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5 underrated indie horror movies you need to stream in October 2024

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5 underrated indie horror movies you need to stream in October 2024

Sure, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, The Exorcist, and The Conjuring are all legendary horror films that earned hundreds of millions at the box office, spawned franchises, and have been immortalized by pop culture. But there are tons of fantastic horror movies out there that didn’t have big budgets and major studios behind them. Some were made by indie filmmakers who simply knew they had a good story to tell and wanted to tell it.

This October, in addition to rewatching all the classics, be sure to check out some great indie horror movies that are guaranteed to scare and excite. From the worst STI you’ve ever had to Bigfoot (yes, Bigfoot) running loose in the woods, here are five indie horror movies you need to check out this October.

We also have guides to the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, the best movies on Maxand the best movies on Disney+.

Exists (2014)

Bigfoot runs through the forest in Exists
Court Five

Eduardo Sanchez, the director of The Blair Witch Project, returned in 2014 with another found-footage horror movie, Exists. The film centers around a group of friends vacationing at a remote cabin in the woods. But they soon find themselves being stalked by Bigfoot. The premise sounds a bit stupid, but somehow Sanchez managed to create a genuinely scary and effective Sasquatch movie.

When you think about it, Bigfoot is the perfect slasher villain. Big, strong, and elusive like a wild animal, but able to think and plot like a human. We have tons of ghost movies and the MonsterVerse has made King Kong cool again, so why not try a Bigfoot movie?

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Watch Exists on Freevee.

Hatchet (2006)

Victor Crowley in Hatchet
ArieScope Pictures

The goal of Hatchet was to revive the classic ’70s and ’80s slasher flick. The movie’s tagline leaned into this by proclaiming the film to be a return to “Old school American horror.” In the film, Victor Crowley was a deformed young boy who was bullied by everyone. One night, kids from his school set his rural cabin on fire with Victor trapped inside. Desperate to save his son, Victor’s father tried to smash through the door with a hatchet… but ended up sending it straight through Victor’s skull.

The origin story was heavily inspired by Friday the 13th, and now in the present day, a full-grown, monstrous, never-dying Victor has risen from the dead, hellbent on killing anyone who comes near his cabin on the bayou (again, very much inspired by Jason Voorhees). Thanks to some great humor, tons of throwbacks to classic slasher films, and lots of genuinely scary scenes, Hatchet is both an homage to the slasher genre while also being a solid entry.

Watch Hatchet on Plex.

Terrifier 2 (2022)

Art the Clown in Terrifier 2
Dark Age Cinema

Art the Clown is horror’s newest it boy. Originally he appeared in the 2013 anthology film All Hallow’s Eve before getting his own film Terrifier in 2016. But it was 2022’s Terrifier 2 that really introduced Art to a wider audience – and luckily for viewers, you don’t really need to watch the previous movies to enjoy it, though it is fun to see his origins.

In Terrifer 2, Art encounters his greatest enemy yet, Final Girl Sienna Shaw (Lauren LaVera). Like all proper slasher flicks, Art kills everyone around him, building the suspense before his final battle. But what really separates the Terrifier movies from other more mainstream horror films is the totally gory, gruesome, and wild kill scenes. Somehow, the film’s kills are so bombastic that it adds a perverse and sadistic dose of humor.

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Watch Terrifier 2 on Freevee.

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)

Leslie Vernon in Behind the Mask
Glen Echo Entertainment

Behind the Mask is a super unique and fun slasher movie that centers around a reporter and her crew filming segments about notorious serial killer Leslie Vernon. But they’re not just talking about the infamous killer … they’re actually following him around, getting a first-hand account of his life. Immediately, the premise disarms you. You can’t tell if the film is a comedy or a proper horror movie.

But the third act changes everything and proves that Leslie had a plan of his own the entire time. No spoilers here, just know you’re in for a great surprise and one hell of a good time. It also stars two horror legends, Robert Englund (aka Freddy Krueger) and Zelda Rubinstein from Poltergeist.

Watch Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon on Shudder and AMC+ .

Contracted (2013)

Turning into a zombie in Contracted
BoulderLight Pictures

Before It Follows was released, Contracted was the original sexually transmitted horror movie. In the film, a young woman named Samantha is raped at a party, and it turns out the man who raped her is a necrophiliac who recently had sex with a diseased corpse.

Soon, Samantha’s body starts to fall apart and her actions become erratic and violent. Eventually, she deteriorates away into a bloodthirsty zombie. Just like It Follows, the combination of sex and horror makes Contracted terrifying. But its added dose of body horror makes it a truly squirm-worthy movie that’s disgusting, vile, and will absolutely haunt your dreams.

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Watch Contracted on AMC+.






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Submerged is everything impressive and isolating about the Vision Pro

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Submerged is everything impressive and isolating about the Vision Pro

I don’t like submarines. The idea of being trapped, several hundred feet underwater, in a narrow, creaking death trap? No thanks. I already knew that going into a screening of Submerged, the first scripted short film shot in Apple Immersive Video for the Vision Pro. Now that I’ve seen it, I’m triply sure.

Written and directed by Oscar winner Edward Berger, Submerged takes place inside a WWII submarine that’s under attack. It follows the crew as they try to escape a sinking submarine. I, however, was seated comfortably in 2024 on a couch at Apple’s demo space in Manhattan. There weren’t any other theatergoers because I was going to strap the theater to my face. It was a little weird. At least, until the film got going. Then, I, too, was inside a WWII submarine.

Watching an immersive film inside the Vision Pro is an odd thing. On the one hand, it’s hard to forget you’re in a headset. But, unlike a regular film, I have a ghostly sort of agency inside the narrative. The action can be happening with the main characters, but I’m not obligated to watch them. You can instead focus on the extras in the background. I can — and did — occasionally choose to turn my head to stare at the rivets in the submarine’s metal walls or beads of condensation in a torpedo tube (also, rudely, a roach skittering across the floor). Sometimes, I’d turn around to see if this Submerged world had 360 degrees like the real one. Spoiler: it doesn’t. This fictional world spans 180 degrees, and once you reach the border, it fades to black.

The experience feels like a cross between playing a video game and viewing Sleep No More, an immersive version of Macbeth where the audience traipses through a creepy hotel as the play unfolds around them. Scenes move slower, as if you’re being invited to gawp at your surroundings. At the same time, you’re not fully free to explore. There’s still a story that Berger is trying to tell — you’re just along for the ride.

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All of that is a natural part of adapting traditional filmmaking to a more immersive 180-degree field of view. “That frame is very large and you need to fill that frame with things that happen, things that could be of interest to the audience,” Berger says. “Every extra counts in this, every piece of equipment, every piece of bursting pipe or element in the frame counts. You can’t really cheat.”

That wide field of view comes with its own obstacles. Mics and lighting have to be built into the scenery. Berger says he had to storyboard everything, create a short animated film based on that, and then watch it in the Vision Pro to get a sense for how the camera would move. Berger also wore the headset when filming started to figure out how shots would look.

The 180-degree view created technical challenges for the film.
Image: Apple

The result is impressive. As water rushed into this fictional submarine, I could taste the faint memory of salt water on my tongue. When characters walked down narrow submarine corridors, I felt claustrophobic. During a scene where sailors shoved a torpedo into its launch tube, I instinctively stretched my hands out. For a split second, I thought they were loading it straight into my chest.

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“My main agenda is to make you feel what the main character is feeling, to sort of have you go through what they’re doing,” Berger says. On that front, Submerged is incredibly successful. It’s when you remember you’re in a headset that the rest of the world comes rushing back in.

Watching the film, you become very aware there’s no one else experiencing this with you. There’s no one else gasping at harrowing moments. There’s no one to lock eyes with, as if to say “Whoa, did you see that, too?” If you were to SharePlay this, you’d just see the ghostly Persona of a friend who isn’t actually there. And then you’d miss out on the whole immersive aspect. When you think about it that way, Submerged is something you have to experience alone.

Watching the film, you become very aware there’s no one else experiencing this with you

Owning (or borrowing) a Vision Pro is also the only way to see Submerged. That’s inherently lonely. The only people I’ve really been able to chat about this experience with were Apple employees and Berger himself. Now that the film is available, I’ll have to wait for the two people I know in real life with a Vision Pro to carve out time in their schedule to see it. When I try to explain it to my spouse, they are unmoved. 

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Ostensibly, Apple wants these immersive films to serve as a selling point for the Vision Pro. Come, spend $3,500, and see for yourself what the magic is all about. There’s a logic to it. Submerged is truly a technologically impressive proof-of-concept for high-quality immersive content. It’s just also a hard experience to share. I can’t say with a straight face that this is the killer reason anyone should buy one of these things, especially since this was only a roughly 17-minute film. That’s long enough for things to feel snappy and fresh. I’m not sure how well the immersive aspect would hold up over a two-hour feature. 

“Not every movie is going to be made on these headsets. It’s not necessary. It would be a waste of resources and waste of time,” Berger acknowledges. Instead, he sees the Vision Pro as another tool in the belt. “Not every movie is supposed to be for every medium. But if I have the right story, I think, ‘I’m excited about telling this and about pushing the medium forward.’” 

That’s sort of the quagmire all mixed reality tech is stuck in. It can be magical. When you try it, you can see why some people are inspired and excited. And then, when you inevitably take the headsets off, it’s hard to explain to anyone why the world inside the headset is better than the one outside it. “Pushing boundaries” isn’t all that convincing of a reason. Watching Submerged is like this, too. For all the artistry and technological prowess that went into making this film, I’ve never needed the Vision Pro to imagine how terrifying a sinking submarine could be. It’s just not necessary for immersing yourself in a good story.

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Submerged is Vision Pro’s claustrophobic thrill ride that’s short on depth but long on immersion

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Apple Vision Pro Immersive Video

Claustrophobia and barely contained panic were my two overriding emotions as I experienced Apple’s first-ever immersive narrative short film on its Vision Pro mixed reality headset.

The aptly titled Submerged, which arrives on Vision Pro headsets around the world today, tells the harrowing 17-minute tale of a World War II submarine tasked with tracking ships in enemy waters.

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Network Rack 42U #networking #compterinformation

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Network Rack 42U #networking #compterinformation

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US and UK announce online child safety partnership

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US and UK announce online child safety partnership
Getty Images A stock image of a young child holding a pale blue smartphoneGetty Images

The US and the UK have announced what they say is their first joint agreement aimed at keeping children safer online.

It will see the setting up of a joint online safety working group to share evidence and expertise, and study the impact social media has on children.

UK Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said the agreement would turn the two countries’ “historic partnership” towards “delivering a safer online world for our next generation.”

But campaign group Smartphone Free Childhood said it was insufficient and parents “don’t have time to wait and see whether this UK-US agreement makes any difference when their children’s futures are at stake.”

However, others argue more evidence does need to be gathered in relation to online harms to guide any future policies.

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“Policies and guidelines to support young people in navigating their digital world need to be based on robust evidence, but to date we haven’t had much success in establishing cause and effect when it comes to impacts on wellbeing,” said Prof Pete Etchells of Bath Spa University

Announcing the agreement, the UK government acknowledged there was “limited research and evidence on the causal impact that social media has on children and young people”.

It committed to consider ways access to more data held by big tech firms could be given to researchers.

‘Further and faster’

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The agreement was announced in a joint statement between the two countries.

At its heart is the joint working group which will work on areas including “promoting better transparency from platforms” and “better understanding the impacts and risks of the digital world on young people, including new technologies like generative AI.”

They also said they expected tech platforms to go “further and faster” to protect children.

“As more children across the U.S. and around the globe have access to online platforms for online learning and social media, there is also increased risk to this exposure,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo.

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“That is why we are taking the necessary steps in the United States, and with our UK partners, to protect children’s privacy, safety, and mental health,” she added.

However, Smartphone Free Childhood said action was needed sooner, so it has launched a campaign calling on the UK government to ensure that children don’t have access to their mobile phones at school.

The campaign group argues that “further delay” from the government would make the UK looking “increasingly behind” other European countries who have strengthened restrictions.

Currently government guidance says that: “All schools should prohibit the use of mobile phones throughout the school day – not only during lessons but break and lunchtimes as well”.

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However, the government so far says it has no plans to ban smartphone use for the under-16’s.

The UK’s Online Safety Act does place duties on online platforms to protect children’s safety and put in place measures to mitigate risks.

But this is not yet fully in force. Guidance for firms on how to comply with the new legislation is still being produced by the communications regulator Ofcom.

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Home Lab Server Rack Review

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Home Lab Server Rack Review



Let’s talk about server racks for a minute.

This is a review on StarTech.com 25U Open Frame Server Rack – 4 Post Adjustable Depth (23″ to 41″) Network Equipment Rack w/ Casters/ Levelers/ Cable Management (4POSTRACK25U)



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Next-generation technology is a critical mid-step in dementia care

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New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.
New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

The past few years have seen outstanding progress in medication for previously incurable conditions. Most pertinent for me is the approval of lecanemab for use in the UK and elsewhere to slow the progress of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. It isn’t a cure, but it brings us closer to dementia becoming a chronic condition managed with drugs.

But while lecanemab has been hailed as a game changer, it isn’t yet readily available and, in the meantime, 55 million people are living with dementia globally. By 2050, that will grow to 139 million. It is one of the biggest medical and…

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