FALL WATCHLIST

Most nights include the time-old question, “what should we watch?” Unless we’re in the middle of binging a show, we often spend half the time browsing selections across four platforms in the time it takes to actually watch a movie. The hemming and hawing can last so long that we wind up reaching for the same books we put away to turn on the tv. 

All that changes in October. Every year I create an Autumnal Watchlist mixing cozy family flicks with the horror genre. While some classics remain, I try and switch out a handful of titles to mix things up. As a 90’s kid, the majority of my picks fall under the golden era of film and television. There’s a campiness to slasher flicks like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer that I find eerily comforting. For me, the mixture of over the top gore, outlandish scenarios and a nostalgic soundtrack make it much easier to digest than the dark reality behind true crime. 

I’ve yet to return to the movies but recreating my own spooky home theater has been an added benefit of living in a moody old house on a hill. At the top of a long driveway meets four flights of rickety stairs surrounded by thick woods. We joke that the neighborhood kids must think our place is haunted. We don’t mind at all. In fact, we’re proud to live in a classic horror movie troupe.

However creepy the woods appears at night to outsiders, the inside of our cabin is inviting and festive. I don’t hold back with decorations. I counted fourteen pumpkins around the tv/bookshelf alone. We also go ham with concessions this time of year. Lined in our pantry is a generous bag of kernels ready to be air popped on the stove and doused in a selection of Trader Joe’s seasonings. Familiar orange Reeses cup wrappers are stashed in a drawer for safe keeping. And a warm glow of candles and string lights sets the mood just before the sun hides behind the mountains. It’s a routine I look forward to most in October where no time is wasted on what to watch.

Autumn Watchlist: 

• Scream
• Gilmore Girls – Season 1 
• I Still Know What You Did Last Summer
• The Thing
• When Harry Met Sally
• The Nightmare Before Christmas
• Se7en
• Sleepy Hollow
• Hush
• The Others
• The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episodes
• It Follows
• Idle Hands
• The Craft
• Death Becomes Her
• Boy Meets World Halloween episodes
• Final Destination 1
• Casper
• Hereditary
• BeetleJuice
• Arachnophobia
• Edward Scissorhands
• Hocus Pocus
• Halloween
• The Shining