Happy Friday, Wildcats! Falvey Library is delivering you another semester of Weekend Recs, a blog dedicated to filling you in on what to read, listen to, and watch over the weekend. Annie, a graduate assistant from the Communication department, scours the internet, peruses the news, and digs through book stacks to find new, relevant, and thought-provoking content that will challenge you and prepare you for the upcoming week. 

We’re 6 days into October, which means we’re well into spooky season (there are “31 Nights of Halloween,” according to Freeform). Last year, I kicked October off with some quintessential spooky season recommendations. As a lifelong Halloween lover, I’d like to keep the tradition going with some updated recs to get you in the mood for all things Halloween.

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

If you have 5 minutes and 28 seconds…and want to laugh a little, watch this Halloween SNL sketch from last year. (Note: the video is rated about PG.)

If you have 26 minutes and 4 seconds…and want a throwback to your childhood Halloween parties, listen to this Halloween playlist.

If you have 58 minutes and 6 seconds…and love listening to podcasts, listen to Let’s Read’s latest Halloween-themed episode. Let’s Read is always the place to go for creepy narrations, and this episode does not disappoint.

If you have 1 hour and 20 minutes…and think M. Night Shyamalan movies are so bad that they’re good, watch Devil, available in Falvey’s DVD Collection. In this film, five people get trapped in an elevator in Philly, but (gasp) one of them is the literal devil. It’s one of those cheesy films that is somehow still enjoyable (Shyamalan’s specialty).

If you have 1 hour and 33 minutes…and don’t like scary movies, watch Paranorman, available in Falvey’s DVD Collection. This LAIKA film (famous for films like Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings) is the perfect amount of spooky for those who don’t like horror.

Photo by Skyler Sawyer on Unsplash

If you have 1 hour and 51 minutes…and want to experience a scary movie with a crowd of people, watch The Exorcist: Believer in theaters (premiering tonight). It’s hard to beat the original, as it still really holds up, but this should be a fun in-theater viewing experience.

Bonus: if you want to catch-up with the 1973 original, watch The Exorcist, available in Falvey’s DVD Collection.

If you have 4 hours…and want to get frightened with some friends, go to The Bates Motel & Haunted Hayride. It’s not too far from Villanova, and it has a hayride, corn maze, and haunted house, enough to leave any of your easy-frightened friends jump.

If you have 8 hours…and want to read a classic horror novel, read Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, available at Falvey. This book has everything to get you in the mood for Halloween, including haunted mansions and paranormal investigators.

Bonus: if you want to be frightened and a bit emotionally devastated, watch Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House Netflix Original series, a loose adaptation of Jackson’s book. Anything directed by Mike Flanagan is perfect for spooky season, but this show is truly some of his best work (including a beautiful 17-minute long take in the sixth episode).

If you have 10 hours…and prefer novella anthologies, read horror legend Stephen King’s Full Dark, No Stars, available at Falvey. This book contains 4 shorter novellas, including the recognizable “1922,” which also received a Netflix Original adaptation. It’s ominous, unsettling, and the perfect book for spooky season.

Bonus: if you want more Stephen King, Falvey also has some of his other spine-chilling books, including The Shining, Carrie, Misery, Cujo, and Christine, and if you want to look more into King’s terrifying world building over years, check out The Stephen King Universe: A Guide to the Worlds of the King of Horror.

Annie Stockmal is a second-year graduate student in the Communication Department and Graduate Assistant in Falvey Library.