Welcome to Horrorscope, a monthly column keeping horror nerds and initiates up to date on all the genre content coming to and leaving from your favorite streaming services. Here’s a guide to all the essential horror streaming this November:
Well, well, well. I bet you thought Halloween was over just because it’s November now. Wrong. Halloween is something you carry in your heart year-round. So keep the horror floodgates open. Because this month is jam-packed with haunted houses, wistful witches, and degenerate daddies (oh my!)
Yes, much like a seemingly felled slasher villain, the horror genre will not go quietly from streaming services just because the jack o’ lanterns are starting to rot. And really, a good dose of depravity fits in nicely amidst all those sinister, smokey Noirvember watchlists.
In honor of this call to keep the morbid momentum going, this month’s theme is: I’m not dead yet! We’ve got two spectrally supernatural highlights from equally superb genre collections. Also of note, we’ve got a cataclysmic cultural reset in the world of the walking dead. Plus: a heartfelt horrorshow about a psycho who learns to live again by staring death in the face.
Be sure to peruse the complete list below, calendar in hand, for a full picture of what horror flicks are coming and going from your favorite streaming services this November.
Pick of the Month: Black Sunday (1960) and the rest of Shudder’s Mario Bava collection
Synopsis: While being tortured and burned at the stake, reasonably angry witch Asa swears that she will exact her revenge on these lame-ass townsfolk. Two-hundred years later, her dutiful (if degenerate) paramour in tow, Asa dusts the ash off her shoulders and kicks off her evil plan, which starts with possessing her doppelgänger descendent.
Hey, look: if puritans shoved your face into a mask full of spikes, you’d be pretty angry too. Loosely based on Nikolai Gogol’s 19th-century short story Viy, don’t let Black Sunday‘s age fool you. This is one of the most auspicious directorial debuts in genre history. Truly, Mario Bava is a one-man-band. He didn’t just serve as the film’s director, but its co-writer, cinematographer, and special effects artist. The mesmerizing performance from scream queen Barbara Steele, as the wild-eyed witch Asa, is the icing on the cake.
Black Sunday is part of Shudder‘s newest curation, which spotlights a killer laundry list of highlights from Bava’s career. This is a rock-solid collection that does justice to an unimpeachable legacy and includes films that, in their totality, give a striking impression of Bava’s work, from hook-handed giallos and vibrant anthologies to supernatural spookfests. Whether you’re looking for an education, to rectify blind spots, or to see what all the fuss is about: this is a marvelous place to start.
The collection features: Black Sunday (1960); The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963); Black Sabbath (1963); The Whip and the Body (1963); Kill, Baby…Kill! (1966); A Bay of Blood (1971); Lisa and the Devil (1973), and Shock (1977).
Available on Shudder November 23rd.
A romantic comedy by the man who brought you Audition
Synopsis: A terrible father named Reed leaves on a “business trip.” In reality, Reed is off to fuffill an elaborate scheme to kill a sex worker to redirect his murderous impulses away from his infant daughter. But, because the universe has a sense of humor, the woman he meets has a sadistic spirit of her own. Soon enough, the two “yes and” each other into a surreal and absolutely stomach-churning evening.
Based on Ryū Murakami’s cult novel of the same name, Nicholas Pesce‘s Piercing (2018) is eighty-one minutes of absolute depravity. And it rules. Precise, dream-like, and unexpectedly funny, Piercing is a love letter to the giallo genre that blends style, gore, pain, and pleasure to perfection. Did I mention this film has prog-rock legends Goblin on the soundtrack?
We’re a big fan of wildly nasty but heart-forward films around these parts. So if you’re a fan of last year’s feel-good S&M flick Dogs Don’t Wear Pants, Piercing makes for an exquisitely demented double bill for all the sick puppies out there.
Available on Netflix November 1st.
Sapphic psychics and a sumptuous syllabus of queer horror, courtesy of the Criterion Channel
Synopsis: Determined to prove that ghosts exist, paranormal academic Dr. John Markway assembles a gaggle of sensitive souls to investigate the supposedly haunted Hill House: an imposing, eerie manor with a promising history of madness and murder. One of his guests is Nell Lance, a disturbed woman who experienced poltergeist activity as a child. Reeling from the recent death of her mother, Nell’s psyche was on the rocks long before she pulled up to the mansion’s iron gate. Not even a blossoming “friendship” with an enigmatic psychic can’t save her soul from what the house has in store
There are few ghost stories as brilliant, gothic, and spiraling as Robert Wise‘s The Haunting (1963). Even if you think early horror films aren’t for you, I’d encourage you to give this one a watch. Between the Panavision’s agoraphobic 30mm lens, Julie Harris‘ performance, and the unbearably oppressive atmosphere, this is a classic you dare not skip.
And now that it’s a part of the Criterion Channel‘s incoming “Queer Fear” collection you simply have no excuse. This latest installment of the Queersighted program block promises to illuminate the darker corners of queer cinema, from low-key gothic lustings like The Haunting to camp vamp bangers like Daughters of Darkness, to modern-gay slow dives like Stranger By the Lake. The collection features films from out directors (like James Whale, Clive Barker, and Alain Guiraudie), as well as softer, coded examples of non-heteronormative cinema.
Available on the Criterion Channel November 23rd.
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel like braving an underpass full of zombies
Synopsis: A monkey gets his revenge on the human race for using him as a test subject and infects his captors (and liberators) with a deadly rabies-like virus. Sure enough, the “rage” leeches out from the research facility and begins to infect the whole of Britain. Slightly less than twenty-nine days after the fact, our hero Jim wakes up from a coma to find London in shambles. Banding together with a small group of survivors, Jim and company do their best to forge their way through the societal collapse.
Released in the year of our dark lord 2002, Danny Boyle‘s 28 Days Later breathed new, homicidal life into the zombie genre. A delicious development, considering the film’s origins are firmly planted in the realm of science fiction rather than horror (John Wyndham’s 1951 novel The Day of the Triffids, to be specific). Cillian Murphy‘s dazed stroll through a deserted London has since sublimated into something positively iconic. A startling image of unthinkable devastation, loneliness, and panic. Unthinkable, that is, until 2020 kicked the door down with an apocalyptic “hard same.”
28 Days Later is an unbeatable adrenaline rush that, despite its early 21st century trappings, refuses to rot. You’ll be too horrified at all the eye-gouging to care that the film looks like it was filmed on a BlackBerry.
Available on Netflix November 1st.
Streamable Horror Incoming This Month
| Streaming Service | Movie | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon Prime | 28 Days Later (2003) | November 1 |
| Amazon Prime | I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) | November 1 |
| Amazon Prime | Twilight (2001) | November 1 |
| Amazon Prime | Underworld (2003) | November 1 |
| Amazon Prime | Underworld: Evolution (2006) | November 1 |
| Amazon Prime | Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans (2009) | November 1 |
| Hulu | The Blair Witch Project (1999) | November 1 |
| Hulu | Children of The Corn (2009) | November 1 |
| Hulu | Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) | November 1 |
| Hulu | Amulet (2020) | November 19 |
| Hulu | Run (2020) | November 20 |
| Hulu | Bad Hair (2020) | November 23 |
| Netflix | A Clockwork Orange (1971) | November 1 |
| Netflix | Casper (1995) | November 1 |
| Netflix | Little Monsters (1989 | November 1 |
| Netflix | Piercing (2018) | November 1 |
| Netflix | Prom Night – unclear what version | November 12 |
| Shudder | Emelie (2015) | November 2 |
| Shudder | Salem's Lot (1979) | November 2 |
| Shudder | Urban Legend (1998) | November 2 |
| Shudder | Blood Vessel (2019) | November 5 |
| Shudder | Blood & Flesh: The Reel Life & Ghastly Death of Al Adamson (2019) | November 9 |
| Shudder | Cherry Tree (2015) | November 9 |
| Shudder | Lingering (2020) | November 12 |
| Shudder | Saturday the 14th (1981) | November 14 |
| Shudder | Are We Not Cats? (2016) | November 16 |
| Shudder | Blood of Wolves (2018) | November 16 |
| Shudder | Coherence (2013) | November 16 |
| Shudder | Let the Corpses Tan (2017) | November 16 |
| Shudder | Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on the Exorcist (2019) | November 19 |
| Shudder | A Bay of Blood (1971) | November 23 |
| Shudder | Black Sabbath (1963) | November 23 |
| Shudder | Black Sunday (1960) | November 23 |
| Shudder | The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) | November 23 |
| Shudder | Kill Baby...Kill! (1966) | November 23 |
| Shudder | Lisa and the Devil (1973) | November 23 |
| Shudder | Shock (1977) | November 23 |
| Shudder | The Whip and The Body (1963) | November 23 |
| Shudder | Porno (2019) | November 24 |
| The Criterion Channel | The Ninth Configuration (1980) | November 1 |
| The Criterion Channel | Mad Love (1935) | November 6 |
| The Criterion Channel | Devil Doll (1936) | November 6 |
| The Criterion Channel | The Bad Seed (1956) | November 13 |
| The Criterion Channel | Village of the Damned (1960) | November 13 |
| The Criterion Channel | Ugetsu (1953) |
November 15 |
| The Criterion Channel | The Old Dark House (1932) | November 22 |
| The Criterion Channel | The Black Cat (1934) | November 22 |
| The Criterion Channel | The Seventh Victim (1943) | November 22 |
| The Criterion Channel | The Uninvited (1944) | November 22 |
| The Criterion Channel | The picture of Dorian Gray (1945) | November 22 |
| The Criterion Channel | The Haunting (1963) | November 22 |
| The Criterion Channel | Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) | November 22 |
| The Criterion Channel | Hellraiser (1987) | November 22 |
| The Criterion Channel | Stranger by the Lake (2013) | November 22 |
| The Criterion Channel | Always Shine (2016) | November 22 |
Horror Titles Expiring from Streaming Soon
On Their Way Out: These films have one foot in the grave—bump ‘em to the top of your November 2020 queue while you can!| Streaming Service | Movie | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Hulu | Bad Girls from Mars (1991) | November 30 |
| Hulu | Blade (1998) | November 30 |
| Hulu | Blade 2 (2002) | November 30 |
| Hulu | Broken Lizard’s Club Dread (2004) | November 30 |
| Hulu | Deep Blue Sea (1999) | November 30 |
| Hulu | Evil Dead II (1987) | November 30 |
| Hulu | Jessabelle (2014) | November 30 |
| Hulu | The Omen (2006) | November 30 |
| Hulu | The Woods (2006) | November 30 |
| Netflix | District 9 (2009) | November 1 |
| Netflix | Sleepy Hollow (1999) | November 1 |
| Netflix | The Girl with All the Gifts (2016) | November 1 |
| Netflix | The Silence of the Lambs (1991) | November 1 |
| Netflix | Underworld (2003) | November 1 |
| Netflix | Underworld: Evolution (2006) | November 1 |
| Netflix | Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009) | November 1 |
| Netflix | Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (2010) | November 2 |
| Netflix | Shark Night (2010) | November 2 |
| Netflix | Death House (2017) | November 5 |
| Netflix | Green Room (2015) | November 12 |
| Netflix | 9 (2009) | November 16 |
| Netflix | The Addams Family (2019) | November 16 |
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