10 Franchise-Free Frights

In case the election isn't scary enough

It’s about that time of spooky season when even the most squeamish among us feel the need to watch some kind of horror movie. As a teenager, I used Halloween as an impetus to finally watch some of the allegedly “scariest” movies that resonated among my middle school peers like The Grudge and The Ring. Nowadays, there’s a different level of respect for the genre thanks to filmmakers like Jordan Peele and Ari Aster, so you get this 👇

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I still don’t care much for major horror franchises (my beloved Final Destination excepting) because they resort to formulaic jump scares so quickly. But there’s a lot of great work happening in the genre, especially from filmmakers working on scrappier scales to show their command of the form to produce an immediate visceral reaction. For my paid subscribers, I’ve assembled a new list of horror films across a wide span of flavors that meet such criteria.

For non-paying subscribers, I curated a similar list back in 2021 — since some of you are new since then, maybe it will feel like new to you! (Just don’t assume that those titles will be on the same streaming services three years later.)

And if you want even more than that, maybe today’s the day to consider becoming a paid subscriber. Or use your free post link to read the list!