Free Friday Films are back at Innis this semester. October promises a month of spooky offerings (Freaky Friday Films? Free Frightful Films?), with a focus on women in horror. While women are often victimized within the genre, this month’s slate is all about seeing ladies take back their agency in whatever terrible form that may take. Because, while we on the Cinema Studies Student Union’s programming team support women’s rights, we also strongly support women’s wrongs. For your consideration, then, are these four upcoming screenings paired with the immaculate vibes they’re serving. 

Kicking off the Halloween season on October 14, Saint Maud (2019) follows a young nurse who takes it upon herself to bring salvation to a woman under her care in hospice. Despite Toronto hosting the premiere of Saint Maud as part of TIFF’s Midnight Madness selection in 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted a planned North American theatrical release, so this is a rare opportunity to see a largely missed film on the big screen. Vibes include fanatical devotion with a sinister edge, workplace stress so intense it becomes a religion, and biblical angels with all those wings and eyes and flaming wheels shouting “BE NOT AFRAID.” 

The October 21 screening has yet to be announced, so in its place please take time to reflect on who your favourite scream queen is. For me, it’s got to be Mia Goth. I wore blue eyeshadow for a solid month after I saw X last spring. 

The month rounds out with a double feature on October 28, featuring Paranorman (2012) and The VVitch (2015). Continuing CINSSU’s tradition of pairing a kid’s movie with a definitely-not-kid’s movie in October, these two films grapple with the consequences of puritanical New England society seriously bumming everybody out. Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, Paranorman is a stop-motion animated feature from the studio that brought us Coraline. Norman is a kid who can talk to ghosts, a skill that earns him mockery from his town. That is until a witch’s dead-raising curse sends the town into chaos, with Norman as the only one with any hope of stopping it. Vibes include weird-kid found families, the crunch of leaves under a zombie’s foot, and the “Good For Her” Cinematic Universe but for kids. It also features the first openly gay character in a children’s animated film. 

Closing the slate, The VVitch is the film that put Anya Taylor-Joy on the map with her portrayal of Thomasin, the eldest daughter of an exiled puritan family that is plagued by sinister goings-on in the woods beyond their homestead. Vibes include glimpses of secrets caught by candlelight, bathing in blood as a skincare routine, and dancing naked with your girlies around the bonfire. 

If any of this sounds like a good way to spend a Friday night to you, come to October FFF. You get to watch a film for free, and CINSSU’s programmers will always be down for a chat after the screening with fellow movie lovers.