From Practical Magic 2 and Resident Evil to Carrie, Crystal Lake and some seriously questionable mothers, spooky season is stacked with new releases.
You can always rewatch Scream for the fifteenth time.
But Halloween 2026 is giving us plenty of new horror movies and shows to add to the rotation.
September and October are unusually packed with fresh theatrical releases, streaming premieres, franchise returns, Stephen King adaptations, witches, sea monsters and at least one reason to develop a completely new fear of your own mother.
Some are already in theatres. Others are arriving throughout October — conveniently just in time for Halloween.
Whether you want to leave the house or remain safely under a blanket, these are the new horror movies and shows to watch this Halloween 2026.
Practical Magic 2
Where: In theatres now
Released: September 2026
Vibe: Witchy, nostalgic and made for fall
Twenty-eight years after Practical Magic, Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman are back as Sally and Gillian Owens.
Directed by Susanne Bier, Practical Magic 2 returns to the Owens family as Sally’s now-grown daughters become caught up in the family’s supernatural legacy. Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest also return as Aunt Frances and Aunt Jet, while Joey King, Maisie Williams and Lee Pace join the cast.
It is considerably more cozy witch than sleep-with-the-lights-on horror.
But if your version of spooky season involves old houses, family curses and the sudden urge to make midnight margaritas, start here.
Resident Evil
Where: In theatres now
Released: September 18
Vibe: Survival horror and complete chaos
Resident Evil is back — but this time, it is starting over.
Zach Cregger, the filmmaker behind Barbarian and Weapons, directs an entirely new story within the video-game universe rather than continuing one of the franchise’s previous movie timelines.
Austin Abrams stars as Bryan, a medical courier whose seemingly normal night collapses into what Sony describes as a race for survival. Zach Cherry, Kali Reis and Paul Walter Hauser also star.
Cregger reinventing Resident Evil feels like reason enough to buy a ticket.
American Horror Story: 13
Where: FX and Hulu
Premieres: September 24
Vibe: A very haunted reunion
Lucky number 13.
American Horror Story returns September 24 for its thirteenth instalment, bringing back a seriously stacked group of familiar faces.
Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Jessica Lange, Angela Bassett, Kathy Bates, Emma Roberts and Billie Lourd are among the returning performers, with the new season revisiting characters and pieces of the anthology’s past rather than completely wiping the slate clean. FX is very deliberately treating this one like an event season.
If Murder House, Asylum or Coven was your era, this may be the season that gets you watching again.
Backrooms
Where: HBO Max beginning September 25
Vibe: Liminal-space nightmare fuel
The fluorescent lights are coming to streaming.
Kane Parsons turned the internet phenomenon known as the Backrooms into an A24 horror film after first building a massive following around his YouTube series.
The movie became a major theatrical hit earlier this year and arrives on HBO Max September 25, giving anyone who missed it in theatres another chance to find out why endless beige rooms became horrifying.
Technically, the movie is not brand-new.
But its streaming release is, and September 25 could not be better timing for everyone assembling their October watchlists.
Carrie
Where: Prime Video
Premieres: October 7
Episodes: 8
Vibe: Stephen King meets the social-media era
Yes, Carrie has been adapted before.
This one has Mike Flanagan.
The filmmaker behind The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass is turning Stephen King’s first novel into a television series for the first time.
Summer H. Howell stars as Carrie White in the eight-episode adaptation, which brings the story into the present day while exploring Carrie’s adolescence, bullying and developing telekinetic abilities in considerably more detail than a two-hour movie allows.
All eight episodes arrive on Prime Video October 7.
Prom night approaches.
Again.
Below
Where: Netflix
Premieres: October 8
Episodes: 6
Vibe: Cold water and whatever is living underneath it
One day after Carrie, Netflix would like us to stop feeling comfortable around the ocean.
Below stars Josh Hartnett as a fisherman in a coastal Newfoundland community that comes under attack from a mysterious sea creature.
Mackenzie Davis plays a marine biologist who joins the effort to figure out what exactly is happening beneath the water, while Charlie Heaton plays Hartnett’s son.
The six-episode series was filmed in Newfoundland, with production heading onto the actual ocean rather than relying exclusively on green screens.
Sea-monster horror.
Newfoundland fog.
Josh Hartnett.
October 8.
Understood.
Other Mommy
Where: In theatres
Premieres: October 9
Vibe: Absolutely not, Mommy
Jessica Chastain stars as both a young girl’s mother and the sinister entity pretending to be her.
That should really be enough information.
Based on Josh Malerman’s novel Incidents Around the House, Other Mommy follows eight-year-old Bela as she forms a relationship with an entity inside her home that looks uncannily like her own mother.
Rob Savage, who directed Host and The Boogeyman, is behind the camera, while James Wan produces.
Chastain stars alongside Jay Duplass, Arabella Olivia Clark, Dichen Lachman, Arian Moayed and Karen Allen.
It arrives in theatres October 9.
Your own mother has done nothing wrong, but maybe call before visiting.
Crystal Lake
Where: Peacock
Premieres: October 15
Episodes: 8
Vibe: Summer camp continues to be a terrible idea
Jason Voorhees became one of horror’s most recognizable villains.
Crystal Lake is going back to his mother.
Linda Cardellini stars as Pamela Voorhees in Peacock and A24’s new Friday the 13th prequel series, which explores the events surrounding young Jason’s drowning at Camp Crystal Lake and the aftermath that follows.
The eight-episode series comes from Brad Caleb Kane and deliberately leans into the atmosphere of the original 1980 slasher film.
All eight episodes arrive October 15.
Yet another reminder that perhaps we should stop sending children to horror-movie summer camps.
Clayface
Where: In theatres
Premieres: October 23
Vibe: DC, but make it body horror
This is technically a DC movie.
It is also a body-horror film arriving one week before Halloween.
We are counting it.
Clayface centres on Matt Hagen, the Batman villain traditionally depicted as an actor whose body transforms into a shape-shifting clay-like form.
The movie is part of DC Studios’ expanding universe, but everything we have heard about the project points toward something considerably darker than the average superhero release. The film arrives in theatres October 23.
Comic-book movie or horror movie?
Why choose?
Yaga
Where: Crave in Canada
Premieres: October 23
Episodes: 8
Vibe: Witchy Canadian mystery
October 23 is apparently busy.
Crave’s new original series Yaga takes the legend of Baba Yaga and turns it into a contemporary supernatural mystery set in the fictional coastal town of Whittock.
Noah Reid plays a private investigator who arrives in town looking into the disappearance of a young heir to a powerful fishery.
His investigation brings him into the orbit of a local detective played by Clark Backo and a mysterious university professor played by Carrie-Anne Moss. Hudson Williams, Sheila McCarthy and Megan Follows also appear.
The first two episodes arrive October 23, followed by new episodes on Fridays.
Witches and a gloomy coastal Canadian town right before Halloween?
We’re listening.
Your Halloween 2026 Watchlist Starts Here
Between theatres and streaming, there is no shortage of new horror arriving for Halloween 2026.
Now we just need enough October nights to watch everything.
Want to be scared in real life instead? Check out our guide to the best Halloween events for adults in Toronto and the GTA in 2026.
xoxo, SKELETON 🖤
