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) Dir. Guillermo Del Toro
Short Story: The Magic Bangle by Shastri Akella
Published in Fairy Tale Review
The world of Pan’s Labyrinth is at once abundant and austere, lusciously fantastical and brutally realistic. The film enmeshes a fairytale about a princess so loved by her father that he builds countless labyrinths to aid her eventual return to him, and the story of a young girl living in the home of her cruel stepfather, a Civil Guard officer in Spain in the mid-1940s. Pair it with Shastri Akella’s “The Magic Bangle,” another story about a young person seeking to escape paternal violence.
Day 8
Film: Bearwalker (2000) Dir. Shirley Cheechoo
Short Story: The One You Feed by Dennis E. Staples
Published in Nightmare
Shirley Cheechoo’s Bearwalker explores the sexual, physical, and emotional violence experienced by a Cree woman, Ella Lee, at the hands of her husband, her white former boss, and the police over the course of a few short days, and the justice sought by her and her sisters in the aftermath of these violations. Follow it with Dennis E. Staples’ “The One You Feed,” which also centers the exploitation experienced by Native American women, in which an Ojibwe woman releases the wolves living in her heart as she seeks justice for another woman’s murder.
Day 9
Film: The Babadook (2014) Dir. Jennifer Kent
Short Story: Mother’s Day, After Everything by Susan Palwick
Published in Lightspeed
Though the Babadook themself is now a #GayIcon, this film is, at its core, a visceral exploration of the exhaustion, uncertainty, and terror of being the widowed parent to a young child, and the way that the trauma experienced by both mother and child can ripple violently through their relationship. For a different reflection on motherhood, read Susan Palwick’s “Mother’s Day, After Everything,” which shows us a vision of a post-apocalyptic world in which everyone is sterile and the last biological mothers are dying out.
Day 10
Film: The Thing (1982) Dir. John Carpenter
Short Story: Pests by Blue Guldal
Published in Occulum
John Carpenter’s The Thing is a classic for a reason! Part alien movie, part psychological thriller, The Thing follows a small group of isolated Antarctic researchers as they are picked off by a creature that is able to masquerade as anyone at their research station, and former friends and colleagues quickly turn paranoid as they begin to suspect everyone of being a monster in disguise. Pair this with Blue Guldal’s “Pests,” a very different kind of extraterrestrial story!
DOUBLE TROUBLE
“Twist me, and turn me, and show me the elf! I looked in the water and saw…myself!” What is scarier than being confronted by someone who is just like you, but, somehow, wrong? The films in this section explore unsettling twins, violent doppelgängers, and the shadows of lives not lived.
Day 11
Film: Us (2019) Dir. Jordan Peele
Short Story: The Perils of Mimicry by Erin Rockfort
Published in Baffling Magazine
Though Us is not as tight, script-wise, as Get Out or Nope, it is still an incredibly acted, allusion-rich, and genuinely frightening film, and it is definitely worth a watch! Spooky twins? Horrifying doppelgängers? A strange and creepy modern dance number at the peak of the action? This movie has it all! (Plus, many scenes take place at the Santa Cruz pier, which, as a former banana slug, I always appreciate!) Pair it with Erin Rockfort’s “The Perils of Mimicry,” which is narrated by the thing that has replaced a woman and overtaken her life.
Day 12
Film: Dead Ringers (1988) Dir. David Cronenberg
Short Story: Dead Ringer by Ali Householder
Published in Strange Horizons
Dead Ringers begins with two identical twin boys casually propositioning their girl neighbor for sex (in the name of science, of course), and it only gets stranger from there. This erotic psychological thriller follows the twins, Elliot and Beverly, as they become gynecologists, sharing awards, a home, and sexual partners until Elliot’s infatuation with an actress rends their lives in different directions. Pair with Ali Householders “Dead Ringer,” which begins with a woman staring at a strange facsimile of herself in her childhood bedroom, and which also explores complicated sibling dynamics.
Day 13
Film: The Night House (2021) Dir. David Bruckner
Short Story: Fawning by Audacia Ray
Published in Necessary Fiction
The Night House starts out as a painful examination of a woman’s grief in the weeks following her husband’s death by suicide, which is soon complicated by her discovery of a strange house across the lake that seems to be a mirror image of her own, and the dawning realization that her husband may have been harboring a hidden violence. Pair this with Audacia Ray’s “Fawning,” which also explores the cruelty simmering beneath the surface of an intimate relationship.
Day 14
Film: I Saw the TV Glow (2024) Dir. Jane Schoenberg
Short Story: Quiet and Fragile Try on the Same Romper by Brandon O’Brien
Published in Uncanny Magazine
When your grieving anthem becomes your transitioning anthem by S.G Huerta
Published in Engendered Lit
One of my favorite things about horror is its ability to invoke real emotions by turning up the dial on everyday situations or traumas, and I Saw the TV Glow is a stunning example, combining uncanny camp and gorgeously shot horror sequences to explore the deep pain of living in a world so cruel to trans people that many people choose to bury their truest selves rather than confront what it might mean to live in the world as the person they were meant to be. Take your pick of beautiful trans poems to pair with this film: S.G. Huerta’s “When your grieving anthem becomes your transitioning anthem,” which begins “If it wasn’t for the changes,/ I would probably die/ before anyone saw me” or Brandon O’Brien’s “Quiet and Fragile Try on the Same Romper,” in which two women breathe for the first time in outfits they may never wear in public.
TECHNOLOGY
Hide your Alexa, the robot uprising is nigh! New things are scary, and new tech doubly so since most of us don’t understand it (which is abundantly clear based on some of these films)! Whether the near future holds creepy little androids designed to raise our children for us, weekly visits to our local moonbase, or beautiful human/car babies, these films will leave us well prepared.
Day 15
Film: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Dir. Stanley Kubrick
Short Story: The Quality of Mercy is Not Strain’d by Archita Mittra
Published in Lightspeed Magazine
2001 is a film that takes its time; it patiently escorts its audience across time and space, firmly modeling a “show-not-tell” style, with full scenes accompanied only by the screeches of early humans, the shallow breath of a wayward astronaut, or the beeping of a deranged computer. Pair this with another story that imagines the banal evil that exists in the far future, Archita Mittra’s “The Quality of Mercy is Not Strain’d.”
Day 16
Film: Black Box (2020) Dir. Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour
Short Story: The Last Lucid Day by Dominique Dickey
Published in Lightspeed Magazine
Black Box, not unlike I Saw the TV Glow, asks the question, what if, when you look inside yourself, you find something you aren’t ready to see? Whereas IStTVG is an allegory for transness, however, Black Box is a deep look at memory, parenthood, and the lengths a parent might go to avoid losing a child. Pair it with Dominique Dickey’s “The Last Lucid Day,” which also explores a complicated relationship with a father who is losing his memory.
Day 17
Film: M3GAN (2022) Dir. Gerard Johnstone
Short Story: Fairy Tales for Robots by Sofia Samatar
Published in Lightspeed
M3GAN is truly a delightfully ridiculous movie! You’ve got an aunt doing a laughably bad job caring for her newly orphaned niece, the worst social worker on the planet, and, of course, best of all, a creepy, Sia-singing, forest-scurrying, TikTok-dancing android pulled straight from the depths of the uncanny valley! After watching a movie about an evil android raising a child, read Sofia Samatar’s “Fairy Tales for Robots,” which reimagines classic tales as a young robot’s bedtime stories.
Day 18
Film: Night Raiders (2021) Dir. Danis Goulet
Short Story: Those Who Remember the World by Ben Berman Ghan
Published in Clarkesworld
Night Raiders explores and reimagines settler colonialism and Indigenous resistance in the near future as a Cree woman teams up with a group of scouts and hackers to rescue her own daughter, as well as the other Cree children who have been kidnapped to be brainwashed in a national military school. For another story set in a hyper-surveilled dystopian future–and the people who resist it–read Ben Berman Ghan’s novelette “Those Who Remember the World.”
Day 19
Film: Titane (2021) Dir. Julia Ducournau
Short Story: The Jukebox Man by Natalia Theodoridou
Published in Apex Magazine
Come for the car-f*cking and stay for the grisly murders! Titane is a high-octane study of body horror, fathers, Daddies, masculinity, and homoeroticism, all drenched in oil and blood. Pair it with Natalia Theodoridou’s “The Jukebox Man,” about a woman who enters a relationship with a man who is (could you guess??) part jukebox!
KILLERS
Is this section like my Slashers section from last year? Yes. BUT! Though a couple of these killers fall into classic slasher territory, committing acts of vengeance behind a campy facade, some of these stories are different in key ways! Patrick Bateman, for instance, is no masked mystery man, but an openly violent boss baby about town, and the killer in Sissy is never hidden from the audience or from their victims.
Day 20
Film: Knife + Heart (2018) Dir. Yann Gonzalez
Short Story: A Demon Dates in New York City by Jared Povanda
Published in Baffling Magazine
Knife + Heart is a graphic, erotic, and bizarre exploration of violence within queer communities and relationships. Though the more classic horror plot of the film revolves around the gruesome murders of young queer actors working for a gay porn studio in Paris in the late 70’s, there is a parallel plot following the intimate abuse perpetrated by one of the studio’s producers, Anne, against her ex-girlfriend Löis. Wash this down with Jared Povanda’s “A Demon Dates in New York City,” a more tender look at queer love through the eyes of a gay demon missing a former lover while dating a new one.
Day 21
Film: American Psycho (2000) Dir. Mary Harron
Short Story: A Short Guide to the City by Peter Straub
Published in Nightmare
American Psycho deftly blurs the lines between money, power, sex, and violence to reveal that, though its eponymous psycho Patrick Bateman may be the stuff of nightmares, the true villain is the capitalist hellscape in which he and his colleagues are allowed to brutalize other people without consequence. Pair this classic film with Peter Straub’s “A Short Guide to the City,” another story about a community refusing to acknowledge the brutality it harbors.
Day 22
Film: Sissy (2022) Dir. Hannah Barlow
Short Story: Wolves and Witches and Bears by Alison Littlewood
Published in Nightmare
Sissy opens with a young wellness influencer (the eponymous Cecilia) whose relatively stable life is upended after she reconnects with a childhood friend who is about to be (gay!) married, and it becomes a heightened examination of codependent friendships, social media, and trauma. (Plus, being set in Australia, there are kangaroos! Though, fair warning, they aren’t all in…the best shape.) Pair it with Alison Littlewoods “Wolves and Witches and Bears,” which, like Sissy, involves hiking and a complicated relationship.
Day 23
Film: Death Drop Gorgeous (2020) Dir. Michael J. Ahren, Christopher Dalpe, & Brandon Perras-Sanchez
Slay (2024) Dir. Jem Garrard
Short Story: Dirk Hardbody, Drag Lumberjack by Alexandra Weiss
Published in Penumbra
Death Drop Gorgeous, about the patrons of a small drag bar being murdered by a mysterious killer, is so campy, wacky, and low-budget that it manages to be charming! (There is a queen named Gloria Hole and a key scene involves a statue of baby Jesus!) And, just for you (!), I threw in an extra drag horror comedy: Slay, which is like if Buffy the Vampire Slayer had a Priscilla, Queen of the Desert episode, and which stars some of my favorite queens! (Heidi N Closet rom-com WHEN???) Pair these with one more speculative drag story, Alexandra Weiss’ “Dirk Hardbody, Drag Lumberjack.”
WITCHES
Something wicked this way comes! Regardless of your tolerance for frights and gore, there is a witch movie here for you! From the heartwarming animated classic Kiki’s Delivery Service to the gritty German halls of Suspiria, you are guaranteed to find a enchanting and bewitching movie on this list!
Day 24
Film: Suspiria (2018) Dir. Luca Guadigino
Short Story: Also, the Cat by Rachel Swirsky
Published in Reactor Mag
Luca Guadigino’s 2018 remake of Suspiria is filled with blue-tinged shots of brutalist Berlin architecture contrasted against the red, fluid bodies of the women of the Markos Dance Academy as their violent, graceful movements invoke an ancient, feminine power. Surreal, gorey, and lushly shot, Suspiria leaves its viewers gasping for air. Pair it with Rachel Swirsky’s “Also, the Cat,” which, like the film, explores the boundaries of women’s mortality.
Day 25
Film: Hocus Pocus (1993) Dir. Kenny Ortega
Practical Magic (1998) Dir. Griffin Dunne
Short Story: Three Deaths, One Grave by Hanna A. Nirav
Published in Baffling Magazine
It’s a Family Movie Friday double feature! Start with Hocus Pocus, the campy Disney classic about the Sanderson sisters, a trio of witches (played by Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy!) who have returned from beyond to grave to juice children for their sweet, sweet youth! Then, after the littler kids have gone to sleep, watch Practical Magic, another tale of witchy sisters, but one in which (!) it is the witches who are forced to reckon with abusive men, bigoted townspeople, and generational trauma. Finally, close out the night by reading Hanna A Nirav’s “Three Deaths, One Grave,” which like Sally’s arc in Practical Magic, is about the grief of losing a partner.
Day 26
Film: Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989) Dir. Hayao Miyazaki
Short Story: A Spell Forgotten by P.H. Low
Published in Baffling Magazine
Animated classic Kiki’s Delivery Service is the wholesome coming-of-age tale of a young witch who needs to regain her self confidence in order to access her powers. Pair it with P.H. Low’s “A Spell Forgotten,” another story of a person who has lost their spark.
Day 27
Film: The Love Witch (2016) Dir. Anna Biller
Short Story: Sundays by Emma Copley Eisenberg
Published in Electric Lit
The Love Witch’s title character is a strange and spacey young witch whose paramours keep ending up dead as she earnestly looks for love in all the wrong places. The film is an interesting exploration of gendered expectations, and it also manages to capture the look and feel of 1960s Technicolor films while remaining delightfully removed from time, with characters dressing like extras in a Columbo episode while picking up cellphones. Pair it with Emma Copley Eisenberg’s “Sundays,” about a queer, polyamorous woman allowing herself to want too much.
BAD ROMANCE
These are some of the most beautiful and poignant movies on this list, and, though they may not all end happily ever after, these stories are true testaments to the complicated, messy, and beautiful intimacy of romantic love. (Except Audition, which will make you never want to date again.)
Day 28
Film: Bones and All (2022) Dir. Luca Guadigino
Short Story: Finger by K-Ming Chang
Published in Wigleaf
Ah, to be a young cannibal in love! Bones and All is a beautiful and bloody film about a newly abandoned 18-year-old girl grappling with the dark hungers she has been harboring for her whole life, and, though the main romantic relationship is between her and a young man she meets on the road, the film feels very queer, as the two young lovers seek desperately for a place where they can feel safe together, and belong. Pair it with K-Ming Chang’s “Finger,” about a group of desperate girls trying to get rich by any means necessary.
Day 29
Film: Audition (1999) Dir. Takashi Miike
Short Story: Griefover by Meg Cass
Published in smoke + mold
Even after watching Audition, I am not quite sure what I saw, due to the nature in which the film’s protagonist is shuttled between realities and nightmares. I can tell you that it begins with a widower’s “straight” teenage son encouraging him to find a new wife, which then inspires his fellow TV producer buddy to turn his quest for love into a reality show, and that it ends with an extraneously long torture sequence, and that, overall, it doesn’t make dating look super fun. Pair this movie with Meg Cass’s “Griefover,” which imagines a reality show dedicated to making over grievers to help them move on.
Day 30
Film: Atlantics (2019) Dir. Mati Diop
Short Story: The Wreckage by Camille Christian
Published in Lilac Peril
Night Boat to Soul by Isabelle Wei
Published by Occulum
Atlantics is a poignant story of young love lost, and it’s also a story of everyday injustice in a system in which the most powerful are rarely taken to task for exploiting the bodies and labor of others. This is a quieter, more grounded film than many of the others on this list, and the way its hyper-realistic style combines with its more speculative elements allows viewers to sit in the emotions evoked by its tales of resistance amidst tragedy. Combine it with two imagery-rich ocean poems: Camille Christian’s “The Wreckage” and Isabelle Wei’s “Night Boat to Soul.”
MUSICAL!
We always end the month singing, because The Gays™ love musicals, and Halloween is the gayest holiday! (It’s me, I’m The Gays™.)
Day 31
Film: Little Shop of Horrors (1986) Dir. Frank Oz
Short Story: Together by Jess Arndt
Published in Electric Lit
Singing carnivorous plants! A Greek chorus of doo-wop girls! A sadistic dentist, a loveable nerd, and a gorgeous broad trying to escape a string of bad relationships! [] and the best “want” song ever written (“Skid Row (Downtown)”)! Run, don’t walk, to your couch to throw on Little Shop of Horrors, and then round out your evening by reading Jess Arndt’s “Together,” the story of a couple infected by a parasitic weed.
I hope you have all had a spooktacular time with me; I’ll be doing a deep dive into many of these pairings on my Substack if you just can’t get enough! Hope you have a delightful October, and happy haunting!
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