Showmax has a mad amount of dark and delicious entertainment lined up for Halloween month. The streamer has even created a guide of every series and film that is suitably chilling and thrilling, as well as labelled “gangs” of family-friendly spooky content, divvying them up into collections by age appropriateness. So everyone can enjoy the season’s fun without suffering from nightmares.
However, it’s not all about scary stuff in October (though we are totally down for that). Below you’ll find our personal highlights for the month on Showmax. You can also check out the full streaming schedule here.
Series
First, something truly disturbing. Showmax Original and true crime documentary Boetie Boer: Inside The Mind Of A Monster takes us back in time to 1990 when Stewart ‘Boetie Boer’ Wilken starts his killing spree in Port Elizabeth, South Africa – targeting female sex workers and young boys, usually street children. Despite Wilken’s reign of terror, he was largely overlooked in the public consciousness due to other more famous murderers operating at the time.
Watch five-part documentary Boetie Boer with weekly episode drops every Wednesday from 18 October.
Initially releasing back in December 2022 on Paramount+, 1923 is a Western family saga that serves as a prequel to hit Yellowstone. Helen Mirren and Harrison Ford star as Cara and Jacob Dutton, who head a different generation of the Dutton family in Montana during the time of western expansion, Prohibition, and the Great Depression. The series has already been greenlit for a second, storyline-capping season.
Binge the entire eight-episode first season of 1923 from 16 October.
Films
October brings us an especially strong movie line-up on Showmax, headed by one of the blockbuster gems of 2023 – Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (here’s our review). In this rollicking fantasy adventure, based on the tabletop roleplaying game, a motley crew, consisting of a bard, barbarian, paladin, half-elf sorcerer and tiefling druid, embarks on a quest that sees them retrieve magic knickknacks, wake the dead for question time, do battle in a gladiatorial tournament, and rise to their heroic destiny. The cast includes Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, and Hugh Grant.
Watch Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves from Monday, 9 October.
From filmmaker Elizabeth Banks, there’s dark action comedy Cocaine Bear, inspired by unbelievable real-life events. Thanks to a drug smuggler dropping their cargo in the woods, a black bear finds and eats a parcel of cocaine. Everyone in the forest, from hikers to rangers, the police and mobsters frantically trying to find the drug shipment, find themselves the target of her hyped-up aggression. The cast of Cocaine Bear includes Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys, Kristofer Hivju, and the late Ray Liotta.
Watch Cocaine Bear from Thursday, 19 October.
Finally, and just in time for Halloween, look out for the latest entry in the self-aware Scream slasher series. In Scream VI, the four survivors of the Ghostface Murders leave Woodsboro to start new lives in New York. Except, things prove to be even more dangerous in a city of eight million people, as Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera), her sister Tara (Jenna Ortega), and twins Chad (Mason Goodin) and Mindy Meeks Martin (Jasmin Savoy Brown), are targeted by a new, ultra-brutal Ghostface. At least they have reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) and fellow survivor turned FBI agent Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere) on their side. Read our review here.
Watch Scream VI from Monday, 30 October.