31 Horror Films To Watch This October

The last Halloween picture overseen by John Carpenter, Season of the Witch was an honest attempt to depart from the Michael Myers formula in favour of stand-alone horror stories scripted by genre veterans. Carpenter turned to Quatermass creator Nigel Kneale, who turned in “three-fourths of a great script”, but when director Tommy Lee Wallace and Kneale sat down to polish the script, the writer refused to change a word and exited the project, leaving Wallace to take sole screen credit.

The completed picture relocates the action to Santa Mira, the fictional setting for Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), which ought to tip off viewers that something sinister is happening. Sure enough, Conal Cochran (Dan O’Herlihy) is preparing the ultimate Halloween prank – masks containing a slither of a Stonehenge monolith that, when activated by a TV signal, turn the wearer’s head into a writhing pile of insects, worms and snakes. Having watched the commercialization of Samhain, Cochran’s plan will turn the clock back 3000 years to a time when the Celtic gods were appeased with sacrifice.

It’s safe to assume that references to Stonehenge and Samhain are what remains of Kneale’s contribution, and that the eye gougings, decapitations and drill murders were added at the request of producer Dino De Laurentiis. It’s not a particularly smart film, but it is loads of fun.