Welcome to October! It’s the most wonderful time of the year, when I mitigate my seasonal depression by going all in on gothic literature and horror films. The good people at the world’s best video store, Scarecrow Video, have put together their 2026 Psychotronic Challenge, which contains 31 prompts for a movie each day throughout the month.
The rules are simple: watch at least one film each day that falls under the psychotronic category “in whatever order suits you,” and “have fun and get weird.”
Scarecrow defines “psychotronic” as “denoting or relating to a genre of films that typically have a science fiction, horror, or fantasy theme and were made on a low budget.” But the staff also notes that they don’t necessarily subscribe to the “low budget” definition in order to allow more diversity in the selection. “That being said,” they write, “we do like an underdog more often than not” so “you might as well have a lot of fun pushing yourself to new lows.”
My colleague Audrey Vann and I compiled a list of our picks for the first week to kick things off. Stay tuned for weekly posts with suggestions throughout the month. Support your local video store, and happy viewing! JULIANNE BELL
1. HUNTING SEASON IS OPEN!
“This season’s opener will have some kind of seeking, stalking, tracking, or trapping, you know… hunting! Tally ho!”
Audrey’s pick: Eating Raoul (1982)
This 1982 black comedy stars real-life BFFs—gay icon Paul Bartel and former Warhol superstar Mary Woronov (aka my mommy and daddy)—who appeared in 17 films together, including Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, Chopping Mall, and Death Race 2000. In Eating Raoul, the duo plays a prudish couple, Paul and Mary Bland, who are just as broke as they are disgusted with evil sinners. One evening, Mary is attacked by a drunken swinger who stumbles into their apartment. She swiftly kills the man in self-defense, then checks his pockets to find wads of cash. The couple then mastermind a money-making scheme by luring “rich perverts” to their apartment (which, by the way, is filled with 1950s furniture—a very John Waters-esque detail) with personal ads, murdering them, taking their money, then throwing them into the trash compactor. The film ends with a memorable dinner-party scene that explains why it’s called Eating Raoul.
More ideas: The Night of the Hunter (1955), Black Christmas (1974), The Blair Witch Project (1999), Ready or Not (2019), The Birds (1963), Perfect Blue (1997)
2. THATS COOKED: “Has to have a cooking scene, could be food or drugs or Soylent Green (oops, we burned that one for you).”
Julianne’s pick: Raw (2016)
French director Julia Ducournau has my heart forever thanks to her freaky girl-meets-car body horror feature Titane, which I recommended for the Psychotronic Challenge back in 2024. In her 2016 film Raw, lifelong vegetarian Justine (Garance Marillier) heads to vet school and, after being forced to eat rabbit kidneys via a hazing ritual, accidentally develops a taste for human flesh. Famously, some viewers required medical attention after fainting at the Toronto International Film Festival screening in 2016—don’t say we didn’t warn you!
More ideas: Fresh (2022), The Menu (2022), The Substance (2024), Swallow (2019), Bad Taste (1987), Eating Raoul (1982)
3. STAKE HOUSE: “Wouldn’t that be a great name for a lumber yard run by a vampire? Ah ah ah.”
Julianne’s pick: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula has everything you could want in a gothic vampire movie: lush Academy Award-winning period costumes from designer Eiko Ishioka, Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves as a guileless himbo doing a legendarily bad accent, dangerous levels of horniness, the iconic line “I have crossed oceans of time to find you,” stunning practical effects, Winona Ryder again. It’s become something of a fall tradition for me, and I invite you to steal it as your own.
More ideas: Sinners (2025), The Velvet Vampire (1971), Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971), Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), Vampyros Lesbos (1971), Daughters of Darkness (1971)
4. BLOODLINE: “Must have ‘blood’ in the title.”
Audrey’s pick: Blood For Dracula (1974)
Promoted as Andy Warhol’s Dracula, Paul Morrissey’s vampiric tale is best known for its association with the famed artist, who, when asked about his contribution to the film, responded, “I go to the parties.” This one has everything a good movie should have: women in ghostly nightgowns, the sexiest man alive (Joe Dallesandro), hypnotism, and socialist propaganda.
More ideas: Blood & Black Lace (1964), Lady Snowblood (1973), The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971), Blood Tea and Red String (2006), The Blood Splattered Bride (1972)
5. SHARK DAY: Weeks are for the weak, one day will do ya.
Audrey’s pick: Orca: The Killer Whale (1977)
Before you say “Cheater! That’s not a shark movie!” Let me clear up that there are, indeed, sharks at the beginning of this film. But more importantly, there are orcas, which are arguably scarier than sharks because of their intellect. (Orcas have actually been known to hunt great white sharks and eat their livers, but I digress.) The 1977 film Orca: The Killer Whale is about a male orca seeking revenge on a fishing boat whose captain unintentionally killed its pregnant mate. Sound familiar? That’s because this movie is a complete rip-off of Jaws, which came out two years prior. The film’s producer Dino de Laurentiis actually admitted to having seen Jaws and instructed screenwriter Luciano Vincenzoni to “find a fish tougher and more terrible than the great white.”
More ideas: Deep Blue Sea (1999), Piranha (1978), Jaws 3-D (1983), Shark! (1969), Cyclone (1978)
6. YOU CAN RUN BUT YOU CAN’T TIDE: “Sometimes the beach ain’t all sand and shine…”
Julianne’s pick: Send Help (2026)
I watched Sam Raimi’s survival horror thriller Send Help immediately post-surgery, while hopped up on painkillers, and had a damn blast. Rachel McAdams plays frumpy, awkward corporate strategist Linda Liddle, who gets stranded on a remote island with the company’s slimy, shallow CEO Bradley Preston (Teen Wolf star Dylan O’Brien). While Linda thrives and becomes a beach goddess in this new environment due to her survival savvy, Preston flounders, and under this role reversal, their tense relationship takes a series of unexpected turns. Silly, gory, twisted, cathartic fun!
More ideas: The Fog (1980), I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), Old (2021), Blood Beach (1980), The Sand (2015)
7. S.E.A. IT TO BELIEVE IT: “See a thing from South East Asia. Have you perused our newly minted Indonesian Horror section yet?”
Audrey’s pick: Tiger Stripes (2023)
This Malaysian indie coming-of-age horror film follows 12-year-old Zaffan, who is ridiculed for being the first of her classmates to go through puberty. With each act of shaming, rejection, and bullying, Zaffan goes from vibrantly social to shyly self-conscious and, eventually, powerfully monstrous.
More ideas: Kisapmata (1981), Ghost in the Cell (2026), Satan’s Slaves (2017), Dangerous Seductress (1992)
