Fright season is upon us and what better time to share some of my favourite creepy, unsettling, horror or horror-adjacent media? From movies, books, video games and, of course, a variety of different TTRPG goodies, I’ve collected sixteen recommendations to be shared over the next two weeks – I hope you find something new to check out this October! I know I’ve been taking full advantage of the rainy, cooler days (meaning just October 7th so far as it has been nearly 30c all month) to curl up and get cozy with some of my favourites, and make progress on the never-ending “to watch” list.
Have a Halloween staple you want to share? Let me know! I’m always on the lookout for new finds! And while my Halloween playlist will be coming next week, how about I leave you with ten songs I’m fancying this fall until then? Check out Fall Fancy [here], and happy reading!
You can read Pt. II [here].
Movie: The Mortuary Collection
Desperate for work, a young drifter applies for a job at the local mortuary on the outskirts of town. There, she meets Montgomery Dark, an eccentric mortician with more than a few skeletons in his closet. Montgomery chronicles the strange history of the town through a series of twisted tales, each more terrifying than the last.
I first saw The Mortuary Collection as part of its festival tour in 2020 and have been showing it to friends ever since. I love anthologies whose stories are tied together and the connections in these ones absolutely delight me. Cinematography is gorgeous, the score still makes it onto various playlists of mine (including my upcoming Halloween one), and there’s so many details that years later I’m still noticing new and fun tidbits I’d missed previously. I do also strongly suggest checking out Does the Dog Die [here] as there’s a host of potentially triggering content.
Montgomery Dark is my favourite character by far, so creepy and yet… mostly wholesome? Clearly dedicated to his work, and preserving the stories of how and why his charges have died. This is a horror film, and the situations each story’s characters find themselves in are the most obvious elements of horror but, by and large, so are the actions and choices that led to them being in these situations to begin with. This is a yearly watch for me!
Movie (Family Friendly): Wendell & Wild
Two scheming demon brothers, Wendell and Wild, enlist the aid of 13-year-old Kat Elliot to summon them to the Land of the Living.
Henry Selick delivers another stunning stop-motion animation film with last year’s release of Wendell & Wild. Aside from being a frankly gorgeous piece of art, the story itself feels especially timely. Pretty sure I watched this one two or three times the week it came out, which still means I haven’t seen it in about a year but do distinctly recall enjoying it. The soundtrack for this was great, and I enjoyed the concept of Hellmaidens very much!
Podcast: Old Gods of Appalachia
Old Gods of Appalachia is an eldritch horror anthology podcast set in the darkest mountains in the world. Our world is an alternate Appalachia, where these mountains were never meant to be inhabited.
I was introduced to Old Gods through a World of Warcraft guild I used to be involved with years back, and have been following it ever since. I think I’ve listened to the first season in its entirety about four times now? There’s so many connections made as we move through space and time, but it’s all part of this central story that I enjoy ever so much.
It’s funny because I was never big on anthologies and yet there’s two on this list! When done well, they’re incredibly rich and rewarding and that is very much the case here. The stories bring you to the darkest depths of the forest, mountains, and towns, and the talent of the cast is a treat for the ears. Personally recommend grabbing your favourite fall beverage and going for a walk in the trees to enjoy the scenery and wonder what might be out there, waiting for you.
5e Adventure: Whisper of the Weave Walker
A village with an ancient secret and no way out. Can you survive unchanged? Whisper of the Weave walker is a horror adventure for Tier 1 players. In this adventure, players visit the remote village of Pardosa, where they discover an ancient tower or discover an unusual collection in a library. However, there is something wrong with this town. Something is very wrong. Why are there strange marks on the fields? Why are the villagers acting so strange? What secrets are they hiding? As characters face the bizarre events of Pardosa, they’ll have to survive the unseen whispers that threaten to take control of them.
I ran this one, and wrote about it [here], last year! I’m back a year later to remind everyone that it is a creepy as heck adventure that is very easy on the DM prep wise. I love the mechanic of the mark of the weave walker, and the random events table to add further elements of tension and horror to your session.
My favourite inclusion remains the flow chart – at a glance you know the paths available without having to flip back through several pages of content. It’s right there, easy to read, follow, and use, and gives you an idea of what happens at each step. I had a particularly fun time running combat in this one as fighting in a place filled with spiderwebs allowed for some pretty creative movements!
TTRPG: Pine Shallows
Welcome to Pine Shallows, a small coastal town. A sunny and cheery tourist destination in summer, Pine Shallows empties when autumn’s chill comes. Strange things keep happening in the town’s off season, but local adults are so focused on preparing for next summer that they simply ignore or write off these strange occurrences. That’s why it’s up to you kids to get to the bottom of things. Pine Shallows is a tabletop roleplaying game inspired by The Goonies, Stranger Things, Gravity Falls and middle grade adventure book series like The Legends of Eerie-on-Sea in which you portray small town kids going on adventures and solving mysteries.
One thing I appreciate about Pine Shallows is how straightforward character creation is. You have three points to distribute as you like among three stats, pick a background – all of which have distinct perks and bonuses – and then figure out some basic character details and connections before you’re ready to play! Actions requiring a roll operate with ‘degrees of success’ and, depending on which background you take, you might have the ability to increase your result by one category: a failure can become a success with a complication, for example. I enjoy this method so much more than a flat ‘success or failure’ model.
While it is made clear that players can and should expand upon the town to suit the needs of the story, Pine Shallows comes with some small town staples familiar to its inspirations. In the town proper you’ve got the library, general store, bookshop, and arcade, while over by the beach there’s a seafood restaurant, hotel filled with guests during the summer months, an aquarium, and lighthouse. Want to go further afield? Skull Cove, Warmouth-On-Sea, and the harbour are all options to visit during your adventures!
Pine Shallows comes with a related adventure, Catch of the Day. Coming in at fifteen pages it sees the kids at the aquarium on a school trip. Completely normal, nothing unusual there! What is out of the ordinary, however, is the sort of fish-person hybrid fishermen caught a few days before and that is now on display at the aquarium. While the story can go in any direction a table wants it to, the suggested main objective is to help this creature break out! With a map, several pages of clues, and an alarm system made using progress trackers, this fun little adventure will hopefully see the kids with a new friend beneath the waves.
Board Game: Ghostel
Ghostel is a semi-cooperative family game for 2-4 players that plays in 60 minutes. Prey on the phobias of guests by turning into their worst nightmares. Work with other ghosts to combine forces, and scare away the hardiest of hotel patrons to earn upgrades and get even scarier! The randomised guest and dice roll mechanic means each round is different from the next, but there’s more than luck to winning the game. Are you the scariest ghost of the night?
I played Ghostel with my cousin’s family over the holidays last year and just found it so charming. The different power-ups you can get make each round different and it’s fun to form (and break) alliances around the table as you work to scare out as many guests as possible – while being the scariest ghost yourself. The artwork is charming and though none of us had any idea how to play, we went over the instructions together and more or less figured it out as we went in a way that made sense, and was fun, to us!
Who doesn’t love a haunted house? Now you get to be the ones doing the haunting!
Video Game: Black Book
“Black Book” is a dark RPG Adventure, based on Slavic myths, in which you play as a young sorceress. Fight evil forces in card-based battles and explore the world, where humans live alongside mythological creatures.
I had such a good time with this game. Which is surprising only because it’s a deckbuilding game and historically those… aren’t for me, and I’m not very good at them! Content wise? Black Book is right up my alley. Myth, folklore, and song are woven in throughout and there are many opportunities to just sit and listen to music that you uncover as you explore the story world. There’s a few different endings you can wind up with (I’m a fan of the ‘evil’ one I got) and I mean – it’s a great Halloween game! You’re trying to get to Hell to fight the Devil, and are dealing with crossroads and magic and demons offering help (and harm) all the way.
The level-up system is interesting, not just for unlocking new cards as you go but for all the different ways you can choose to spend skill points. I, for example, didn’t want to have to worry about the demons I had bound to my service too much so focused on skills that would mitigate the harm they did as much as possible. I’ve been meaning to play this one again and try out different options to see if I get to a different ending – highly recommend!
Book: Mexican Gothic
After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find–her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region.
I read this book on the recommendation of a friend when it first came out, and have read everything by Silvia Moreno-Garcia I’ve been able to get my hands on since. Her prose and the world she creates is so vivid and in this case is more than a little unsettling. ‘House as a character’ type of deal. The horror in this one goes well beyond the home, and the sense of isolation and creeping dread kept me hooked throughout. I’m hoping to reread it this year, and with any luck you’ll get to do the same!
Until next week, stay cozy!
The Cozy Cauldron 
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