October is right around the corner and the cinema world is ready to be set on fire by all the hot new releases. There is so much slated for the next few weeks, the box office might not be able to handle it all, and some moviegoers are certainly liable to lose track. Fortunately, we sharp-eyed Vultures have matters well in hand. Let us keep your priorities focused on a few of the more talked-about and highly anticipated features hitting screens in the next month.
1. Venom | October 5th
Produced by Sony with involvement from Marvel, Venom has been in the works for years. If you think fans have been waiting for this one since Topher Grace “wore” the symbiote in Spider-Man 3, you’d be wrong. Try a longer period of time, somewhere in the ballpark of 25 to 30 years — when Venom, created by Todd McFarlane, first started appearing in comics by Marvel.
Borrowing from the storyline of Venom’s first miniseries, Lethal Protector, Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) investigates experiments by Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed) and The Life Foundation when he is bonded to an alien lifeform. It turns Brock into Venom, an anti-hero creature with powerful but dangerous abilities he has to control in order to bring down Drake and The Life Foundation.
Skeptics question how a film centered on one of Spider-Man’s arch enemies, regardless of stature, can turn out right, especially when it is separate — as far as we can tell — from any Spider-Verse seen thus far. However, Tom Hardy, one of the best actors out there, proved his worth as Bane. In his element, he is more than capable of delivering.
2. Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween | Out October 12th
Building to the Eve of All Hallows continues, but Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween gets kid-friendly. Jack is back — Black, that is — in his send-up of children’s author RL Stine. The characters from Stine’s celebrated series come to life once again and it’s up to him and some kids to stop them, naturally. The talking dummy returns too.
Fiends and gorehounds will own every other week of October; let the tikes and tweeners have at least one. And, if you are a fan of RL’s chilling anthology tomes which were everywhere once upon a time, you’ll get a kick out of it too.
3. Bad Times at the El Royale | October 12th
The setup is all-too familiar: seven strangers with secrets meet at a motel in the middle of nowhere and they all inevitably clash, colliding in a most irrevocable way. And one of them is a priest, yet not really.
Stuff like this gets written in a screenwriter’s sleep but El Royale is already boasting a 7.7 score on IMDb, its teasers are inescapable, and you can’t beat a cast that includes Jeff Bridges, Chris Hemsworth, Jon Hamm, and Dakota Johnson. Drew Goddard’s auteur noir promises to be the character-driven option for cinephiles tired of slashfests.
4. Halloween | October 19th
The word “Halloween” never appeared in a movie title before 1978. Ironically, this is the third time it’s been used as the title of a film based on the John Carpenter classic. Disavowing all sequels and remakes following part one, David Gordon Green’s Halloween sees the return of Jamie Lee Curtis and Nick Castle to Haddonfield. 40 years since the fateful night Michael Myers came home, he is back all over again to reprise his reign of terror.
While it can be argued this is another rehash of a rehash, and another opportunity for Jason Blum to cash in on a demand or void in the horror genre, JLC and Carpenter are back to give it their all.
5. Suspiria | October 26th
“Roses are red, violets are blue, the iris is the flower…THAT WILL MEAN THE END OF YOU!”
Dakota Johnson has a busy month ahead. She leaves the El Royale behind for a haunted dance academy in this remake of Dario Argento’s viscerally and ferociously phantasmagoric classic. Director Luca Guadagnino, also an Italian, who would’ve been a kindergartener when the original came out, says his version has a less colorful palate, favoring drab greys and atmospherics. That might upset purists but even they are curious to see how this looks, whether we need it or not.
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