It’s officially Spooky Season, and if Halloween is your queer holiday of choice, you’ll be thrilled to learn that Cassandra Peterson, the queer actor who’s been playing the sexy comedy witch Elvira for well over 40 years, has a new gig heading into the horror-friendly month of October. “R.L. Stine’s Pumpkinhead 2,” from the mind of the celebrated YA horror author and based on his book “The Haunting Hour,” involves young people battling a new Pumpkinhead curse. Peterson plays a character named, conveniently enough, Cassandra, and not Elvira — nobody wants to be typecast if they have a say in the matter — and news is that she’s still plenty witchy. We will follow Peterson anywhere. She’s a comedy legend, after all. And the movie drops Oct. 2 on Tubi, so gather the family and pass around some pre-Halloween candy while you watch.
Canada’s ‘Yaga’ will haunt your autumn
We’re in a “Widow’s Bay” moment, with the Emmy-winning horror-comedy series opening the door for more cozy, spooky fare. Case in point: “Yaga,” an upcoming supernatural mystery TV series from Canadian playwright Kat Sandler, based on her 2019 play, inspired by the legend of Baba Yaga, the forest witch from Slavic folklore. And the cast? Stacked with queer Canadian royalty. OK, none of them are officially queer, but together they represent the past few decades of queer pop culture. Noah Reid, Dan Levy’s love interest on “Schitt’s Creek,” plays a private detective investigating a disappearance, who encounters a professor played by Carrie-Anne Moss, every lesbian “The Matrix” fan’s forever crush. Queer cinema icon Sheila McCarthy (“I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing”) and “Letterkenny” co-star Clark Backo have supporting role roles, and “Heated Rivalry” heartthrob Hudson Williams will play a dual role as two as-yet-unnamed characters. There will be suspense, magic and creepy happenings when it hits airwaves this fall in the U.S. on AMC+.
‘Tangles’ is the serious queer animated film for adults
A hit at Cannes — where it was nominated for both the Camera d’Or and the Queer Palm — and the Toronto International Film Festival, Leah Nelson’s “Tangles” could be the queer hit of the upcoming awards season. Based on Sarah Leavitt’s graphic novel “Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer’s, My Mother and Me,” with a screenplay by Leavitt, Nelson and Trev Renney, it’s a story of a young queer woman in San Francisco (voiced by Abbi Jacobson) whose visit home to see family turns difficult when it becomes clear that her mother (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is developing Alzheimer’s disease. The voice cast is sterling — Wanda Sykes, Seth Rogen, Bryan Cranston, Samira Wiley, Beanie Feldstein, Pamela Adlon, Sarah Silverman and Bowen Yang — and the festival reviews have been rapturous. Look for it to get an award-qualifying release in late December with a wider rollout in January 2027.
Gregg Araki returns with a movie he won’t talk about
When your latest film pops with audiences and critics — that would be this year’s delightful, nervy “I Want Your Sex” — and you roll into your next one, with an initial cast of Ashton Kutcher, “Mad Men” alum Alison Brie and “Grey’s Anatomy” vet Jesse Williams (at the time of this writing still in contract talks) you can afford to be a little secretive. That’s what New Queer Cinema legend Gregg Araki is doing with his forthcoming film, currently titled “The Decline of F-cking Western Civilization,” about which we know very little. We understand that it’s an ensemble piece, that its cinematic elders are “Election” and “American Beauty,” whatever that means, and that production is underway right now in Los Angeles. There will be more news: plot, casting, a shooting start date perhaps. But for now, this is what you get. Salivate.