Trump’s trials. Israel and Gaza. The House speaker debacle. Another Disneyland price hike. If only there was something else to scare us … or at least distract us from the true terrors of 2023.
The goal of this list is to help you find that sweet, spooky spot among the ghoulish obstacle course of television programming in October. Many of the releases mentioned below are available now to stream, or you’ll be able to watch them in their entirety by the time Halloween rolls around. There is one docuseries mentioned that does not come out until early November, but given the waning number of new shows arriving due to the writer’s and actor’s strikes, you’ll thank me for this creepy gem about a mom-and-pop cult disguised as an online dating site.
Or you can always watch the news.
‘The Fall of the House of Usher’
Streaming on Netflix
Think of this fantastically creepy offering as “Succession” with metaphysical twists, a wicked sense of comeuppance and blood. Lots of blood. This eight-part Netflix series from Mike Flanagan (“The Haunting of Hill House,” “Midnight Mass”) is loosely inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s short story of the same name, but its eat-the-rich themes are evergreen. It follows the obscenely wealthy and corrupt founders of a pharmaceutical company, conniving twins Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood) and Madeline Usher (Mary McDonnell). We meet them just as Roderick’s greedy and loathsome offspring are dying one by one in barbaric and gruesome fashions. Could it be payback for Fortunato Pharmaceutical pushing addictive painkillers on an unsuspecting public, or is there something even more sinister behind the success of the company and its CEOs? Look toward a mysterious woman from their past, Verna (Carla Gugino). She’s everywhere, all the time, and her name happens to be an anagram of the word raven.
‘Shining Vale,’ Season 2
New episodes air Fridays and stream on Starz
Is Pat having a mental…
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