Shocktober 2023

Overview

Some people love Christmas. Others adore winter. Easter's excuse to eat chocolate also has its fans. But if you like all things spooky and scary — if you know your Michael Myers from your Jason Voorhees, too — then October is the happiest time of each and every year, even though it's also the creepiest.

Leaning into the unsettling season in a big way: The Astor Theatre, which is dedicating the month to eerie flicks. Horror movie diehards will find unnerving classics new and old on the lineup throughout Shocktober. Some of the program's titles you will have seen countless times. You might've always meant to get around to others. Or, maybe you just haven't had the chance to enjoy a few of these flicks on the big screen — let alone the Chapel Street picture palace's screen — just yet.

As packed into single sessions, doubles, triples and a few marathons, highlights include The Fly with The Omen, The Wicker Man paired with Don't Look Now, sinking the fangs into The Hunger (complete with David Bowie) and Blade, and the eerie dream duo that is The Shining and Doctor Sleep.

While there isn't necessarily a showing every day of the month, there's more than enough on the bill to make up for the horror film-free days before Tuesday, October 31. Think: Friday the 13th (yes, on the right date), Night of the Living Dead, The Haunting, Possession, The Nightmare Before Christmas, the OG Candyman, The Thing with Videodrome, Mulholland Drive and The Others as well.

If you like watching a whole lot of scary movies at once, this year's marathons span the Scream franchise and an all-night ode to Halloween director John Carpenter.

Then, on the big date itself, capping off the lineup: a 50th-anniversary session of William Friedkin's horror masterpiece The Exorcist.