Hello Geeks and Ghouls, Famous Monster here. Well, it’s finally October and you know what that means? Breast Cancer Awareness 5Ks? Good guess. Pumpkin Spice Lattes? Delicious, but no. Halloween? YES. Horror movies? DOUBLE YES!

Welcome to 31 Days of Horror, where I’ll cover at least two noteworthy horror films a day for the entirety of the month. That’s 31 Days of Horror and 62+ scary movies perfect for a cold, dark October night. Be sure to visit Geeks of Doom every day this month for a double-shot of chills and thrills!

Today’s one-two punch of ‘Satanic Panic’ features a cult of Devil worshippers and a particularly nasty coven of witches with Ti West‘s 2009 film, The House of the Devil, and Dario Argento‘s 1977 classic, Suspiria.

Paranormal Activity 4
Directed by Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman
Written by Christopher Landon, Chad Feehan
Starring Katie Featherston, Kathryn Newton, Matt Shively, Brady Allen, and Aiden Lovekamp
Paramount Pictures
Rated R | 88 Minutes
Release Date: October 19, 2012

Things that go bump in the night. The primal unknown that can make anyone lose sleep. It’s a simple concept that we can all relate to, which is why the original Paranormal Activity struck such a nerve. Audiences loved it, and it made over 12,500 times its budget in profit. So it’s not surprising Paramount has been churning out sequels every year since.

As with the previous films, Paranormal Activity 4 features “found footage” captured by the characters themselves. Each film as found put a unique spin on how the footage is captured, but the result is the same. This time, the audience is shown an amalgamation of footage captured from web cams, digital cameras, and, in a less-than-subtle piece of product placement, feedback from an XBOX Kinect setup. Unlike the previous films, however, this one offers no explanation for when or how the footage was found and put back together. This was the first sign that storytelling was not a high priority this time around.

ParaNorman
Directed by Sam Fell and Chris Butler
Written by Chris Butler
Starring Kodi Smit-McPhee, Anna Kendrick, Casey Affleck, John Goodman, Jeff Garlin, Christopher Mintz-Plasse
Focus Features
Rated PG | 93 Minutes
Release Date: August 17, 2012

Produced by Coraline creators Laika, ParaNorman is a kid-friendly, stop-motion animated spookshow – a witches’ brew of ’80s classics like Monster Squad and Beetlejuice, with a dash of 1993’s Hocus Pocus and a pinch of Gil Kenan’s Monster House.

The film takes place in the small New England town of Blithe Hollow, where a centuries’-old witch’s curse has unleashed a horde of puritanical zombies upon the townspeople. If there’s one thing worse than puritans, it’s undead puritans. Turns out the zombies were villagers way back when who, thanks to moral panic and mass hysteria, condemned a young girl to her death for practicing witchcraft.

Blithe Hollow’s only hope is a misunderstood, horror-obsessed boy named Norman Babcock (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee), who has the ability to speak with the dead. Aided by best friend Neil (Tucker Albrizzi), his sister Courtney (Anna Kendrick) and Neil’s big brother Mitch (Casey Affleck), Norman will face ghosts and ghouls to save his town from a 300-year-old witch with one Hell of a grudge.