Because watching one horror movie isn't enough when there are approximately 9,000 other ways to scare yourself.
Welcome to the Most Wonderful Time of the Fear
Normal people look at the calendar and see September turning into October.
Horror fans look at the calendar and experience an entirely different emotion:
PANIC.
Halloween is coming.
There are movies to watch.
Games to play.
Books to read.
Comics to discover.
Podcasts to catch up on.
Music to listen to.
YouTube channels to explore.
Indie creators to support.
Horror festivals to investigate.
And somewhere, somehow, there is an obscure 1986 horror podcast episode, a 47-page indie comic and a Romanian psychological horror game that you have never experienced.
This is the problem with being a horror fan.
There is too much horror.
And honestly?
That's a fantastic problem to have.
Halloween has traditionally been associated with horror movies, but horror has never been limited to a screen. The modern horror community stretches across games, literature, comics, music, podcasts, web series, artwork, YouTube, interactive fiction, independent films and countless other forms of creativity.
And some of the most interesting stuff is being made by small creators who don't have gigantic budgets or millions of followers.
So this Halloween, let's make the to-do list completely unreasonable.
Clear your calendar.
Cancel your plans.
Tell your family you'll see them in November.
And prepare to accomplish approximately 17 percent of what follows.
#1 Watch the Halloween Classics
Obviously.
Halloween without the classics would be like Christmas without someone arguing about whether Die Hard counts.
This is the time to revisit the movies that helped define the season.
Start with the obvious:
Halloween.
Trick 'r Treat.
The Exorcist.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
Night of the Living Dead.
The Thing.
The Shining.
Friday the 13th.
But don't stop there.
If you've watched the usual suspects 47 times, throw something slightly less obvious into the rotation.
Try The Changeling, The Fog, The Burning, The House of the Devil, The Autopsy of Jane Doe or The Taking of Deborah Logan.
And then, naturally, you'll say:
“I'll watch one more.”
Four movies later, it's 3:17 AM.
Halloween is working exactly as intended.
#2 Discover an Indie Horror Movie You've Never Heard Of
This should be mandatory.
For every huge studio horror movie you watch, find an independent horror film you've never seen.
And there are plenty to choose from.
Try The Void for some gloriously nasty Lovecraftian madness.
Try Terrifier if you want to see what happens when an independent slasher creates a villain who apparently wakes up every morning and chooses violence.
Try Skinamarink if you want something radically different.
Or dig even deeper into the world of microbudget and independent horror through festivals and creator platforms.
The Toronto Indie Horror Festival, for example, is showcasing independent horror filmmakers, including Canadian productions, during its 2026 programming.
The point isn't necessarily to find the next masterpiece.
It's to discover something you wouldn't have encountered otherwise.
Because sometimes the weird little movie nobody has heard of becomes the one you're still talking about five years later.
#3 Play a Horror Game You've Never Played
Watching somebody else get chased by a monster is fun.
Being chased by the monster yourself is considerably more stressful.
This Halloween, try something outside the usual AAA horror lineup.
SIGNALIS is an excellent place to start if you like old-school survival horror mixed with science fiction, psychological horror and an increasingly disturbing mystery.
Crow Country is another fantastic choice if you miss the era when horror games looked like they were being rendered by a PlayStation that had been left in a microwave.
And if you want something dramatically different, FAITH: The Unholy Trinity delivers deliberately retro, lo-fi religious horror.
You could also try Darkwood, Mundaun, Detention, Mouthwashing or Slay the Princess.
Just remember:
The game doesn't force you to open that door.
You did that.
#4 Play Something Made by a Small Indie Developer
Now go smaller.
Really small.
Look for horror games made by solo developers or tiny teams.
This is where you start finding the genuinely strange stuff.
Game-jam horror.
Free experimental games.
Short psychological experiences.
Retro-style projects.
Games made by somebody who apparently decided:
“I have no budget, no publisher and no marketing department. Let's make a nightmare.”
And sometimes those projects are incredible.
The beauty of indie horror is that developers can experiment with ideas that might never survive a giant publisher's meeting room.
So don't judge a horror game solely by its graphics.
A blocky monster in a dark corridor can be considerably scarier than a $200 million CGI creature.
#5 Read an Actual Horror Book
Yes.
A book.
It has pages.
You turn them yourself.
Try it.
Halloween is the perfect excuse to return to horror literature.
And you don't even need to spend money.
Project Gutenberg's horror collection includes classics such as Dracula, The King in Yellow, The Turn of the Screw, The House on the Borderland, The Great God Pan, Carmilla and The Willows.
If you want something particularly atmospheric, try Algernon Blackwood's The Willows. It's short, creepy and available to read for free through Project Gutenberg.
And yes, Dracula is still worth reading even if you've already seen approximately 900 adaptations.
The original book contains considerably more than just a guy wearing a cape and looking annoyed.
#6 Read an Indie Horror Author
Now move beyond the classics.
Find someone you've never heard of.
Look at independent authors publishing horror through small presses, self-publishing platforms and their own websites.
Try indie horror anthologies.
Try short-story collections.
Try novellas.
Try independent serial fiction.
And don't underestimate short stories.
You can read one before bed.
Which is probably a terrible idea.
But that's your problem.
The great thing about independent writers is that they aren't necessarily restricted to the familiar horror formulas.
You might encounter cosmic horror.
Body horror.
Folk horror.
Extreme horror.
Weird fiction.
Psychological horror.
Experimental horror.
Or something that doesn't fit into any category because the author apparently decided categories were boring.
Excellent.
#7 Read a Horror Comic
Horror comics deserve more attention.
They're capable of creating entire worlds without needing a film crew, sound department or $80 million budget.
For classics, try The EC Archives and Creepy.
For something more modern, look at horror publishers such as Vault Comics, Dark Horse and Image Comics.
And don't stop with the big publishers.
Search for independent creators making their own horror comics.
You may find a comic being produced by one writer and one artist who are doing absolutely everything themselves.
That's exactly the sort of thing worth discovering.
#8 Listen to a Horror Podcast
Your Halloween schedule wasn't busy enough.
So add podcasts.
If you like fictional horror, try The Magnus Archives.
If you like horror discussions and movie criticism, look for podcasts covering the subjects you're already obsessed with.
If you like folklore, paranormal stories or weird history, there are entire podcast universes waiting for you.
And if you like horror fiction, don't limit yourself to traditional books.
Audio drama can put an entire nightmare directly into your headphones.
Try Old Gods of Appalachia for atmospheric folk horror and supernatural storytelling.
Just don't listen to it alone in a dark room.
Actually...
That's exactly where you should listen to it.
#9 Find an Indie Horror Podcast
Now go smaller.
Look for podcasts with hundreds or thousands of listeners rather than millions.
A small podcast may have only a handful of episodes.
It may have terrible microphones.
The host may sound like they're broadcasting from inside a washing machine.
Give it a chance.
Because somewhere among those rough productions could be somebody who genuinely knows their stuff.
And if you find one you love:
Subscribe.
Review it.
Tell somebody about it.
Small creators need audiences before they can become big creators.
That's how this works.
#10 Listen to Some Horror Music
Halloween needs a soundtrack.
But you don't have to listen to the same playlist every year.
Go exploring.
Try dark synth.
Dark ambient.
Industrial.
Gothic.
Dungeon synth.
Horror soundtracks.
Experimental electronic music.
Soundscapes.
Instrumental horror.
You can even build a playlist that starts with atmospheric music and gradually becomes more disturbing as the night progresses.
Start with something relatively normal.
Finish with something that sounds like a demon has discovered a synthesizer.
That's called range.
#11 Discover an Indie Horror Musician
This is where things get particularly interesting.
Search for independent musicians making horror-inspired music.
Look at Bandcamp.
Look at YouTube.
Look at independent artists releasing their own albums.
And don't automatically dismiss instrumental music.
Sometimes the absence of lyrics makes something considerably creepier.
A good horror instrumental can turn an ordinary room into something that feels like the soundtrack to a place you should not be visiting.
If you find a musician you like, support them.
Buy the album.
Stream it.
Share it.
Tell somebody.
Maybe even use their music as the soundtrack for your own Halloween night.
#12 Watch a Horror YouTube Channel You've Never Seen
YouTube is basically an infinite haunted house.
Open one door.
There's another door.
Open that.
Another door.
Eventually it's 2:43 AM and you're watching somebody explain the production history of a forgotten horror movie from 1982.
And you're completely fascinated.
That's the YouTube experience.
There are channels dedicated to:
- Horror movies
- Horror games
- Horror history
- VHS
- Collecting
- Reviews
- Retro gaming
- Indie creators
- Practical effects
- Horror fiction
- Analog horror
- Horror news
- Weird media
And that's where THE HORROR STREAM LIVE fits particularly well.
Channels like Frightfully Forgotten, Djjustj, Stitched Together Pictures, Wrestling With Horror and The Maniac demonstrate how varied horror-focused YouTube can be.
Don't just subscribe to the channels with millions of subscribers.
Find the smaller ones.
#13 Subscribe to a Small Horror Creator
This one takes about five seconds.
Find somebody whose work you genuinely enjoy.
Subscribe.
Like their video.
Leave a comment.
Share something.
Maybe buy something they created.
That's it.
You don't need to donate $500.
You don't need to become their unpaid marketing department.
Just show up.
Small creators notice when people do.
And if you're reading THE HORROR STREAM LIVE, you're already in exactly the right place to discover them.
#14 Watch a Horror Web Series
Horror and the internet were practically made for each other.
Try Local 58 if you're interested in analog horror.
Try Gemini Home Entertainment if you want something that makes nature documentaries feel deeply untrustworthy.
Explore The Mandela Catalogue if you like unsettling analog horror and existential dread.
And then start looking beyond the big names.
There are hundreds of smaller analog-horror and web-horror creators producing strange stories in short episodes.
Some are polished.
Some are gloriously weird.
Some look like they were made using equipment purchased at a yard sale.
That's part of the fun.
#15 Discover an Indie Horror Artist
Horror art doesn't get nearly enough attention.
This Halloween, find an artist whose work you've never seen.
Look for:
- Creature artists
- Horror illustrators
- Comic artists
- Poster designers
- Digital painters
- Practical-effects artists
- Mask makers
- Sculptors
- Photographers
- Pixel artists
Instagram, Bluesky, DeviantArt, ArtStation, Cara and other creative communities are full of people making strange and disturbing things.
Find somebody whose work makes you stop scrolling.
Then follow them.
Maybe buy a print.
Maybe share their work.
And if they have a website, actually visit it.
You might discover an entire body of work you never knew existed.
#16 Read Some Horror Fiction Online
You don't need a bookstore.
You don't need a library card.
You don't even need pants.
There is an enormous amount of horror fiction online.
Try The SCP Foundation if collaborative weird fiction interests you.
Explore NoSleep for user-created horror stories.
Look for independent horror magazines and online fiction projects.
And don't forget public-domain horror.
Project Gutenberg alone has an enormous horror collection, including writers such as M. R. James, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Edgar Allan Poe and Sheridan Le Fanu.
Some of these stories are more than a century old.
Some are still creepy.
Which is slightly embarrassing for everyone who has spent the last hundred years trying to invent scarier things.
#17 Find a Horror Creator and Actually Talk to Them
This is surprisingly powerful.
If somebody creates something you enjoy, tell them.
Not:
“Cool.”
Although that's better than nothing.
Try:
“I really liked the way you handled the creature.”
Or:
“That ending genuinely caught me off guard.”
Or:
“I found your channel through this video and I'm going back through the older stuff now.”
Creators remember comments like that.
Especially smaller creators.
You're not talking to a faceless corporation.
You're talking to somebody who may have spent months making the thing you're watching.
#18 Explore a Horror Festival
If you can attend one, do it.
Horror festivals are fantastic places to discover independent filmmakers and projects you might never encounter otherwise.
For example, Terror in the Bay returns to Thunder Bay, Ontario, October 14–18, 2026, celebrating its tenth anniversary and showcasing independent horror from around the world.
The Atlanta Horror Film Festival runs October 1–4, 2026, with dozens of independent horror films and additional online programming afterward.
And the Indie Horror Film Festival in Illinois is scheduled for October 9–11, 2026.
And those are just a few examples.
The point isn't simply to watch movies.
It's to discover filmmakers.
Talk to creators.
Find strange little projects.
And maybe walk away with a new favorite.
#19 Buy Something You Absolutely Do Not Need
Every horror fan eventually reaches this stage.
You see a horror poster.
You don't need it.
You see a VHS tape.
You don't even own a VCR.
You buy it.
You see a creepy handmade monster sculpture.
You have no idea where you're going to put it.
You buy it.
You find an indie horror comic.
You already have 600 unread comics.
You buy it.
Congratulations.
You have contributed to the economy.
Your bank account is now terrified.
#20 Make Something Horrific Yourself
This is perhaps the most important item on the entire list.
Make something.
Don't worry about whether you're "good enough."
Write a horror story.
Make a short film.
Draw a monster.
Record a podcast.
Make a song.
Create a game.
Build a website.
Write a comic.
Make an animated short.
Create an audio drama.
Make a fake VHS trailer.
Build a weird interactive story.
Create an analog-horror video.
Make a Halloween-themed piece of art.
It doesn't need to be perfect.
It doesn't need to go viral.
It just needs to exist.
Somebody has to make the next piece of horror.
Why not you?
#21 Revisit an Old Horror Favorite
Not everything needs to be new.
Halloween is also about tradition.
Maybe your annual tradition is Halloween.
Maybe it's Trick 'r Treat.
Maybe it's playing Resident Evil 2.
Maybe you reread Dracula every October.
Maybe you listen to the same horror album every Halloween night.
Maybe you watch The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror because apparently even horror needs a little comedy.
Whatever it is, revisit it.
Sometimes the things you've loved for years are still the things that make Halloween feel like Halloween.
#22 Find Something Horrible From Your Childhood
This is where things get dangerous.
You remember something.
A movie.
A television episode.
A game.
A book.
A comic.
A weird commercial.
A monster.
You don't remember the name.
You remember one scene.
So you start searching.
Three hours later, you've discovered the title.
You watch it.
And one of two things happens.
Option A:
“Why was I scared of this?”
Or...
Option B:
“HOLY HELL. THIS WAS ACTUALLY TERRIFYING.”
There is no third option.
#23 Build the Ultimate Halloween Playlist
And don't limit this to music.
Make a complete horror itinerary.
For example:
Morning: Horror podcast.
Lunch: Horror comic.
Afternoon: Indie horror game.
Evening: Indie horror film.
Late night: Horror book.
2 AM: Bad decision.
2:15 AM: Why did I read that book?
2:30 AM: Horror music.
3 AM: Something under the bed.
3:05 AM: Regret.
This is how professionals do Halloween.
Probably.
#24 Support at Least One Small Indie Horror Creator
This should be a Halloween tradition.
Find one creator.
Maybe it's a filmmaker.
Maybe it's a game developer.
Maybe it's an author.
Maybe it's a comic artist.
Maybe it's a musician.
Maybe it's a podcaster.
Maybe it's a YouTuber.
Maybe it's somebody making something so obscure that their mother is currently their largest audience.
Support them.
Buy their work if you can.
Subscribe.
Share.
Comment.
Review.
Recommend.
And if you can't spend money, don't worry.
Attention matters.
One share can put a creator in front of their next fan.
One comment can encourage them to make another project.
One recommendation can help a tiny audience become a slightly less tiny audience.
That's how independent horror grows.
#25 Realize You Will Never Finish This List
Now comes the most important step.
Look at everything you've planned.
Movies.
Games.
Books.
Comics.
Podcasts.
Music.
YouTube.
Web series.
Art.
Festivals.
Indie creators.
Your own projects.
Then look at the calendar.
You have approximately four weeks.
You have a job.
You have responsibilities.
You have to eat.
You have to sleep.
Apparently society expects you to continue participating in it.
Therefore:
You will fail.
And that's perfectly fine.
Because Halloween isn't a competition.
You don't get a trophy for watching 143 horror movies.
There is no official certificate for finishing six horror games in one weekend.
Nobody is going to kick down your door because you only read one horror novel.
The point is to enjoy yourself.
Halloween Is Bigger Than a Movie Marathon
Movies may be the most visible part of horror culture, but they are only one piece of the puzzle.
Horror is a game you play alone at midnight.
It's a book you read under a blanket.
It's a comic that makes you uncomfortable.
It's a podcast whispering a story directly into your headphones.
It's a song that sounds like something you shouldn't be hearing.
It's an independent filmmaker making a movie with whatever equipment they can afford.
It's a YouTuber passionately talking about a forgotten horror film.
It's a writer publishing their first short story.
It's a developer building their first horror game.
It's an artist drawing something hideous at two in the morning.
It's a tiny web series that three people discover and become obsessed with.
It's a creator who doesn't have a giant audience yet.
That's the part of horror culture worth exploring.
Because somewhere out there is a creator you've never heard of.
And they might be making something you absolutely love.
The Clock Is Ticking...
So here's your completely unreasonable Halloween assignment.
Watch something you've never seen.
Play something you've never played.
Read something you've never read.
Listen to something you've never heard.
Discover a creator.
Support a creator.
Attend an event if you can.
And, most importantly, make something yourself if you have the urge.
You don't need permission.
You don't need a million followers.
You don't need a Hollywood budget.
You don't even need to know exactly what you're doing.
You just need an idea and enough enthusiasm to chase it into the darkness.
Because the horror community isn't built exclusively by the people at the top.
It's built by everyone making creepy stuff in bedrooms, basements, garages, spare rooms, tiny studios and questionable home offices.
And Halloween is the perfect time to go looking for them.
What's On YOUR Completely Unreasonable Halloween To-Do List?
Now it's your turn.
What are you planning to watch, play, read, listen to, discover or create this Halloween?
Have you found an obscure indie horror movie?
Discovered a tiny YouTube channel?
Found an indie game that nobody seems to know about?
Read a horror book that deserves more attention?
Made a horror song?
Written a story?
Created a comic?
Started a podcast?
Built a game?
Tell us about it in the comments.
And if you're a small indie horror creator yourself, tell us what you're making.
Because THE HORROR STREAM LIVE isn't just here to talk about the biggest horror movies.
We're here to find the weird, creepy, fascinating and wonderfully independent stuff being created across the entire horror universe.
Now go discover something.
Just don't open the basement door.
You know what happened last time.
