Q Wave’s Watchlist: October 2026

"There's nothing to watch" is not a phrase that should exist in a world drowning in content. Join us every month to get curated content - from the latest and greatest to revisiting oldies - we'll help you avoid the dreaded “Streaming Block” and find something to watch!

Carrie (Prime Video)

It’s spooky season, and the biggest horror event of the month comes from the perfect pairing: Mike Flanagan, the reigning king of prestige streaming horror, taking on Stephen King’s very first novel. Carrie is an eight-episode reimagining of the 1974 story, and rather than remake the famous De Palma film, Flanagan uses the extra room to go deeper into King’s original text. Summer H. Howell stars as Carrie White, a sheltered, bullied teenager discovering a terrifying telekinetic power just as the cruelty around her reaches its peak.

What sets this version apart is its update to the present. Flanagan drags the story’s central humiliation into the age of smartphones and social media, where a moment of teenage cruelty no longer stays contained to a locker room but spreads everywhere, instantly. The cast is stacked with his regular collaborators alongside newcomers, including Samantha Sloyan as Carrie’s domineering mother, Amber Midthunder as a sympathetic teacher, and Matthew Lillard as the principal. Fans in this part of the world can also take a little local pride: the series was filmed up in Vancouver.

Flanagan’s track record with King and with long-form horror speaks for itself, and this is easily one of the most anticipated genre releases of the year. All eight episodes drop at once on October 7, built for a binge in the dark. If you only watch one scary thing this month, make it this.

You’d like this if you enjoyed: Midnight Mass, The Haunting of Hill House
Runtime: 8 episodes
Genre: Supernatural horror

Crystal Lake (Crave)

Few horror settings are as iconic as Camp Crystal Lake, and this long-awaited prequel finally digs into how the nightmare began. Crystal Lake is an origin story for the Friday the 13th franchise, and smartly, it puts the focus not on Jason but on his mother. Linda Cardellini stars as Pamela Voorhees in the early 1970s, roughly a year after the drowning of her young son, when two strangers arrive in town and start pulling at threads she would rather leave buried.

The approach here leans more psychological than slasher, at least to start. Rather than a body-count machine, the series is built as a slow-burn character study of a grieving mother curdling into something monstrous, with Cardellini given the kind of meaty, unnerving lead role the franchise has never really attempted before. Produced by A24 and created by Brad Caleb Kane, it carries a prestige-horror sensibility that sets it apart from the films that spawned it.

Landing two weeks before Halloween, it’s perfectly timed for the season, and it comes to Crave here in Canada. All eight episodes arrive October 15. Consider it the origin story the franchise always deserved but never bothered to tell.

You’d like this if you enjoyed: Bates Motel, Hannibal
Runtime: 8 episodes
Genre: Horror, psychological thriller

Below (Netflix)

There’s something in the water. Below is a six-part creature-horror series set in the remote Newfoundland fishing town of Snook’s Arm, where an iceberg drifts in close to shore and brings something far worse along with it. Josh Hartnett stars as Calvin Penney, a big-hearted, stubborn local fisherman still haunted by his father’s mysterious death decades earlier, now forced to protect his family and community from a threat lurking beneath the surface.

The series smartly keeps its monster mostly hidden, trading gore for mounting dread and the claustrophobia of an isolated place with nowhere to run. Hartnett, one of the most quietly reliable actors working, is joined by Charlie Heaton of Stranger Things and Mackenzie Davis, and the show blends local myth with real emotional stakes about family, grief, and a town facing change. Created by Jesse McKeown of The Umbrella Academy, it draws obvious comparisons to closed-setting favorites like From and Midnight Mass.

There’s a nice bit of Canadian pride here too: it’s set on the Rock and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival before streaming. All six episodes land October 8. Just maybe don’t watch it alone at the cottage.

You’d like this if you enjoyed: From, The Terror
Runtime: 6 episodes
Genre: Creature horror, mystery

Dexter: Resurrection (Paramount+)

Everyone’s favorite murderous forensic analyst returns just in time for Halloween. Dexter: Resurrection is back for its second season, picking up with Michael C. Hall’s Dexter Morgan navigating life in New York and the ever-present pull of his Dark Passenger. This season boxes him in between two very different threats: a killer with decades of notoriety and a lifetime of bodies behind him, and a fresh young murderer terrorizing the city in ways no one has seen before.

The big draw this year is the guest talent. Brian Cox and Dan Stevens join as the two new killers circling Dexter, which is exactly the kind of high-wattage casting the franchise thrives on, and Hall remains as watchable as ever in the role that defined him. Meanwhile Harrison continues his own parallel pursuit of justice, setting father and son on a collision course the show has been building toward for a while.

Marking the franchise’s twentieth anniversary, this season leans hard into its spooky-season timing, premiering October 30, one day before Halloween. It streams on Paramount+ with the Premium plan. Twenty years in, the Dark Passenger still knows how to make an entrance.

You’d like this if you enjoyed: Dexter: New Blood, You
Runtime: 10 episodes
Genre: Crime drama, thriller

Nocturne (Apple TV+)

Rounding out the month is a serial-killer thriller with a seriously heavy-hitting cast. Nocturne stars Liev Schreiber as Jonah Lynn, an ex-soldier turned homicide detective who trades the grind of Philadelphia for a quiet life in a small western Pennsylvania town. That peace does not last. When the diabolically cunning killer Jurek Walter, played by Stephen Graham, sets his sights on the town and on Jonah’s family, the detective is pulled back into the darkness he was trying to escape.

Adapted from Lars Kepler’s bestselling Lazarus and The Sandman novels, the series pairs Schreiber and Graham, two of the most magnetic actors around, in a cat-and-mouse story with real weight. Zazie Beetz co-stars as FBI Agent Saga Bauer, Jonah’s surrogate daughter, whom he is eventually forced to send up against Walter in a desperate search for the killer’s last missing victim. The pedigree runs deep, with Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire veteran Tim Van Patten directing the opening episodes.

This one leans more grim crime thriller than outright horror, but its serial-killer heart fits the season perfectly. It premieres October 30 with two episodes, then rolls out weekly through Christmas. A slow, sinister burn to carry you from Halloween into the holidays.

You’d like this if you enjoyed: True Detective, The Fall
Runtime: 10 episodes
Genre: Crime thriller