Criterion is once again getting spooky for its October releases with a set of classics and international films that, technically, includes seven titles instead of the usual five. David Cronenberg‘s body horror darling Videodrome headlines a lineup that also Nicolas Roeg‘s BAFTA-winning supernatural mystery film Don’t Look Now as well as Alejandro Amenábar‘s gothic thriller The Others starring Nicole Kidman and Nikyatu Jusu‘s 2022 Sundance darling Nanny. A treat for horror fans also comes in the form of Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers which contains three titles from the macabre director’s catalog.
Don’t Look Now will kick off the releases on October 3, sharing the 1973 story of couple John (Donald Sutherland) and Laura (Julie Christie), who are still reeling over the accidental death of their daughter Christine (Sharon Williams). Following a trip to Venice for John’s work, Laura meets a pair of mysterious sisters who claim to be in tune with Christine’s spirit, eventually convincing both of the truth upon seeing her spirit seemingly roaming the city’s streets. The film is adapted from an original story by Daphne du Maurier and comes packed with special features that explore the film’s spot in film history as well its themes with both the original actors, screenwriters, and other filmmakers including Steven Soderbergh. Even in a decade packed with legendary horror films like Dawn of the Dead, Alien, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it’s proven itself more than worth a revisit with a new coat of paint and an all-time great twist ending.
On October 10, Videodrome returns in 4K with audio commentaries featuring Cronenberg along with stars James Woods and Deborah Harry as well as a roundtable with Cronenberg alongside John Carpenter, Mick Garris, and John Landis among other goodies. The film itself follows Max Renn (Woods), the president of an edgy television broadcaster who ends up on a hallucinatory and horrifying path upon finding the ultraviolent torture program known as Videodrome. Featuring some gnarly effects courtesy of Rick Baker, it remains a body horror classic that continues to haunt the nightmares of viewers to this day.
A Classic Horror Master Is Featured Prominently In October’s Criterion Additions
For more old-school scares, Criterion will offer Todd Browning’s Sideshow Shockers on October 17. This three-film collection packages the Dracula director’s Pre-code classics Freaks, The Unknown, and The Mystic in one place for convenient viewing. He pulled from his own experiences as a circus performer to create three titles that both subvert and scare. What makes the collection especially crucial is that The Mystic has long been unavailable for viewing. Each title can now be seen restored in 2K with new scores and a score of special features that dive into the history of Browning’s work.
The final two films of the collection are lesser-known, but worthwhile additions to October’s lineup. First is The Others, Amenábar’s first English-language feature with Kidman playing the devoutly-religious Grace who moves her family to the English Coast during WWII only for supernatural happenings to plague their new home. It’ll drop on October 24 followed by Nanny on October 31. Jusu’s directorial debut is a psychological thriller centering on a Senegalese immigrant (Anna Diop) who hopes to bring her children to the United States after taking a job as the nanny of a rich White New York Family. Plagued by a violent presence and exploited by her employers, she fears the American dream she’s worked so hard for could come crumbling down. In a first for horror films, the film won the Grand Jury prize at Sundance in 2022 in a year that also included audience favorites like Cha Cha Real Smooth.
All four releases are available for pre-order now on The Criterion Collection website. Check out the full lineup below.
Don’t Look Now
Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie mesmerize as a married couple on an extended trip to Venice following a family tragedy. While in that elegantly decaying city, they have a series of inexplicable, terrifying, and increasingly dangerous experiences. A masterpiece from Nicolas Roeg, Don’t Look Now, adapted from a story by Daphne du Maurier, is a brilliantly disturbing tale of the supernatural, as renowned for its innovative editing and haunting cinematography as for its naturalistic eroticism and its unforgettable climax and denouement—one of the great endings in horror history.
Videodrome
When Max Renn goes looking for edgy new material for his sleazy cable TV station, he stumbles across the pirate broadcast of a hyperviolent torture show called “Videodrome.” His attempts to unearth the program’s origins send him on a hallucinatory journey into a shadow world of right-wing conspiracies, sadomasochistic sex games, and bodily transformation. Starring James Woods and Deborah Harry, Videodrome is one of the most original and provocative works from writer-director David Cronenberg, and features groundbreaking makeup effects by Academy Award winner Rick Baker.
Todd Browning’s Sideshow Shockers
The world is a carnival of criminality, corruption, and psychosexual strangeness in the twisted pre-Code shockers of Tod Browning. Early Hollywood’s edgiest auteur, Browning drew on his experiences as a circus performer to create subversive pulp entertainments set amid the world of traveling sideshows, which, with their air of the exotic and the disreputable, provided a pungent backdrop for his sordid tales of outcasts, cons, villains, and vagabonds. Bringing together two of his defining works (The Unknown and Freaks) and a long-unavailable rarity (The Mystic), this cabinet of pre-Code curiosities reveals a master of the morbid whose ability to unsettle is matched only by his daring compassion for society’s most downtrodden.
The Others
A remote manor; hushed, candlelit atmosphere; and shivery, supernatural menace. With his first English-language feature, Chilean Spanish writer-director-composer Alejandro Amenábar resurrected the classic gothic chiller to create a ghost story of uncommon emotional resonance. Nicole Kidman stars as a World War II–era mother whose imperiousness masks a terrifying pain, as she keeps her light-sensitive children enshrouded in darkness on her country estate. The arrival of three new servants punctures her insular world—and seems to disturb the balance between the living and the dead. With each stunning twist and turn, Amenábar immerses us more deeply in a realm haunted not only by spirits but also by guilt, trauma, and repression.
Nanny
A spellbinding blend of social observation and artful shocks, the debut feature from Nikyatu Jusu plunges into the increasingly fractured consciousness of Aisha (Anna Diop), a Senegalese immigrant who takes a job as a nanny for a wealthy white family in New York City. Separated from her own son and casually exploited by her employers, Aisha finds herself consumed by unsettling visions and a growing rage—one that could either destroy or empower her. This visually captivating tour de force—the first horror movie to win the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival—distills complex ideas about motherhood, inequality, and cultural dislocation into a work of dreamlike dread.
Check out the trailer for The Others below:
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