Trailers of the week: Nosferatu, The Franchise, and Squid Game 2

Can you feel it? There’s a slight chill in the air, the Sun is retiring earlier, and the leaves are beginning to change (at least in my Midwestern city). We’re wading right into the time of year when everyone starts posting the vampire Kermit the Frog meme to show how ready they are for Halloween. I’m even starting to eye that Shudder re-subscribe button.

October has its own vibe at the cinema, and theatrical releases this month include Operation Blood Hunt, a movie about 1944 special forces fighting werewolves in the Pacific theater, and Seven Cemeteries, a Danny Trejo-starring film about a guy who hires a witch to resurrect his posse to save a woman’s ranch. And let’s not forget Rumours, which I’m very excited for.

So I’ve got a couple of this week’s scary movie trailers for you to check out below, along with two streaming series. Enjoy!

1922’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror was a Dracula movie in all but name. So much so that Bram Stoker’s heirs got a court order to have the movie’s copies destroyed, yet some copies survived. Now, over 100 years after its release, Nosferatu is getting a remake starring Bill Skarsgård as the vampire Count Orlok, AKA Nosferatu. Lily Rose-Depp and Willem Dafoe also star.

The newest trailer does a great job setting up the atmosphere of terror that the townsfolk feel toward Count Orlok, but Focus Features isn’t showing us Orlok himself quite yet. Nosferatu hits theaters on December 25th.

I don’t know what the heck is going on with Warner Bros.’ Companion. The teaser for this Drew Hancock-directed movie starts with a head fake, making you think it’s a love story. Then it quickly devolves into what looks like a thriller about a woman (Sophie Thatcher) being held captive by a man (Jack Quaid).

I think that’s a head fake, too. There’s a bizarre moment, at the end of the trailer, where Thatcher’s character holds an unshaking hand over a candle until her arm catches fire. She’s crying, so she clearly feels pain, but the movie’s classification — it’s a sci-fi thriller — makes me wonder what’s going on underneath.

I hoped that by texting the number in the description on the trailer’s YouTube page I would glean a little more. It involves a questionnaire to “Find Your Companion today” that includes a request for a selfie. I got this at the end:

That didn’t answer any questions for me, but at least I’ll be getting marketing texts now. Anyway, Companion hits theaters on January 10th next year.

Three years after the first hit season of Squid Game ended and spawned a reality show spinoff, the Netflix show is returning with its second season on December 26th. A new teaser this week showed Gong Yoo’s Salesman preparing for work (and probably to do some slapping). It ends with him talking directly to the camera as he asks “Sir, would you like to play a game with me?”

The Franchise, HBO’s new series following the making of a fictional comic book-style movie, looks like a delightful takedown of Hollywood’s ongoing superhero obsession. It’s written by Jon Brown, who also wrote Succession, and stars Himesh Patel and Lolly Adefope as Daniel and Dag, two production workers on the film. Daniel Brühl is in there too — a bit of fun casting, given his role as Zemo in multiple Marvel productions. The Franchise begins streaming tonight at 10PM ET on Max.