October is the season of horror movies, so if you’re looking for the perfect scary movie, look no further: here are two great family-oriented thrillers you can watch to celebrate Halloween all month long.
Netflix’s The Deliverance, released in August 2024, is a modern depiction of traditional “haunted house” movies. Enter Ebony Jackson (Andra Day), a mother of three who just secured a new home for her family, and her elderly mother Alberta (Glenn Close), who has cancer. In addition to the family’s financial difficulties, Ebony struggles with alcoholism, and in the past she has physically abused her three children Nate (Caleb McLaughlin), Shante (Demi Singleton), and Andre (Anthony B. Jenkins). This eventually led to an intervention by Child Protective Services, who assigned the family a caseworker named Cynthia (Mo’Nique), who Ebony blatantly detests. As the family begins to settle into their new house, unusual things start to happen; Dre begins talking to an imaginary friend he calls Tre, and exterminators find a dead cat that has been rotting in the basement for weeks. The children develop new bruises on their body, which Ebony denies having anything to do with, but the doctors and Cynthia are not so sure she’s innocent.
Are Ebony’s claims that there is some supernatural force hurting her family true, or is she just trying to cover up the fact that she has been abusing her children again? Clearly, this family-based horror focuses on more than just jumpscares; its inclusion of important societal issues, such as racism and financial struggle, makes this movie quite contemporary. Rather than shying away from these difficult subjects, the movie portrays them in a way that both highlights their significance and also connects them to a form of media that usually doesn’t focus on more “serious” topics. The union of a classic horror story and a modern setting with relatable characters and issues creates a film that captivates viewers until the very end.
Perhaps you would prefer to watch a psychological thriller that blends the past and the current horror scene. I recommend the 2009 film Orphan (which can be found on Prime Video), another family-focused horror. Parents Kate and John Coleman (Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard), struggling with their marriage after losing their baby, decide to adopt a 9-year-old girl named Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), a well-educated and polite orphan from Russia. Esther struggles to form a relationship with adoptive mother Kate, and tension forms between her and biological children Daniel (Jimmy Bennett) and Max (Aryana Engineer) despite her amicable relationship with John. Kate and the children soon become suspicious of Esther and begin to uncover a dark truth about her past and secrets.
Like The Deliverance, Orphan takes a different approach to the traditional scary movie. It joins the recent genre shift to horror movies that focus more on psychological disturbance rather than making viewers immediately petrified, and it orients itself around a loving yet dysfunctional family. The movie also emphasizes social issues, particularly pregnancy loss, and shows how deeply this kind of grief can impact one’s life. While the film does have its fair share of gory moments, including a particularly bloody scene involving a hammer, it accomplishes the goal of thoroughly entertaining viewers while also spreading awareness on issues such as the loss of a child.
I highly recommend you celebrate Halloween by checking out these very thrilling yet impactful horror movies.
Image source for “Family Horror”: Netflix Film Instagram.
Indresh Chandel 