Ah, October. Every horror fan's favorite month. For most people, Halloween -- that ancient Celtic festival of Samhain magically transformed over two thousand years into an occasion for hordes of children in Yu-Gi-Oh masks and inappropriately muscled superhero costumes to beg for candy -- is the one day of the year when horror movies reign supreme. Back when I managed a small, neighborhood video store, our measly horror selection, which spanned all of two shelves, would spend most of the year gathering dust. Until Halloween, that is. Then we couldn't keep them in stock. Even after the good scary movies were taken -- the original HALLOWEEN, THE THING, GINGER SNAPS, FRANKENSTEIN, ALIEN, AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, THE RING, DOG SOLDIERS, THE EVIL DEAD, DRACULA, THE OTHERS; the good ones always rented first -- our customers wouldn't be dissuaded. They needed their horror fix, and they didn't care if that meant renting the BLACK CHRISTMAS remake, the PROM NIGHT remake or any of the other recent duds. Because it was Halloween, damn it, and that meant they had to watch horror movies!

For us horror fans, though, Halloween is a month-long event. October is always the time of year when TV series roll out their "spooky" episodes. My favorite Halloween episodes were always ROSEANNE's and THE SIMPSONS' Treehouse of Terror anthologies, though childhood favorites like NIGHT COURT and FANTASY ISLAND used to supply me with chilly thrills too. (And every episode of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, MILLENNIUM or THE X-FILES was a Halloween episode, which is why I loved those shows so much!) October is also the month when Hollywood caters to horror fans. While horror movies are routinely sprinkled throughout any given year's release calendar, every October, with the relentless certainty of Michael Myers sitting up behind Laurie Strode's back, brings a veritable smorgasbord of dark goodies to choose from. Let's take a peek at what's in store this year. (Keep in mind I'm only mentioning theatrical releases here, since there are always hundreds of new direct-to-DVD horror movies being released, not to mention reissues of older films.)

October 3 sees the release of BLINDNESS (Miramax), an adaptation of Portuguese Nobel Laureate Jos? Saramago's famous 1995 novel. Though not technically a horror movie, the story of an entire country stricken blind for mysterious reasons and thrown into chaos is certain to have enough freakiness and suspense to satisfy horror fans. On October 19, Screen Gems prescribes QUARANTINE, the American remake of Jaume Balaguer? and Paco Plaza's 2007 Spanish horror movie [REC]. Not to prejudge the movie, but the fact that it's a remake of a film only a year old is already one strike against it in my book. The other two strikes are that it's yet another first-person camera movie -- a conceit that reached its pinnacle in 1999 with THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, was used to pretty good effect in CLOVERFIELD, and became instantly tired and desperate with DIARY OF THE DEAD -- and that it's yet another virus-turns-people-into-zombies story. The one possible saving grace? QUARANTINE stars Jennifer Carpenter, who plays the sister of everyone's favorite serial killer on DEXTER (and was truly the only good thing in 2005's laughable THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE).

October 17 marks the release of the Mark Wahlberg vehicle MAX PAYNE (20th Century Fox), a videogame-turned-movie about a maverick cop fighting supernatural creatures after the murders of his family and partner. Given the track record of previous videogames-turned-movies, not to mention how generic the set-up sounds, my hopes aren't high for this one. Frankly, it looks like CONSTANTINE all over again. Marky Mark has turned into quite a good actor since he quite rapping with the Funky Bunch, but I suspect even he can't save this one.

As we get closer to Halloween, the release schedule heats up. On October 24, IFC Films brings us FEAR(S) OF THE DARK. Opening in limited release, this animated anthology film promises six nightmarish tales from some of the hottest names in comics and graphic artistry. Also in limited release from Magnolia Pictures comes one of the most anticipated horror films of the year, if all the festival awards are any indication: LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, the Swedish story of a twelve-year-old boy and the girl next door, who happens to be a vampire. It swept Quebec's FanTasia Film Festival, winning the Best Film, Best Director and Best Photography awards. Also landing on the 24th, PASSENGERS (Columbia Pictures) stars Anne Hathaway as a grief counselor tending to the five survivors of a plane crash who start mysteriously disappearing. Let's hope this one is more IDENTITY than THE FORGOTTEN. And then there's SAW V. Zzzzzzzzz. Someone wake me when they can explain why this series is still going. I mean, the first one was great, and then...oy.

October 31, the big day, digs up THE HAUNTING OF MOLLY HARTLEY (Freestyle Releasing), which follows the title teenager through a private school where something evil lurks. It may sound like it's aimed at young adults, but the R rating implies otherwise. Also breaking on Halloween is Magnolia's SPLINTER, which looks like it could be a good old-fashioned creature feature about a monster in the woods and the young couples on vacation who make a tasty treat. Too bad it's going to be in extremely limited release. Lastly, scheduled for sometime in October, though the date hasn't been announced yet, is Corbin Bernsen's directorial debut, DEAD AIR, about a loudmouth radio shock-jock whose callers start alerting him to a plague of homicidal maniacs on the streets of Los Angeles. Think Eric Bogosian's TALK RADIO meets 28 DAYS LATER. I hope this one hammers down a release date soon!

There you have it, horror fans: this year's slate of Halloween-timed spookfests. As always, it looks like there's some good, some iffy, and some "how did this movie get greenlighted?" to choose from. Luckily, there seems to be something for everyone's taste, from the psychological chills of BLINDNESS and LET THE RIGHT ONE IN to gorefests like SAW V and SPLINTER. Have fun, kids! And remember, as Sheriff Lee Brackett says in John Carpenter's autumnal masterpiece, it's Halloween -- everyone's entitled to one good scare!

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When he's not handing out suspiciously unwrapped candy to trick-or-treaters, Nicholas Kaufmann is a Bram Stoker Award-nominated author, reviewer and interviewer. For more regular doses of Kaufmannia, visit his blog at http://nick-kaufmann.livejournal.com or his website at http://www.nicholaskaufmann.com.