Spooktober Film, TV & Book Guide👻

When the clock strikes 11:59pm on August 31st, a strange anticipation starts thrumming under my skin. Spooktober is upon us once again, my friends. Visions of misty dark forests and small towns with buried secrets flood before my eyes. These coming months will usher in darker skies, crunchier leaves, and folk festivals that celebrate the opening up of portals between the living and the dead. To get into the spirit of the season, here’s my Spooktober guide featuring books, tv shows, fragrances, and even places to explore and haunt like a restless spirit!

1. Small Favours (by Erin A. Craig)
   • It’s like M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village (if he knew how to direct movies).
   • I love a good horror novel set in an isolated rural American town. Even better if it’s set during colonial times because white people’s evil deeds attract even scarier supernatural entities. Atmospheric and spooky, you’ll be whisked away into the quiet town of Amity Falls (and feel just as trapped as the residents there).
   • An interesting interrogation of faith, tradition, truth and falsehood.
2. Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng (by Kylie Lee Baker)
   • I love horror that explores complex layers that make up human existence, especially the uglier parts. This is a modern-day thriller set in New York during the pandemic when anti-East Asian hatred was at its peak, with the Hungry Ghost Festival as the backdrop. From what I’ve heard, this story is gripping, original, and horrifying, and I’m excited to read it this year.
3. The Lighthouse Witches (by C.J. Cooke)
   • For fans of spooky lighthouses, moody vistas, small windswept Scottish islands, changeling lore, beautiful prose, atmospheric reading, red herrings and unearthing multi-layered family trauma. The feeling of dread crawls out from the pages and settles under your skin as you go further in. The ending is polarizing; I don’t appreciate it personally but I do love the journey regardless.
4. Tantrum (by Rachel Eve Mouton)
   • Another one on my TBR list, in the middle of my other cozy seasonal reads.This one’s about an exhausted mother who thinks her newborn might be a monster. And she might be right! A horror novel about familial debt, duty, childhood traumas and the darker side of motherhood? INJECT IT!
5. Ring Shout (by P. Djèlí Clark)
   • If you’re experiencing Sinners withdrawals and want to spend more time in that Southern gothic world, this one’s for you.
   • “What if the KKK were literal demons?” but turned into a novel. Fast paced and keeps you on edge. Reads like a movie.
   • Some interesting points raised on hate vs anger, and when exactly you cross over that line and end up losing your own humanity, but I wish the book went deeper. In the context of Black resistance fighters in the South (who are the main characters in the story), it honestly felt a little flat.
   • 10/10 monsters and body horror though.
6. Eldritch Tales: A Miscellany of the Macabre (by H.P. Lovecraft)
   • I know putting a notorious racist and eugenics-paglu right under Ring Shout is bad form, but only an evil white man like Lovecraft can dream up stories so terrifying they stay with you not just for days, but perhaps an entire lifetime. This book is a great introduction to his short stories. Atmospheric, spooky and eerily timeless.
7. Ghosts of the Silent Hills (by Anita Krishan)
   • A perfect late summer monsoon/September rains book for when you’re home on a weekend and it starts pouring outside so you want to kick your feet happily, make some tea and dive under your covers with a good scary book.
   • A rare collection of horror stories with a distinct flavour that only misty Indian hill stations can carry, as places that carry the weight of colonial and post-colonial traumas and lore. Haunted bungalows, highways, forests, streams and lakes. Some seriously scary gems in here, told in the style of that one older cousin we all have (at a sleepover at nani’s place)

1. From (2022) — A small town in middle America imprisons everyone who enters, and its residents cannot be caught outside after dark because of the threat of mysterious humanoid creatures that emerge from the surrounding forest. The writers cleverly unravel the many faultlines in the relationships between all the characters, which make for a super gripping series because each person caught in this nightmare is like a ticking time bomb. Nightmare fuel from episode 1 itself – I had to take several breaks while watching this. The SFX is so good I guarantee you’ll lose your sleep mulling over some of the scenes.
2. Midnight Mass (2021) — The arrival of a charismatic new priest brings miracles, mysteries and renewed religious fervour to a dying town. I LOVE LOVE LOVE horror that interrogates faith with regards to the fragility of man, and how easily it can be corrupted by evil forces to control people who themselves have a shallow foundation of faith. This is explored in a very unique way through the character of the Muslim sheriff in the town, the only minority character in a white Christian town. Who is a Sinner and who is a Faithful? Bonus for being set in a small rural American town where everyone is hiding Secrets with a capital S. A layered and complex watch.
3. Beyond Evil 괴물 (2021) — As a killing resembling a series of cold cases resurfaces in a small town, the chase for the truth falls on two policemen who each harbour secrets of their own. HANDS DOWN one of my most favourite Korean series ever. Tightly directed edge-of-your-seat white knuckle thriller with plenty of misdirection and scenes that make you feel like you’ve just been doused in cold water. How evil can human beings truly be? You’ll have to watch to find out.
4. Bodkin (2024) — Podcasters set out to investigate the mysterious disappearance of three strangers in an idyllic Irish town in the lead-up to the Samhain festival. I had to include a comedy murder mystery in here because the atmospherics are on point and also because it will help cut through some of the spookiness of the season. A palette cleanser if you will, with signature deadpan Irish humour.
5. The Seven Relics of Ill Omen 七根心简 (2025) — Pretty badly written but still an entertaining seasonal watch as the characters traipse around gorgeous exotic locations across China (from inner Mongolia to Yunnan to the Gobi desert) hunting and destroying relics of evil before they fall into the wrong hands. Good to see real locations instead of lame studio sets and CGI. Sincerely wish Chinese censorship insisted on cutting out bullshit depictions of mental health (in 2025?!) instead of cutting out vital scenes important to the plot. A much better executed show on the theme of relics, archaeology, mythology and the accidental unleashing of dark spirits is the Korean mini-series Monstrous (2022).
6. Inspector Rishi (2024) — A sceptical inspector investigates a series of bizarre murders in a small mountain village, supposedly committed by a deadly forest spirit called the Vanaratchi. Recently, Indian folk horror (Tumbbad, Bulbbul, Bramayugyam, Pari etc) has been getting its dues and I’m really excited for more inventive stories to come. Great atmosphere & storytelling. I love a scary forest dwelling creature!

The scent profiles I love during this season: incense, forest, wood, smoke. The darker and mistier, the better, like a scene from Black Myth: Wukong.

I’ve tried the smoke collection samples from Andromeda’s Curse such as Black Cauldron, Uranus and Firefly Hollow. I really liked their opening notes at first but they slowly dissipated into an unpleasant dry down. Which is disappointing because AC’s ‘The Moon’ is one of my favourite perfume oils of all time. I’ll let the samples rest for a few weeks before trying again. In the meantime, you guys might have better luck with this Reddit thread or this one for woody, incense-y fragrances.

This season, I’m also burning incense from Kora Sense, a local brand (started by my friends!) who make beautifully hand-blended incense sticks using materials sourced sustainably from Nepal. My current favourite for the season is Jal, which features water-based plants and herbs like mugwort and lotus and smells absolutely ethereal. Like sitting by a stream in a misty, rainy forest.

Seasonal places to haunt like a restless spirit:

1. Tai Po Kau Nature Reserve — fully forested trail with plenty of streams. It gets misty and foggy during this time of the year, especially after fresh rains.
2. Lau Shui Heung Reservoir — a beautifully secluded creek surrounded by bald cypress and paperbark trees. Bring a mat, a flask of tea and your favourite atmospheric book. Perhaps a lantern too while you’re at it.
3. It’s also the perfect season to explore abandoned Hakka villages in Hong Kong! Check out this guide for more details. Happy Spooktober everyone! Muslims, don’t forget your Ayatul Kursi.