As we get closer and closer to Halloween, online streaming platforms, such as Netflix, have started churning out their horror flicks and series by the dozens ensuring you have a creepy, scary weekend. Here’s our pick of films and series to keep you busy well after all hallows eve is over

Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities

This is an ongoing series that will continue to release one-hour, standalone episodes, each a complete story unto itself, that promises untold horrors that you can scream, jump or be absolutely thrilled with by the time Halloween comes around.

This series promises murder, mystery, intrigue, ghosts and monsters. Everything. And the reviews that are coming in are quite promising, and unsurprisingly so. This is a Guillermo del Toro production.

Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth) is one of the best-known names in the horror story industry. He did not direct any of the eight shorts in this anthology, which will continue releasing new films until Halloween, but he did select the directors and writers.

Looking for the hair on your neck to bristle for this Halloween? Presenting some of the scariest productions available to stream on Netflix this weekend from various masters of horror…

The Good Nurse

This film boasts a stellar cast. Starring in the lead role as a very bad and definitely not good nurse is Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything, The Danish Girl). Starring alongside him is Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty) who plays the role of his incredibly brave colleague, Amy Loughren, who helped bring her evil colleague to justice.

The Good Nurse is based on the true story of Edward Cullen who confessed to killing up to 40 patients. He was later awarded 11 life sentences.

His weapon of choice was a routine heart medication called digoxin, which is lethal in large doses. He would also inject patients’ saline pouches with lethal doses of insulin and other drugs. He killed people over a period of 16 years, until it all unravelled while he was working at a medical centre in New Jersey.

While Cullen would tell investigators that his intentions behind the crime were to put very sick patients out of their misery and admitted to around 30-40 murders, but the true number of his victims is thought to be closer to 400. Chilling, indeed.

The Midnight Club

This one I have mixed feelings about. Mainly because the horrors take so long to come. I understand the need for building up suspense, and unleashing the horrors at increasing intervals towards the second half, but come on. Halfway through, I wanted to scream. I mean, bring out the monsters already.

But they are worth the (tedious) wait.

The logline for the series goes: The Midnight Club follows a group of eight terminally ill patients at Brightcliffe Hospice, who begin to gather together at midnight to share scary stories. The series, written and directed by Mike Flanagan, is by the same people who made The Haunting at Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor and Midnight Mass, all incredible productions in the horror genre.

The performers in The Midnight Club are also recurring actors from these previous series. This one is a slow burn but it culminates into a very promising, absolutely horrifying and unexpected end.

Published in Dawn, ICON, October 30th, 2022