For those looking for horror movies or cozy fall vibes in October, there’s a lot to watch on Paramount+ in the new month. The streaming service added a vast number of films to its catalogue, including a romantic gross-out creature feature, an all-time horror classic and career-defining work from some of the greatest filmmakers alive.
Here are the seven best new movies you can watch on Paramount+ in October.
“The Fly” (1986)
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
These words christen the poster of 1986’s “The Fly,” a warning and a promise for any viewers of David Cronenberg’s body horror masterpiece. Jeff Goldblum stars in the film (a remake of a 1958 movie of the same name) as Seth Brundle, a scientist whose aspirations far exceed his ability. Brundle envisions a world without cars, one where instant teleportation becomes the dominant method of travel. In a bid to make this dream a reality, he begins shopping out various steps of the process, unable to assemble the intricacies of teleportation on his own. Later, a fatal mix of jealousy and alcohol prompts Brundle to test his invention on himself far too early — yielding a genetic cocktail of scientist and housefly.
Cronenberg’s film is, in a word, disgusting. As Brundle’s insectoid transformation progresses, viewers witness every skin-shedding, hair-growing, limb-losing transition with painful intimacy. Chris Walas and Stephan Dupuis’ makeup works just as well as it must have 40 years ago, fully selling every molting step of Brundle’s diseased evolution. Their Oscar-winning prosthetics are essential to elevating the phantasmagorical horror beyond its easily B-movie premise.
Equally elevatory is Cornenberg and co-writer Charles Edward Pogue’s unwavering commitment to the film’s central themes. Like many a Cronenberg film, “The Fly” uses its body horror as a gateway for conversations about sexuality and mortality. It’s no accident that Brundle refers to his sci-fi transformation as something like a cancer. While the more severe moments of body horror will certainly hardest for gore-averse viewers to watch, the most viscerally terrifying content in “The Fly” comes when the film slows down long enough for Brundle and his partner (Geena Davis) to live in the reality of his disease. Goldblum and especially Davis commitment to this emotional truth adds a layer of dread, heartache and, above all, fatalism to “The Fly” that elevates it from merely “gross” to outright horrific.
“Good Will Hunting”
A perfect autumn watch, Gus Van Sant’s “Good Will Hunting” is one of the best films you will find on any streaming service in October. The movie skyrocketed the careers of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, lifelong friends who became co-stars and (Oscar-winning) co-writers in this story about a young man whose abusive upbringing keeps him from living out his full potential. Damon gives one of his best performances in the movie, playing Will Hunting with all the cockiness, humor and tragedy that the character requires. Affleck, meanwhile, allows himself to take a relative backseat, strategically delivering some of the movie’s most profound moments in a much smaller role.
And then there’s Robin Williams, tasked here with playing Will’s therapist and mentor, Sean. It’s nearly impossible to use Williams as anything other than a comic force, and he certainly still has his moments of laughs throughout this story. Yet the actor leaves his larger-than-life performance style behind for a warm, deep performance that brought him much-deserved Oscar glory. This wasn’t the first dramatic turn of this nature Williams would give audiences, nor would it be the last. It’s probably the best.
“Heat”
It’s become old hat to say “Heat” is really good. But did you know that “Heat” is really good?
Michael Mann’s 1995 crime epic is a perfect machine of the genre. The film follows career criminal Neil McCauley (Robert DeNiro) and in-too-deep Police Lieutenant Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) as they find themselves in a game of cat-and-mouse across Los Angeles. As the men fall deeper into each other’s orbit, they begin to recognize the immense toll both careers have taken on their lives. McCauley lives by a code, one where he vows not to allow himself any attachments he can’t abandon in 30 seconds flat should he feel the heat around the corner (a concept he stretches throughout the film). Hanna, meanwhile, finds himself on his third (soon-to-be-ex-) wife, wondering if he can truly play family man and crime stopper at the same time. He already knows the answer.
In a film full of missed connections and could-have-beens, no two characters seem to understand each other quite so much as Hanna and McCauley. When the pair finally sits face-to-face in a diner — the first on-screen meeting of two titans of their craft — Mann crafts a scene that impossibly lives up to the hype. There’s a lot more to love about this movie, which features a stellar Val Kilmer performance and one of the best action sequences ever staged in a crime film, but this dynamic at the heart of “Heat” has never been topped in the genre.
If only Mann made a sequel.
“Men in Black”
It’s easy to forget just how wonderful the original “Men in Black” is. Subsequent entries have repeatedly failed at recapturing the magic of the original film, progressively driving down the track record of the franchise. It’s an alluring idea, taking the seemingly malleable sci-fi premise and returning to the well to see what new adventures can be had (personally, I’m still upset that the doomed “21 Jump Street” crossover never came to fruition).
What these follow-ups so often miss is just how clever the original “Men in Black” is. Ed Solomon’s script is far more introspective than the rest of this franchise would make it seem, crafting fully-realized characters in a fun sci-fi adventure with plenty on its mind. An early bench meeting between Agents K (Tommy Lee Jones) and J (Will Smith) is a genuinely brilliant piece of screenwriting, played and directed to perfection. It is a genuine shame that the franchise would never again reach these heights — though, in fairness, Barry Sonnenfeld’s first entry set a pretty high bar.
“No Country for Old Men”
The Coen Brothers followed up on a relative cold streak with “No Country for Old Men,” the movie that finally saw them win big at the Academy Awards. The film, an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel of the same name, follows Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), a man who absconds with the $2 million remnants of a shootout, not knowing that he’s drawn the attention of professional killer Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem). Bardem plays Chigurh like a creature from another world, a man seemingly devoid of emotion who exists only to carry out random judgment.
“No Country for Old Men” stands apart from many Coen projects, taking on a much quieter and more intense tone than their usually comic offerings. At the same time, it still feels like a singular movie only this duo could make, using their irreverent style and highly precise filmmaking ability to create something unique and of high quality. It’s not my favorite Coen Brothers entry, nor is it my choice for that year’s Best Picture, but those are both high watermarks.
“Scream” (1996)
There’s never quite been another “Scream.”
Many films have tried, including within this very franchise, to mimic its precise mix of knowing humor and actual horror. A lot of these movies are of high quality, including the “Scream” sequels themselves, yet none fully captures the elegance and perfection of Wes Craven’s genre-defining horror masterpiece.
What many of these films miss is how genuinely scary “Scream” can be when Craven desires. The 1996 slasher is most known for its meta humor and horror genre commentary, and this all works wonderfully. But the film as a whole becomes much more potent when it contains sequences where Ghostface feels like an actual threat. The iconic opening sequence featuring Drew Barrymore has been remixed many times, but none of them fully capture how upsetting and terrifying that first scene remains. “Scream” is a horror film that pervades generations and will play as funny and scary in any year, somehow remaining entirely novel nearly 30 years later.
“Silence”
“Silence” is far from the most popular entry in Martin Scorsese’s filmography, but it’s one of the finest. This historical epic starring Andrew Garfield sees the director in a mode unique among his filmography, a probing religious drama that feels apart even from “The Last Temptation of Christ.” It’s a patient movie, one that sees the writer/director (along with co-writer Jay Cocks) tackle massive ideas on a giant scale. Though it didn’t achieve the same immediate popularity as films like “The Irishman” and “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Silence” is no less thought-provoking and wholly fascinating than the rest of the movies that define Scorsese’s late career.
