Mercado on TV: Happy Halloween from Foxtel, Binge, Netflix, Prime, Paramount+ & 9Now

There is something for everyone this Halloween with a new horror anthology, a scary British drama, a killer doll, a re-posession, another vampire series and two more horror series from the prolific Ryan Murphy.

The eleventh season of American Horror Story (Foxtel & Binge) is set in New York circa 1981, where a leather-bound daddy is killing off gay men just as doctors are seeing the first signs of the emerging AIDS crisis.

AHC NYC has a mostly queer cast with Russell Tovey, Denis O’Hare, Charlie Carver, Zachary Quinto and Sandra Bernhard, and gay icon Patti LuPone as a Bette Midler-type singer at the steam baths. So far, so good, but no doubt it will descend into nonsense like every other series has.

Ryan Murphy’s other series is The Watcher (Netflix) starring Naomi Watts, Bobby Cannavale and Jennifer Coolidge as an annoying Karen. It is yet another haunted house drama but stick around for the cast, particularly Mia Farrow who hasn’t done a TV drama since Peyton Place in the 60s!

In the great tradition of Rod Serling (The Twilight Zone), director Guillermo Del Toro introduces each instalment of Cabinet of Curiosities but the first two have very similar endings. Let’s hope that Aussie director Jennifer Kent does something different in the eighth and final episode, The Murmuring, starring Essie Davis and Andrew Lincoln.

The Devil’s Hour (Amazon Prime) sees Jessica Raines playing a character with a spooky son and a mother with dementia. She is also suffering from deja vu as the story lurches forwards and backwards in time and it’s a lot. Hopefully, all those creepy pieces of the puzzle should fall into place, especially after Peter Capaldi’s arrival at the very end of the first episode.

The Devil's Hour

Let The Right One In (Paramount+) has already been made into two movies, and there’s currently a stage play at Sydney’s Eternity Playhouse starring Heartbreak High’s Will McDonald. The story of a teen vampire making friends with a bullied child is perfect for an ongoing series, but will Demean Bichir survive as the tortured father?

Once a demented film franchise, Chucky (9Now) is now a demented TV series. Now a queer “coming of rage” story, the killer doll is back with a second series, and it is still sick fun.

Also worth a laugh is Days Of Our Lives (9GEM) as its Foxtel episodes from a year ago finally make their way to free-to-air TV. Marlena (Deidre Hall) gets re-possessed by the Devil and her Halloween episodes are a hoot. Happy trick or treating.

Read more Mercado on TV columns here.

Mercado & Manning weekly TV podcast

Listen now on your favourite podcast platform for 30 minutes of TV reviews and recommendations every week from Andrew Mercado and James Manning. In the new episode to be published on Friday, Andrew and James discuss Inside Man, The Devil's Hour, Stuff the British Stole, Raymond + Ray plus Mercado's Happy Halloween special.

Listen online here, on the LiSTNR app or on your favourite podcast platform.