Bill Murray, Adam Sandler, and a whole lot of horror movies are coming this October

Netflix October 9No, it’s not a belated sequel to a certain similarly titled Steve Carell comedy. Instead, this black-and-white Sundance winner tells a relatable story through a fresh perspective. Radha Blank wrote, directed, and stars as the lead character, a playwright whose early success doesn’t seem to count for much now that she’s pushing 40. Reviving her long-dormant rap career may seem like an unlikely way to get out of such a slump, but Blank’s feature debut has some surprises in store—even if her knees aren’t as strong as they used to be.

Select theaters October 9; Amazon Prime October 16In the early ’90s, Rob and Fox Rich robbed a bank. Two decades later, he remains behind bars, and she’s devoted her life to prison reform, advocating tirelessly for her husband’s release. Garett Bradley’s Time takes a nonlinear approach to the story of this fractured family, cutting between modern footage of Fox’s campaign and the home videos she shot over the years, as she built a career as an entrepreneur and her children grew up. A selection of both Sundance and the New York Film Festivals, it’s one of the .

Select theaters and VOD October 9The actor-director Jim Cummings made a memorable debut with , a disarmingly sincere cringe comedy about a Texas patrolman experiencing a breakdown. His follow-up promises some of the same humor and insecurities (with Cummings once again playing a frustrated cop), but with a cheeky genre angle. A werewolf appears to be stalking the small mountain community of Snow Hollow, and it’s up to the local officers of the law to get to the bottom of things. In his final role, the late, great Robert Forster plays the sheriff.

Digital platforms October 9Cinema has attracted plenty of self-pitying hucksters, but none who have combined balls-out demagoguery and brain-dead incompetence as successfully as Dinesh D’Souza. The recipient of the prestigious presidential pardon for campaign finance fraud is at it again, raising alarm bells about whatever topics in the current news cycle will lead America into the clutches of International Bolshevism. Nationwide protests and an international health crisis may have thrown this country’s disregard for its citizenry into stark relief, but there’s a solution: four more years of Donald Trump. Please don’t actually watch this.

Select theaters October 16Look, it’s been a long year, and a lot of folks could use an unpretentious, Liam Neeson crime movie. Honest Thief, from creator Mark Williams, looks lower-rent than his best work—no offense to co-stars Jai Courtney, Kate Walsh, or Robert Patrick. Neeson plays a master bank robber who agrees to surrender himself and his loot in exchange for a reduced sentence, only to get double-crossed by crooked feds. Naturally, Neeson turns the tables right back; even more naturally, he gets to use his demolitions training. Hopefully this one finds its way to a natural VOD home sooner rather than later.

Select theaters now; Netflix October 16Aaron Sorkin’s about the aftermath of the 1968 Democratic National Convention finally sees the light of day, with the West Wing creator taking over for a once-attached Steven Spielberg to direct his own script. Sacha Baron Cohen, Eddie Redmayne, Frank Langella, Jeremy Strong, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mark Rylance, and John Carroll Lynch are just a few of the actors re-creating the famous conspiracy trial of a group of countercultural activists railroaded by the federal government after the police violently suppressed demonstrations in Chicago. The film, which has earned mostly positive reviews (though not from us), is playing now in select theaters. Those not looking to risk their lives for some talky, topical, grandstanding Sorkinese can catch it on Netflix later this month.

Select and virtual theaters October 16Although Jack London is best known in the United States for his wilderness stories, his novel Martin Eden has always enjoyed a strong reputation in Europe. Pietro Marcello’s loose adaptation transports the story to Naples in a deliberately murky part of the early 20th century. Luca Marinelli plays the title character, a working-class sailor who becomes a self-taught writer and intellectual; success only makes him more egotistical and jaded. (London, a socialist, intended the novel to be something of a cautionary tale about individualist philosophies.) Marcello’s movie received praise when it played the festival circuit last year, especially for Marinelli’s performance, which won the Best Actor prize at Venice.

Select theaters and Netflix October 21Ben Wheatley, the psychotronic English director behind  and , tries his hand at prestige material with this upscale adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s novel about a naïve, nameless young woman (Lily James) who marries a widowed aristocrat (Armie Hammer). Moving into her husband’s estate, she finds herself overshadowed by the memory of his first wife, Rebecca, whose longtime housekeeper (Kristin Scott Thomas) holds the new arrival in contempt. Ironically, Wheatley’s film is bound to be overshadowed by a Rebecca of its own: , which won the Oscar for Best Picture. Nonetheless, we’re eager to see how Wheatley applies his macabre sensibility to du Maurier’s Gothic story.

Select theaters and VOD October 23It’s the latest installment of the latest fanfic-turned-worldwide publishing phenomenon you’re either obsessed with or have never heard of. After stars Josephine Langford and Hero Fiennes Tiffin as Tessa Young and Hardin Scott, whose cutesy couple name, “Hessa,” belies the intensity of their on-again, off-again relationship. At the start of After We Collided, they’re off again, as Tessa tries to move on from the brooding, troubled young man who stole her heart in the first movie. But there are still three more books to adapt after this one, so it’s a safe bet that they’ll be on again by the time it’s over.

Hulu October 23Having successfully adapted his into a hit Netflix series, writer-director Justin Simien returns to cinema (though not to the big screen—thanks, COVID) with this pointed horror comedy. Set in the late 1980s, it follows an aspiring VJ (Elle Lorraine) who realizes that her career aspirations may hinge on appealing to white audiences and shareholders; to make herself over in the image they prefer, she visits a mysterious salon and leaves with a painfully grafted-on weave with a malevolent mind of its own. Bad Hair, which of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, has fun low-fi effects and a lot on its mind, even if the plot suggests a horror-anthology episode stretched somewhat uncomfortably to feature length.

Select theaters and drive-ins October 23With each of their four features, writer-directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (, ) have added new assets and techniques to their DIY toolkit. With Synchronic, the secret ingredient is big-name actors—namely, Jamie Dornan and Anthony Mackie, who star as New Orleans paramedics whose lives are turned inside out when they encounter a volatile new street drug that sends the user back in time…. but only for a few minutes, with no control over where or when. In some ways, this is a more Hollywood version of Benson and Moorhead. In others, it’s quintessentially theirs.

VOD October 28Part sequel, part reboot, writer-director Zoe Lister-Jones’ update of the teen-witch classic has big, pointy granny boots to fill. Not because the original film was a masterpiece, mind you—in many ways, Andy Fleming’s 1996 occult horror movie is just okay. But to ’90s kids who grew up drawing pentagrams on their notebooks, the nostalgia factor here is high. And those viewers may in fact be disappointed, as the initial trailer for Lister-Jones’ film is clearly aimed at a new generation of TikTok witches. Still, Legacy does boast one bit of Clinton-era catnip: David Duchovny as a hot dad.

Select theaters October 30As monikers go, “Larry” doesn’t exactly inspire a rash of preemptive goosebumps. But what’s in a name? Come Play’s mononymous threat certainly looks scary—he’s a pale and lurching beanstalk bogeyman who haunts the mobile devices of a young autistic boy (Azhy Robertson) and his spooked parents (Gillian Jacobs and John Gallagher Jr.). Though there’s a Blumhouse vibe to this first feature from writer-director Jacob Chase, expanded from his 2017 short “Larry,” Steven Spielberg’s Amblin actually financed—a good omen for any horror movie about suburban kids menaced by supernatural forces and a tall, dinosaurian something stomping around tight corners.

Select theaters October 30Michael Ealy breaks the golden rule of film noir protagonists: Never have sex with Hilary Swank when she’s a crooked police detective looking to embroil you in her sinister murder plot. Additional details about this thriller from  and ’s Deon Tyler (including more than 12 seconds of teaser footage) are worryingly absent. But Ealy was probably the best thing about The Intruder, and there’s some promise to the idea of Swank throwing herself fully into the role of an old-school, over-the-top man-eater pulling his strings. Mike Colter and Geoffrey Owens co-star in a movie that, let’s face it, could very easily not come out at the end of this month.

Netflix OctoberIn his first film since , David Fincher takes on a deeply personal project: a black-and-white biographical drama about Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) that was written by the director’s late father, Jack Fincher. That the VFX master of the meticulously underlit should take on a behind-the-scenes story about the most technically accomplished (and special-effects-filled) film of its time is almost too perfect. A leaked early draft of the script has been criticized for its portrayal of Orson Welles (Tom Burke) and its reliance on some discredited source material. But we have a feeling that Fincher isn’t out to deliver a dry history lesson.

Katherine Langford and Charlie Plummer fall in love while their classmates literally explode in the comedy Spontaneous (select drive-in theaters October 2; VOD and digital platforms October 6). Only the emotions are combustible in Eternal Beauty (VOD and digital platforms October 2), starring Sally Hawkins as a jilted, mentally ill woman who tiptoes into a romance with David Thewlis. In the ignoble tradition of such modern-tech horror movies as and comes Do Not Reply (iTunes October 2), about teenage girls stalked and abducted through social media. World War II thriller A Call To Spy (select theaters and VOD October 2) casts Castle’s Stana Katic as a resistance fighter training new recruits to infiltrate and sabotage Nazi operations. Only Kodi Smit-McPhee can save the world from the post-apocalyptic climate crisis of 2067 (select theaters, VOD, and digital platforms October 2). Beyond Barricades: The Story Of Anti-Flag (Veeps October 3) salutes 25 years of rabble-rousing anthems from the political punk outfit. A frazzled doctor leaps into action during a civil war in Locarno selection South Terminal (MUBI October 3). Amazon Prime’s horror package launches with four spooky features: Black Box (October 6), The Lie (October 6), Evil Eye (October 13), and Nocturne (October 13). Not to be left out of the horror anthology fun, a new take on Clive Barker’s Books Of Blood (Hulu October 7) will also be streaming next week. Speaking of Barker, director Ryûhei Kitamura returns with the action thriller The Doorman (Amazon Prime October 9), starring Ruby Rose and Jean Reno. Grammy winner and Tony nominee Eva Noblezada makes her feature debut as an aspiring Filipina American country star in Yellow Rose (select theaters October 9). For Halloween fun that the kids can watch and their parents can dutifully tolerate, there’s A Babysitter’s Guide To Monster Hunting (Netflix October 14), about a secret society of babysitters recruited to protect kids from the supernatural. Clouds (Disney+ October 6) tells the inspirational story of teenage musician Zach Sobiech, who scored a viral hit after being diagnosed with bone cancer. Final Destination screenwriter Jeffrey Reddick wrote and directed Don’t Look Back (select theaters and VOD October 16), a new horror movie about the repercussions of non-intervention. ’s Jimmy O. Yang plays an aspiring stand-up comedian in The Opening Act (select theaters, VOD, and digital platforms October 16). Frat comedy Shithouse (select theaters and VOD October 16) is probably better than its title, judging from its SXSW win. Edward James Olmos’ The Devil Has A Name (select theaters, VOD, and digital platforms October 16) is not seasonal genre fare—it’s the true story of a farmer (David Strathairn) sparring with the oil executive (Alfred Molina) who poisoned his land. Catherine Eaton wrote, directed, and stars in The Sounding (digital platforms October 20), about a woman raised without verbal language. Oscar-winning animator Glen Keane goes Over The Moon (Netflix October 23) with the musical adventures of a little girl who builds a rocket. Malin Akerman, Kat Dennings, Aisha Tyler, Chelsea Peretti, Wanda Sykes, and Ryan Hansen are among the guests at a presumably wacky Friendsgiving (select theaters, VOD, and digital platforms October 23). Not an ill-timed rerelease of the , Midnight In Paris (virtual theaters October 23) is instead a documentary about teenagers preparing for prom in Flint, Michigan. And the Sundance-approved horror film His House (Netflix October 30) pits a Sudanese refugee couple against an evil force in small-town England.

No longer included among this month’s scare fare are the Candyman reboot and Halloween Kills, both of which have moved to 2021. Death On The Nile, the second film in Kenneth Branagh’s star-studded Agatha Christie franchise, is now currently scheduled for a mid-December release. Spider-Man quasi-spin-off Venom: Let There Be Carnage won’t open until at least next June, while G.I. Joe spin-off Snake Eyes will now drop next October. Tom Hanks sees another 2020 project delayed because of the virus he caught: his sci-fi drama Bios, which has warped to April. And Wes Anderson fans will have to wait until sometime next year for The French Dispatch.