What’s leaving Netflix and other streaming services at the end of October? Interview with the Vampire, plus these great movies you should watch before they’re gone.
October is coming to a close, and with it, Halloween season ends. Fret not, though — there are still a few days left, and fall continues around the corner. And there are plenty of great movies leaving streaming services to catch up with before you say goodbye to spooky season.
To fit the season, we’ve picked out some horror movies leaving streaming platforms — a stellar found-footage movie, an all-time classic franchise starter, and a TV reboot that improves on a vampire classic. But if you’re not a horror buff, don’t worry — we’ve got you covered, too. Dark City is the perfect vibe for this time of year, and it remains a criminally underseen cult classic. Be the change, etc., etc.
Here’s what you should watch this weekend before these titles leave their streaming services.Editor’s pickDark City
Director: Alex Proyas
Cast: Rufus Sewell, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly
Leaving: Oct. 31 on Criterion Channel
The late ’90s was a peak era for cerebral science fiction movies that probed at the concept of simulation theory, a hypothesis that speculated that everything that humans know and experience, from the physicality of our own bodies to the validity of our beliefs and the security of our institutions, is all just one big artificial simulation running inside a computer that houses the universe. Alex Proyas beat the Wachowskis to the punch with his neo-noir sci-fi film Dark City, which came out a year before The Matrix. And while it may not command the same level of fervent fandom (let alone sequels) as that film, Proyas’ movie is still a fascinating and thoroughly entertaining experience in its own right.
The film opens with John Murdoch, a troubled amnesiac, awakening in a bathtub with no memory of how he got there. Stumbling onto the scene of a murder, he escapes just in the nick of time before the authorities arrive to arrest him. Wandering through a mysterious city cast under a perpetual pall of darkness, John embarks on a mission in search for clues and answers to his forgotten life, a search that puts him in the crosshairs of a shadowy sect of psychics who seem to hold unquestioned power over this city and all of its inhabitants.
