October and Halloween go hand in hand.

Some of the most prevalent symbols of the holiday are pumpkins, costumes and candy. For many, it’s also accompanied by horror and fright. Haunted houses and thrilling movies that make your heart race are some of the most renowned features of Halloween.

Scary books and movies are also a popular staple of this month. With Halloween just around the corner, here’s a list of spooky films and novels to help you kick it off. (Some of these might not actually be scary– rather, they have an element of menace and are extremely creepy and suspenseful, but they’re just as entertaining.)

IT

One of the better-known stories of the horror genre, Stephen King’s IT is a classic– and not just because he’s the master of horror.

IT is both a novel and a movie. Two movies, actually: the version from the 1990s, originally a miniseries, and the 2018 adaptation, which was a worldwide hit, raking in a whopping $700 million at the box office. IT follows a group of 7 friends who call themselves “The Losers’ Club.” They must team up against a centuries-old alien that typically takes the form of a clown, better known as Pennywise. However, It is able to appear as anything It wants. The story follows the Losers’ Club from their adolescent days up into their adult lives, when the group of friends must band together for the final showdown with It.

It’s better to watch your pick of the movies (personally, I recommend the newest one; while the older one is extremely accurate to the book, it’s also very long– upwards of three hours!) as the book has a stellar 1,138 pages. However, if you’ve got the time, the book is a worthwhile read. The sequel to the newer movie will be released in 2019, so stay tuned.

Jeepers Creepers

Released in 2001, some of you might be snickering. “That’s not scary at all!”

While it’s not the kind of movie to make you scream bloody murder, it’s bone chilling in a different way: the characters cannot escape tragedy despite doing everything in their power to avoid it; quite different from a handful of horror movies in which the characters cheat death.

A three-part series, with the most recent and final sequel released in 2017, the first movie follows a pair of siblings who find a disturbing scene in the basement of an abandoned church. It’s actually the doing of an ancient malevolent force, a monster known simply as “the Creeper.” The brother-and-sister duo find themselves prey, stalked by the Creeper, who will stop at nothing to get what it wants. This horror film gives a new meaning to the old song from the ’30s (which was arguably already creepy enough to begin with.)

Pet Sematary

Another classic by legendary horror author Stephen King, this book has also been made into a film, with a second movie adaptation coming in 2019 (mentioned above.)

Rachel and Louis Creed have a picture perfect life. Together they have two children, Ellie and Gage. The family moves to a new home in Ludlow, Maine, only to find the land their house sits on hides a sinister secret. It shelters an ancient Micmac burial ground, dubbed “Pet Sematary” by a previous generation of children. Their new neighbor, an old man by the name of Jud Crandall, warns them about the malevolent powers that surround the cemetery. The land has the ability to reanimate the dead, but those it brings back are always different. Something about them has changed. At first, the father only buries his daughter’s cat, Winston Churchill, who was struck and killed on the dangerous stretch of road beside their house. But then he attempts the unthinkable. Louis Creed tries to revive a human being.

Sometimes dead is better.

Venom

The newest movie on this list, Venom made its debut at the beginning of October 2018. A thrilling movie with an intriguing storyline, Venom is both intense and comedic.

Eddie Brock is a journalist who exposes the true intentions of celebrities and public figures. At the start of the movie, he’s on a mission to dismantle the creator of the Life Foundation, a gifted and intelligent man by the name of Carlton Drake. While it would seem Drake has plans to save the planet and aid the public, that’s not the case (as it seldom is.) Drake is actually a cold hearted murderer who lies and manipulates to get what he wants. While on an outer space mission, his company discovers alien organisms, which are brought back to Earth. Drake wishes to combine them with people through symbiosis, believing this hybridization is the key to human survival. By accident, Eddie Brock finds himself the host to one of these strange and foreign creatures, a twisted entity called Venom. Merged together with him, Eddie shares the alien’s incredible abilities. Now that they are one and the same, the pair embarks on a dangerous mission: to do the unthinkable.

Alien

Alien is the first title in a four-part series. Released in 1979, the movie is a spine-tingling thrill ride and a marvel of its time. A movie bearing a similar name and concept (Alien: Covenant) was released in 2017.

Alien takes place aboard the commercial starship Nostromo. Its crew is awakened from their stasis to investigate an SOS signal coming from a spacecraft of unknown origin. Once aboard the foreign vessel, however, disaster strikes. One of the members of the Nostromo slips and disturbs a colony of alien eggs; one of the creatures within the pods fastens itself to his face. Things only get worse from there. Terror ensues as the crew is stalked by something sinister– something twisted, dark, and full of hunger.