Kellams: It is true we can watch horror movies any time of the year, but this week leading up to Halloween seems to be the most appropriate. And it’s about this time of year we often call on artist and horror movie aficionado Casey Lohman of Fayetteville to select a handful of films that fit the bill for a dark, late October night.
We asked for movies that are a bit out of the mainstream, so while Casey can indeed recommend recent commercial successes like “Obsession” and “Backrooms,” she doesn’t have them on this list. And I also ask that she try to include at least one movie I, noted wimp when it comes to graphic and/or claustrophobic content, can watch. So here are Casey’s 2026 Halloween season suggestions.
Lohman: My first recommendation is a 2025 Canadian film called “Buffet Infinity.”
Kellams: “Buffet Infinity.” Give me the lowdown here.
Lohman: All right. The lowdown is the movie is told all through TV commercials, like old-school ’80s, ’90s TV commercials. Think we’re kind of similar generations, right, Kyle?
Kellams: Sure. I appreciate that.
Lohman: You fall asleep on the couch. You left the TV on, and you wake up to weird infomercials, right? Except H.P. Lovecraft might be involved in this one, right?
Kellams: Oh, OK.
Lohman: So you see, it’s a local shopping center, right? And they have commercials for all the businesses in it. And they keep airing new commercials and things change. And you keep getting more for this restaurant called Buffet Infinity.
And there’s a sense of dread and doom, and it’s very surreal. The commercials are very funny, but you can tell things just keep getting weirder and more off. And businesses are closing and things are happening, and the whole story is told through that. It’s like hypnotizing. You just kind of settle in and just let it take you over. It’s really cool.
Kellams: Are there characters?
Lohman: Yeah, there’s characters that own the businesses that star in the commercials that they’re in.
Kellams: OK.
Lohman: It’s very weird, but it’s a lot of fun.
Kellams: It sounds like a novel approach.
Lohman: Yeah.
Kellams: OK. I like that. “Buffet Infinity.” How much gore?
Lohman: Not a whole lot.
Kellams: OK.
Lohman: Pretty easy to handle, I would say.
Kellams: OK. Could I handle it?
Lohman: I think so.
Kellams: OK.
Lohman: I think so.
Kellams: All right. I might give that one. Where can I find that? Is it...
Lohman: I know it’s on Shudder, but I’m sure you could rent it too.
Kellams: Which, Shudder’s like the horror streaming service, right?
Lohman: But I’m sure you could get it at other places too. I definitely didn’t pick anything so niche that it’s not findable, for sure.
Kellams: Gotcha. I appreciate that. All right, “Buffet Infinity.”
Lohman: “Buffet Infinity.”
Kellams: What’s next?
Lohman: All right. So the next one is, to me, a classic of 1970s horror that I don’t think many people have seen. It’s called “Messiah of Evil.”
Kellams: I have not heard of this.
Lohman: A lot of people haven’t.
Kellams: I was alive in the ’70s.
Lohman: It was the two directors’ first film. It was very low budget, so I’m sure a lot of people didn’t see it. I didn’t see it until later either. It just oozes unsettling atmosphere. It’s a young woman searching for her artist father. He’s missing. And the last he was seen was in a gloomy seaside town called Point Dume. Nothing, in horror movies, good ever happens in a gloomy seaside town.
So it’s super cool because it’s just claustrophobic. You get to the seaside town. There’s almost no one there. Our main character kind of ambles through the town. It’s just a sleepy vibe the whole time.
And what makes this really creepy is the art direction. The framing of the camera just is so creative. And there’s tons of 1960s pop art all over everything. So there’ll be paintings of people, like on the wall of this deserted town. So you see them in the frame, you’re like, oh, is it a person or is it the painting?
And so the people in the town that she does meet are super off and everything’s weird, and it just keeps getting more and more strange. I don’t want to spoil what’s going on in this town, but it’s a mysterious and impressive low-budget movie. Even George Romero thought so, because you can see some influence there in “Dawn of the Dead.”
Kellams: Wow. Interesting. This sounds like, have you ever seen “The Wicker Man”?
Lohman: Yeah.
Kellams: It sounds like that, where, OK, something’s not right here. Something in this community, and I don’t really want to know what it is, but I’m going to keep watching.
Lohman: Definitely. And “The Wicker Man” is one of my favorites. Now, I would say the difference here is “The Wicker Man,” people are all joyful, and the people in Point Dume are off in a much more freaky way.
Kellams: OK, before we go to your third choice, I want to mention the T-shirt you have on.
Lohman: Oh, yeah.
Kellams: It’s Nightmare on Block Street. Of course, Bo Counts and Pinpoint have their Nightmare on Block Street every year. In the past, you’ve done “Creature from the Black Lagoon.”
Lohman: This year, it’s Nosferatu. It’s making a little blood cocktail in his little coffin cocktail cup. I’m pretty sure this cocktail is not on the menu, because Nosferatu would never make one that would make you feel good.
Kellams: No. And you can get that shirt?
Lohman: Yeah, you can get that shirt at Pinpoint.
Kellams: All right. What’s your third recommendation?
Lohman: All right. So this one’s probably the one people might have heard of, “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.”
Kellams: I haven’t.
Lohman: OK.
Kellams: I think I’d remember that.
Lohman: You’re probably not as plugged into queer Instagram as I am.
Kellams: Fair.
Lohman: Directed by groundbreaking indie filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun. She’s only done three films, and this is her third, and it’s really a love letter to the slasher genre. So many slashers of the ’80s era are problematic in a lot of ways, but a lot of people just love them anyway. Like, I do identify with the monsters in the film more than I do the main characters. And I think Jane’s coming from that perspective also, just to show and fix those kind of problematic areas. And in films like “Sleepaway Camp,” if people know about that, the ending of that is very problematic.
Kellams: Yes.
Lohman: And she’s a huge fan of that film too. So this is mostly inspired by “Friday the 13th,” and it follows a young writer-director who’s been asked by an A24-type company to remake the series, and she wanted to interview the final girl from the original film.
Kellams: Interesting.
Lohman: Yeah. And played by Gillian Anderson, doing her best Dolly Parton impression you’ll ever see.
Kellams: Oh, Gillian Anderson. I love her.
Lohman: She’s amazing. Yeah. So it’s really cool. The character, the final girl, hasn’t been in any of the other follow-up films. She did the first one and then became reclusive. And so she wants to visit her and learn more about the process of the film. And the scariness comes from, is this woman crazy? Because she lives where they filmed the original Camp Miasma. She’s just a recluse there, so I don’t want to ruin it too much.
It’s all about, any slasher is all about desire, sexual awakenings, and this one plays off all of those tropes. It’s deeply funny. It’s such a blast and still scary.
Kellams: Yeah.
Lohman: But I would say that scares are less important than just the love letter to the genre.
Kellams: Gotcha.
Lohman: The Camp Miasma scene was done with hand painted on glass, which gives it a really dreamlike quality. And I would say the film is very dreamlike. It’s a brilliant film. It’s probably one of my top of the year. Decade, maybe. Of the top 20 years. I’m in love with this movie.
Kellams: OK.
Lohman: All right. The next one is my not-for-Kyle pick, a French horror movie called “MadS.”
Kellams: “MadS”?
Lohman: Yeah. It’s presented as a single-shot movie, but from what I read, they did it in five takes, and it takes place in real time. So the hour and a half is the hour and a half of whatever this was going.
Kellams: And it appears to be a single shot.
Lohman: It appears to be a single shot, but I still think, five single shots.
Kellams: Oh, wow. Incredible.
Lohman: Yeah. So it’s a really low-budget French film. So this is, I think the only, there’s two subtitled ones on here.
Kellams: Yeah.
Lohman: I try to keep that to a minimum. Some people don’t like to read subtitles, but it follows this rich kid. He’s driving his dad’s fancy car. He’s going to see his drug dealer to get a new experimental drug to go take to this party, which oddly doesn’t affect this film that much.
But on the way to the party, he burns a cigarette hole into his upholstery in his dad’s car, pulls over to be worried about that, and a woman all bandaged up comes up to him freaking out. Something wrong with her. Gets in his car. He wants to try to take her to the hospital, but she doesn’t want to do that. She kind of attacks him, skitters out of the car. He just goes to the party.
So it follows him, kind of as, all the soundtrack is from him entering the party. Her tunes. Yeah, this is not for you. Kyle’s squirming already. If this was a video podcast, you could see Kyle squirming.
He enters the party, starts talking to his friends. You can tell he’s feeling different. He’s kind of hallucinating. He does not feel right. And things progress. And there’s no secret that this movie is a zombie outbreak movie, but it’s done in such a creative way. And then as he gets worse, he gets other people worse, right? Or other people, it’s spreading, but you’re just following through this party.
So you follow other characters through it and it’s just tense. It’s tense. It’s like I was grabbing into the couch as I watched this. It’s so fun. It’s total chaos. It’s a 90-minute chaotic panic attack. Great for Halloween, I would say.
Kellams: I was about to say what makes it not for Kyle, but the 90-minute chaotic panic attack, I think that’s the apt description for what doesn’t make it for me.
Lohman: I don’t want to put you through this.
Kellams: Yes.
Lohman: So many zombie movies, especially as we go to more contemporary times, do have a lot of brains or blood. This, it’s bloody, but not in that way. It’s like no one’s going brains or anything like that. It’s more just acting weird and starting to do strange things.
Kellams: Gotcha.
Lohman: But there are definitely some gory scenes of skin ripping off you would not enjoy. All right, after that, I’m going to give you the Kyle pick.
Kellams: Oh, please.
Lohman: So this movie, I think you’re gonna love it. It’s a 2024 Taiwanese film. It’s a horror comedy called “Dead Talents Society.”
Kellams: I already love it. I love the title.
Lohman: It’s heartwarming. This is your heartwarming.
Kellams: OK.
Lohman: So in this universe, when people die and become a ghost, they have to then compete with other ghosts to be the scariest ghost and haunt people. So you have to compete to get a license. You can’t just haunt without a license. You have to find your turf. You can’t take another ghost’s turf. You have to find out your signature moves, like back-bending Fim of Room 41 or the Tunnel Sisters, where obviously they’re haunting a tunnel, right?
So we follow this young, shy girl and she’s just, I mean, I relate, she’s just a shy kid with glasses, nerdy, awkward. Her scares are awkward. She doesn’t know how to do it. She keeps getting kicked off of turf because she’ll go in a corner and another ghost will be like, no, this is my shtick. I’m Trash Can Girl 142. It’s so funny to watch.
And she ends up meeting a talent agent that wants to get her into, get a license. Because if you don’t get a license and you don’t scare people or people don’t remember you, you disappear.
Kellams: Ah, OK. Makes sense.
Lohman: It’s very witty. It has a huge heart. It’s very “Beetlejuice” vibes. I wanted to walk away with these characters and spend the rest of my hangout time with them. Like, I would love a series. I would just follow them and hang out. It’s lovely. It’s so Halloween-y without all the scares or gore. Perfect Halloween night movie.
Kellams: “Dead Talents Society.”
Lohman: Yep.
Kellams: All right. So if I’m gonna be OK with “Dead Talents Society,” your fifth recommendation, will I be OK with your sixth?
Lohman: I think so.
Kellams: OK.
Lohman: But it is definitely less of a good time as far as good feelings. This is a bad feeling movie, for sure. It doesn’t have, yeah, I think so. But I wouldn’t be like, watch this one first.
Kellams: OK.
Lohman: Weighed in, but I can’t come in without, like, a gothic horror with the opulent mansion with dark vibes. Can I?
Kellams: No. You should, no.
Lohman: Yes, you have to. But the cool thing about this one is it’s a New Zealand film from 2025 called “Mārama,” and it’s from the Māori perspective. So the horror in this movie is colonialism.
So our young Māori woman is hired to work for a rich Englishman to take care of their child, or their adopted child, in this opulent gothic mansion. And he’s obsessed with Māori culture. He covets it. And so that’s, like, I feel like where the scares lie is, like, her seeing her culture taken from her and these people wearing it. Like some of them have, once revealed later, not too much of a spoiler for the movie, Māori tattoos, and they’re hiding something darker than that.
It’s rich, atmospheric, beautiful. The costumes, the period piece costumes are insane. And I think why I would recommend it to you, and this is not much of a spoiler, but this is one of those good-for-her movies, like you get to see the comeuppance. And I think that sometimes knowing that is actually a good thing, especially when you’re dealing with something so dark.
Kellams: Well, what I love about the sound of this, it’s like so many good horror movies. It’s about more than just scares. It’s about who has power, things like that.
Lohman: Yeah. So many horror movies do that. I think people don’t give horror enough credit for really commenting on political things, on just life, community. Like there’s usually a lesson in the trashiest horror movie. There’s usually a lesson in there.
Kellams: Name those six again, if you don’t mind, so people...
Lohman: Yeah, of course. So the first one is “Buffet Infinity.”
Kellams: That’s the all-commercials one.
Lohman: Yes, all-commercials one. I know that’s streaming on Shudder for sure. Then there’s “Messiah of Evil.”
That’s the 1970s one. Also on Shudder.
Then there’s the third one, “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,” which I know is on MUBI, but I think you can rent it too.
Kellams: OK.
Lohman: “MadS,” the French single-shot zombie movie, Shudder as well. “Dead Talents Society,” that was the Taiwanese horror comedy for Kyle. That one, I think it’s on Netflix, if I remember right. And “Mārama,” 2025, Shudder.
Kellams: All right, Casey, thank you so much for coming in.
Lohman: I will come in anytime you want me to come in and talk about horror movies.
Kellams: Well, before we turn on the microphones, I jokingly suggested, what if I asked you for Thanksgiving horror? And you said, I can come up with that. So you know what? Right before Thanksgiving.
Lohman: OK, we’ll do that. Because Thanksgiving can be its own horror story for some people.
Kellams: It’s tough on families, man. Everybody has a different situation.
Lohman: So yeah.
Kellams: So let’s find some horror escapism in a month, can’t you?
Lohman: Yes. Thank you. Can’t wait.
Kellams: Casey Lohman is an artist and all-around creative person, and we gladly accept her horror movie recommendations. And she will be back in about a month on Ozarks at Large for her list of, yes, Thanksgiving-themed horror movies.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
