A24 Bringing Hereditary, It Comes at Night, and More Horror Movies Back to Theaters for Halloween

The studio's freakiest movies return to the big screen.

By Patrick Cavanaugh

A24 Films has established itself as a studio responsible for some of the most compelling and unconventional horror experiences of the past decade, and with some of their offerings only earning larger followings on streaming platforms, the studio is bringing back many of its fan-favorite horrors to the big screen. In addition to this being many audiences' first experience witnessing movies like Hereditary or It Comes at Night on the big screen, the partnership between A24 and Regal Cinemas includes tickets only costing $8 a screening. You can check out the full schedule of A24 movies returning to theaters below, with the series kicking off on October 1st.

The following A24 films will be screening at participating theaters:

  • Tuesday, October 1st – The Killing of a Sacred Deer
  • Tuesday, October 8th – A Ghost Story
  • Tuesday, October 15th – It Comes at Night
  • Tuesday, October 22nd – Dream Scenario
  • Tuesday, October 29th – Hereditary
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Regal Cinemas presents A24: An Eerie Series

- A24/Regal)

The series kicks off with The Killing of a Sacred Deer, which was released in 2017 and comes from director Yorgos Lanthimos. The filmmaker's previous movie, 2015's The Lobster, was an eccentric exploration of love and lifelong commitment, though Sacred Deer plunged audiences into a much darker and more disturbing realm than anyone could have anticipated. Lanthimos recently earned acclaim for Poor Things, another unconventional blend of genres to tell an incredibly human tale, yet The Killing of a Sacred Deer is arguably the filmmaker's most outright disturbing project to date.

A24 describes the film, "Dr. Steven Murphy (Colin Farrell) is a renowned cardiovascular surgeon presiding over a spotless household with his ophthalmologist wife Anna (Nicole Kidman) and their two exemplary children, 12-year-old Bob (Sunny Suljic) and 14-year-old Kim (Raffey Cassidy). Lurking at the margins of his idyllic suburban existence is Martin (Barry Keoghan), a fatherless teen who Steven has covertly taken under his wing. As Martin begins insinuating himself into the family's life in ever-more unsettling displays, the full scope of his intent becomes menacingly clear when he confronts Steven with a long-forgotten transgression that will shatter the Murphy family's domestic bliss."

A Ghost Story comes from director David Lowery, who most recently offered audiences the fantasy film The Green Knight. Lowery's film might be the least scary of all the movies coming back to theaters as part of this series, but its themes, atmosphere, and overall tone are a bit more macabre and thought-provoking than a traditional drama that explores similar subject matter. 

A24 describes A Ghost Story, "Recently deceased, a white-sheeted ghost (Academy Award-winner Casey Affleck) returns to his suburban home to console his bereft wife (Academy Award-nominee Rooney Mara), only to find that in his spectral state he has become unstuck in time, forced to watch passively as the life he knew and the woman he loves slowly slip away. Increasingly unmoored, the ghost embarks on a cosmic journey through memory and history, confronting life's ineffable questions and the enormity of existence. An unforgettable meditation on love and grief, A Ghost Story emerges ecstatic and surreal -- a wholly unique experience that lingers long after the credits roll."

Another 2017 release, It Comes at Night was largely overlooked by mainstream horror fans, potentially due to the number of apocalyptic stories being brought to life in a variety of mediums. Unlike its contemporaries, however, rather than focusing on the actual threat antagonizing our heroes and exploring the explanations for its creation, this movie opted to focus solely on ambiguous and unseen threats, as well as the paranoia it inspired in survivors.

A24 describes the movie, "Secure within a desolate home with his vigilant, protective and heavily armed parents (Joel Edgerton and Carmen Ejogo), 17-year-old Travis navigates fear, grief, and paranoia amid scarce resources as a desperate young couple (Christopher Abbott and Riley Keough) seeks refuge in his family home with their young child. Despite the best intentions of both families, panic and mistrust boil over as the horrors of the outside world creep ever closer. But they are nothing compared to the horrors within, where Travis discovers that his father's commitment to protecting the family may cost him his soul."

Ari Aster's Hereditary helped put the filmmaker on the map, as early buzz at the Sundance Film Festival claimed it would be the scariest movie of the year, with many horror fans not only thinking this statement was true, but also considering it one of the best horror movies of the 2010s. With the movie's unrelenting terror not entirely marketable as a must-see scary movie back in 2018, Hereditary didn't make a major splash at the box office, though has since become a contemporary classic.

The studio describes Hereditary, "When Ellen, the matriarch of the Graham family, passes away, her daughter's family begins to unravel cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about their ancestry. The more they discover, the more they find themselves trying to outrun the sinister fate they seem to have inherited. Making his feature debut, writer-director Ari Aster unleashes a nightmare vision of a domestic breakdown that exhibits the craft and precision of a nascent auteur, transforming a familial tragedy into something ominous and deeply disquieting, and pushing the horror movie into chilling new terrain with its shattering portrait of heritage gone to hell."

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Another genre-bending experience, Dream Scenario leans more into the world of absurdity and surrealism than necessarily delivering a story that gets under your skin. Starring Nicolas Cage, the film is described, "Hapless family man Paul Matthews (Cage) finds his life turned upside down when millions of strangers suddenly start seeing him in their dreams. But when his nighttime appearances take a nightmarish turn, Paul is forced to navigate his newfound stardom, in this wickedly entertaining comedy from writer-director Kristoffer Borgli (Sick of Myself) and producer Ari Aster."

A24's Eerie Series kicks off on October 1st.

Which movies will you be checking out on the big screen? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!  

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