Streaming highlights in October: the films and series you need to see

Where do ghosts go on holiday? Mali-boo, of course. To coincide with spooky season, I’ve picked the best – as well as the scariest – series and films for October. If any must-watch shows have slipped under my radar, let me know in the comments.

Loki (series, season 2)

Marvel fans have been waiting a long time for this. We were left with a cliffhanger in the season 1 finale. Warning: season 1 spoilers: He Who Remains is killed by the Loki variant Sylvie. The timeline he carefully protected broke into thousands of new timelines, and the multiverse was born. Chaotic and full of danger. Loki, meanwhile, ended up in a timeline dominated by none other than Kang the Conqueror. Oh golly.

What now? There’s even more time travel. Or rather, time rips. This is the name for the as yet unfamiliar phenomenon that’s affected Loki and makes him jump uncontrollably between the past and future. OB, a new character played by Everything Everywhere All at Once star Ke Huy Quan, is here to help. I’ll obviously watch it, even though I still struggle to get enthusiastic about the Marvel universe after the many semi-satisfying series over the last few years. But if anyone can change my mind, it’s Loki.

Starts: 6 October
Where: Disney+

Pet Sematary: Bloodlines (film)

No, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines isn’t a remake of Stephen King’s 1983 novel of the same name. It’s actually a prequel that aims to reveal more about the story of the eerie Pet Sematary, where dead people and animals are buried, only to return later, changed in a gruesome way.

Bill, played by The X-Files star David Duchovny, actually knows about the mysterious powers of the graveyard. But when his son Timmy dies, he can’t help but bury him there. Timmy comes back. As expected. But not as they knew him. Also as expected. But Bill wants to put his head in the sand about it. Not even when young Jud, who we later get to know in Pet Sematary, brings it up. It seems to have already happened to Timmy anyway. The village of Ludlow is about to get a good dose of horror.

Starts: 6 October
Where: Paramount+

Reptile (film)

This movie doesn’t just feature a promising star cast. There’s also a murder that’s one of the most brutal of its kind. Sounds like two auspicious ingredients for a suspenseful thriller, right? In the trailer at least, a cool Benicio del Toro looks spectacularly sombre and pondersome. No wonder when Justin Timberlake is one of the main suspects. If only his marriage to Alicia Silverstone wasn’t so tainted with suspicion and betrayal. And when the otherwise reliable police chief Eric Bogosian seems to be involved in dirty deals, it’s a hopeless case anyway.

Starts: 6 October
Where: Netflix

The Boogeyman (film)

By rights, a horror trailer shouldn’t make me laugh. But the first scene of The Boogeyman clip made me chuckle. I mean, imagine your therapist creating an obviously creepy atmosphere in a pitch-black room with a creepy flashing red light and then saying, «See, it’s not creepy at all».

Erm. Yes, it is.

The horror thriller itself is based on a short story by Stephen King (who else). It’s about secondary school pupil Sadie Harper and her younger sister Sawyer, who are coming to terms with their mum’s death. They don’t get much support from their dad, who’s actually a therapist. But one of their dad’s distressed patients shows up at their house one day and leaves behind a terrifying supernatural creature. It isn’t just out to get the family; it also feeds on its victims’ suffering. And what is this creature? The Boogeyman.

Starts: 11 October
Where: Disney+ (Star)

The Fall of the House of Usher (miniseries)

«And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting. On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming, And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul […] Shall be lifted—nevermore!»

The first time I came across Edgar Allan Poe’s morbid poem The Raven was in one of the iconic Treehouse of Horror episodes featured in The Simpsons. At the time, I didn’t understand that the raven is a metaphor for madness, and the narrator – distraught over the death of his beloved – is losing himself in grief. Today, The Raven is one of a number of Poe’s short stories that have inspired Netflix’s horror miniseries The Fall of the House of Usher. And the trailer looks incredibly promising.

The series is about the House of Usher, founders of the family business Fortunato Pharmaceuticals, a pharmaceutical empire of wealth, privilege and power. But the family comes under pressure. Secrets from the past come to light. Nefarious as the Ushers are, they don’t hesitate for a second to get rid of their enemies – even resorting to murder if necessary. But then a mysterious woman appears. She slowly drives the father – the patriarch – mad, before killing all his heirs one by one. Someone needs to bring the Ushers to justice.

Starts: 12 October
Where: Netflix

The Walking Dead: Dead City (series)

I’ll be honest: I gave up after the seventh season of The Walking Dead. I think. Maybe I was already halfway through season 8. It got to a point where it was just too repetitive and the characters seemed stupid. Only Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan was the character I always loved to hate.

The parent series The Walking Dead ended last year after eleven seasons. But there’s just as little chance of the franchise being dead as the zombies in it (was that too corny?) Fear the Walking Dead was the first spin-off. Meanwhile, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon has just launched in the US. And now The Walking Dead: Dead City is launching here in Switzerland – with Jeffrey Dean Morgan returning as Negan. Maybe that’s a reason to crawl back into the Walking Dead swamp.

Starts: 13 October
Where: Sky Show with Entertainment Pass

PLUTO (anime series)

The anime recommendation for October comes from my colleague Kevin Hofer. He’ll be penning something about it in the next few days. All I know about PLUTO is that it’s an adaptation of the manga of the same name by Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki. It was published in Japan between 2003 and 2009 and won numerous awards, including the prestigious Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize, for its exciting combination of crime thrillers and philosophical undertones.

The story is set in a neo-futuristic world where humans and advanced robots live in apparent harmony. But when a series of extremely brutal robot murders shakes society, Detective Face – yes, that’s his name – is in charge of solving the matter. In his search for the culprit, he discovers they must be extremely intelligent and also behind a conspiracy that could put all of society in danger.

Starts: 26 October
Where: Netflix