Halloween at HOME 2020

The real world is an unsettling place, but as Halloween looms, could the horror genre bring unique comfort in its ability to face the world unflinchingly? This week we’re on a mission to convince you that’s true! There may not be trick-or-treating on the streets, but our Halloween programme still has plenty to sink your teeth into.

We kick off with our annual celebration of big screen scares FilmFear. Along with co-creators Film4, we mix metaphor and mega-gore with a line-up of modern horror classics, sure to have you screaming in your seat (and questioning society later). You better ‘mind the doors!’ lest you be got by the London Underground creatures in Death Line. Say the name Candyman one fateful last time and you’ll be in trouble with the hook-handed urban legend. Even the tasty new dessert, The Stuff, reveals the terrors of your own appetite. Plus, if you’re already missing ¡Viva! then be sure to catch Chicho: Spain’s Horror Maestro as we celebrate one of the most well-known, and best loved, names in Spanish film and television history, Narciso Ibáñez Serrador.

We continue to explore dark minds this October, with two new feature debuts. In Rose Glass’s St.Maud, a country nurse is hell-bent on saving her patient from eternal damnation, no matter the cost. Meanwhile, in Natalie Erika James’s Relic, a daughter and granddaughter of an elderly woman struggle with her disappearance and signs of dementia. But when she suddenly returns, it seems she’s being taken over by an insidious presence.

If it’s horror writers that fascinate you, we also have the Elisabeth Moss-starring Shirley, from director Josephine Decker (Madeline’s Madeline). This is an unconventional biopic on the greatest horror writers of the 20th Century, Shirley Jackson, with a re-recorded introduction from Birds’ Eye View. Continuing our analysis of the horror genre, on Thu 29 Oct we have The Black Mirror: Representations of race in the horror film, an online panel discussion, as part of Black History Month at HOME.

If you prefer exploring horror film in theatrical form, and from the comfort of your own sofa, Ur Favourite Scary Movie is the one for you. Bloodthirsty, thrill-hungry, and featuring an unending array of horror movie tropes, Ur Favourite Scary Movie promises you a Halloween audio experience like no other.