’Tis the season for a good scare, and based on trailers and early reviews, here is how some of the new offerings on screen – from a direct sequel to the iconic The Exorcist (1973) to the latest horror flick from Singaporean writer-director Kelvin Tong – in October stack up.

1. American Horror Story: Delicate (premieres on Disney+ on Wednesday) – A scarily good Kardashian

The 12th season of creator Ryan Murphy’s campy American Horror Story anthology (2011 to present) borrows heavily from classic film Rosemary’s Baby (1968), about a woman duped into carrying the devil’s spawn.

The mum-to-be here is up-and-coming Hollywood actress Anna (Emma Roberts), who is desperate to have the “perfect baby” with her husband via in-vitro fertilisation (IVF).

Meanwhile, her publicist Siobhan (Kim Kardashian), whom Anna meets at an IVF support group, is doing everything she can to advance the star’s career.

But Anna’s new round of IVF brings with it nightmares, paranoia and the feeling she is being watched.

This is Kardashian’s first major television role where she is not playing herself. While it screams “stunt casting”, the critical consensus is that the infamous reality star is perfectly cast.

Half the fun is tuning in to see if she can act – and then reading the grudgingly neutral-to-positive reviews, which describe her performance as “scarily not bad” (The Guardian) and “thrillingly competent” (Variety).

Scare score: 6/10

2. The Exorcist: Believer (opens on Thursday) – The kids are not all right

From The Shining (1980) to Poltergeist (1982) to The Sixth Sense (1999), there is something uniquely unnerving about children in horror films, whether they are the victims or antagonists, or both.

Here, two schoolgirls (Lidya Jewett and Olivia O’Neill) go missing, and when they are found, they have been possessed by something demonic.

It is a direct sequel to one of the most influential horror films of all time, The Exorcist, which was initially banned in Singapore and a few other countries because of its profane and obscene content.

But this just added to the allure of the classic, which follows two priests’ attempts to cast out the evil spirit inhabiting a 12-year-old girl named Regan (Linda Blair).

In this latest chapter, one of the girls’ fathers (Leslie Odom Jr) turns to Regan’s mother Chris (Ellen Burstyn), who wrote what is effectively the dummies’ guide to child possession.

For those who remember the original, the familiar creepy theme music and the moment one girl addresses Chris as “mother” will evoke shudders of both horror and delight.

Scare score: 8/10

3. The Fall Of The House Of Usher (premieres on Netflix on Oct 12) – Edgar Allan Poe meets Big Pharma

Fans of the 1839 short story by Gothic maestro Edgar Allan Poe will be disappointed if they come to this expecting a straightforward adaptation.

The miniseries is created by American writer-director Mike Flanagan and, like his series The Haunting Of Hill House (2018) and The Haunting Of Bly Manor (2020), is only loosely based on its source material.

Flanagan seems to have drawn more inspiration from the Sacklers, the real-life villains and Big Pharma family whose dishonest marketing of painkillers launched the deadly opioid epidemic in the United States.

Their stand-ins here are the Usher clan, led by the ruthless Roderick (Bruce Greenwood) and his twin sister Madeline (Mary McDonnell), who also built their fortune on an addictive opioid.

But then a mysterious woman from their past played by Carla Gugino resurfaces, and the family’s heirs start dying off one by one.

Early reviews suggest this will make for a cathartic, if gruesome, watch.

Scare score: 6/10

4. Goosebumps (premieres on Disney+ on Oct 13) – Tale of the “murder nepo babies”

This horror comedy series is based on the beloved Goosebumps young-adult novels by American author R.L. Stine (1992 to present), one of the best-selling book series of all time.

Justin Long plays a teacher who moves into a creepy old house near his new school.

There, he becomes possessed by a force that is accidentally released by five teenagers (Ana Yi Puig, Zack Morris, Isa Briones, Miles McKenna and Will Price).

And what they unleash bears a grudge against their parents for a tragic death decades ago and now wants revenge on their kids, which it may view as “murder nepo babies”.

Given their young audience, the Goosebumps stories sometimes leave parents wondering if they are too frightening for kids, or if the occult themes are appropriate.

But just as he did with the 2015 Goosebumps movie he directed starring Jack Black, series creator Rob Letterman leavens the darkness – and all the jump scares – with irreverent humour and quippy pop-culture references.

It is not especially scary or deep, but that is the point.

Scare score: 6/10

5. Saw X (opens on Oct 19) – Hell hath no fury like a killer scammed

The low-budget indie hit Saw (2004) came up with the sick, but clever idea to have a killer lock two men in a room, then force them to solve deadly puzzles and moral dilemmas in order to survive.

The stomach-churning story ended with one sawing off his own foot to escape, and it paved the way for eight more movies in one of the most enduring “body horror” franchises of all time.

Some have dismissed the Saw films as torture porn, but they have done consistently well at the box office.

And the 10th, Saw X, has been exceptionally well-received, with many fans and critics saying it is the best instalment since the original.

Tobin Bell returns as the sadistic killer known as Jigsaw, or John Kramer, whose terminal cancer diagnosis fuels his sadistic games.

This time, he goes to a clinic in Mexico that promises a miracle cure. But when he learns he has been duped, he exacts revenge on the crooks as only he knows how.

Several reviewers did not appreciate the attempt to evoke sympathy for Kramer, a certified psychopath.

But everyone hates scammers who prey on the vulnerable, so in movie morality, it all kind of works out.

Scare score: 7/10

6. Confinement (opens on Oct 19) – Post-partum nightmare

As joyous as having a baby is, it can be disorienting.

Then there is the confinement custom practised by some post-partum – which, to the new mum (Rebecca Lim) in this film, sounds an awful lot like house arrest.

For a month, her confinement nanny (Cynthia Koh) insists that she not leave the house she has just moved into, receive any visitors or eat any unapproved foods.

But shortly after the nanny moves in to care for her and the infant, strange things start happening around the home.

Recalling films such as Rosemary’s Baby and The Hand That Rocks The Cradle (1992), this story from Singaporean writer-director Kelvin Tong (The Maid, 2005) is an apt metaphor for the terrors of parenthood and, perhaps, the challenge of finding decent childcare.

Scare score: 7/10