Wondering which scary movies to watch this Halloween? Fangoria has a few suggestions, having just announced the winners of its annual Chainsaw Awards.
The slightly boring bit is, predictably, Sinners absolutely cleaned up this year. It won Best Wide Release, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Score.
But there are also some less obvious winners you might want to track down.
Azrael won the Best Limited Release award and is available to stream now on Shudder. It’s a post-apocalypse story in which a woman has to escape the clutches of a cult that wants to sacrifice her to an ancient evil in the woods. The unusual angle with this one is that Azrael is entirely dialogue-free.
Also available on Shudder is the Best International Movie winner, Oddity. You can also rent it from Amazon for just 99p at the moment.
Oddity is an Irish horror with multiple tropes ladled on. There’s a haunted house. There’s a creepy mannequin. A mental asylum. A psychic. And a murder-revenge plot.
While that may make it sound like a bit of a muddle, Oddity earned a pretty incredible 96% freshness score on Rotten Tomatoes at its release in 2024.
Another slightly more recent release, The Ugly Stepsister, is also one to watch. It won Fangoria’s Best First Feature award and is, yet again, available to stream on Shudder.
The Ugly Stepsister is a take on Cinderella from Norwegian director Emilie Blichfeldt. Our lead is not the Cinderella character but Elvira, who has to compete with her beautiful stepsister.
It’s a horror-comedy that’s high on gore and nastiness, but has a deft touch too.
Don’t have Shudder? One of the award winners, Mr. Crocket, is on Disney+ instead. It won the Best Streaming Premiere award.
Mr. Crocket is a TV show host who abducts kids through the TV set, emerging from a home entertainment kit Ringu-style. This one earned a less sensational 67% at Rotten Tomatoes, but is worth digging up if you missed it the first time around, at its release near Halloween 2024.
That tops off the titles we think the Fangoria awards usefully highlighted, but other winners include Shortlist fave The Substance (available on MUBI and Paramount+) and Nosferatu. Head on over to Fangoria’s website to check out all this year’s Chainsaw Award winners.
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