Peanut butter and jelly. Ice cream on a summer day. Milk and cookies. In the words of country star Luke Combs, some things just go better together, and probably always will. Not every example needs to be food-related, though horror movie fans may disagree after hearing how they'll be feasting this October.
Horror has always paired best with Halloween, and it makes sense. It's the only holiday we have that puts horror front and center, whether it be scary costumes, horrific lawn decorations, or one of the greatest horror movie franchises of all-time, Halloween.
Michael Myers isn't coming to the V/H/S franchise, the long-running horror anthology, but his spirit lingers over the recent announcement that the theme for the eighth installment is, you guessed it, Halloween. The news came out yesterday that V/H/S Halloween would be hitting Shudder on October 3, ending speculation over which direction the franchise would go after the eighth movie in the series was announced way back in October.
Horror fans should expect costumes, jack-o'-lanterns, and all kinds of spooky surprises centered around the holiday, and there should be no shortage of terrifying stories to tell. Folks might remember that John Carpenter originally planned Halloween as an anthology and not a Michael Myers-centric saga, so this could scratch that itch.
Shudder also announced the list of directors attached to the movie, and in keeping with the series' mission to spotlight up-and-coming talents, there's a nice mix of names that may not be recognizable to most casual fans, but will jump out to horror junkies.
V/H/S Halloween directors should have horror fans excited
At the top of the list has to be Paco Plaza, who directed Rec, the 2007 Spanish-language zombie film. That movie was adapted for English-speaking audiences as Quarantine and is solid in its own right, but the original is one of the scariest and most harrowing movies of the last two decades. Plaza also directed two Rec sequels, plus the Netflix possession movie Veronica in 2017.
Alex Ross Perry will also direct one of the shorts in V/H/S Halloween. He's best known for the three movies he's directed that starred Elisabeth Moss: Listen Up Philip, Queen of Earth, and Her Smell. Though he hasn't directed a full-on horror movie that I can think of, he is a horror aficionado who helped create the "Slasher Movie Hall of Fame" on The Big Picture podcast and showed off his love for the genre on the Blank Check podcast's Halloween episode. It's going to be exciting to see what he can do.
Casper Kelly is also on board to direct. Kelly is known for his work on various Adult Swim programs, including Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell, which he co-created, and Too Many Cooks. He also wrote the infamous Cheddar Goblin commercial within the Nicolas Cage movie Mandy and is set to direct the upcoming feature-length horror Buddy, which will star Cristin Milioti of The Penguin, Palm Springs and Black Mirror fame.
Rounding out the list are Anna Zlokovic, the director of Appendage (a movie with great practical effects); Bryan M. Ferguson, the director of the shorts Pumpkin Guts and Red Room; and the husband and wife team of R.H. Norman and Micheline Pitt-Norman, directors of the short film Grummy and the upcoming body horror Cosmetic.
The last couple V/H/S movies, 2023's V/H/S 85 and last year's V/H/S Beyond, have gotten a positive reception from fans. With such a timeless pairing in horror and Halloween, it looks like V/H/S Halloween has a great chance to continue that momentum.