Editorials
Shudder’s Annual ‘Ghoul Log’ Halloween Tradition Offers a Jack o’Lantern For Every Occasion
For years, we’ve spent the Christmas season baking cookies or wrapping presents to the soothing sounds of a crackling fire, regardless of whether our houses have chimneys. The Christmas Yule Log has become a holiday staple, gracing the forgotten TVs of countless families as they spend time together to close out the year. But why should December have all the fun? Those obsessed with the scarier holiday love draping our homes in Halloween decor, complete with a jack o’lantern guarding the entryway. And though we all love the look of a freshly carved pumpkin, opinions vary on the act of creation. Some worry about slicing their own fingers along with the vegetable’s unyielding flesh, while others balk at the thought of digging through mounds of goopy pumpkin guts.
Thankfully, Shudder has a solution for horror fans dying to bathe their homes in Samhain decor without carving gourds of their own. The Ghoul Log is an hour-long film starring the cheeky Jack o’Lantern who gazes out from a picturesque Halloween tableau. For the past eight years, October 1st has brought with it a new entry in this beloved series, each with its own personality. The ever-growing catalog offers a wide range of tones from classy and charming to scary and psychotic, promising a Ghoul Log that’s perfect for any Halloween scenario.
The Ghoul Log (2018)
The Ghoul Log first premiered in 2018 as an answer to our gothic prayers. This sinister twist on the classic Christmas Yule Log was designed to serve as dynamic background art to enliven a variety of Samhain festivities. The traditional scene features Jack sitting on the leaf-strewn ground. A single candle illuminates an iconic design featuring triangular eyes and a grinning mouth filled with four sharp teeth. Nighttime noises complete the scene as fallen leaves occasionally blow through the frame. Perfectly encapsulating the eerie charm of an overcast night of trick-or-treating, the inaugural Ghoul Log is the perfect backdrop for a night spent handing out candy to a parade of costumed revelers.
Return of the Ghoul Log (2019)
For those in search of a scarier vibe, Return of the Ghoul Log includes more overt horror elements. Directed by indie legend Larry Fessenden, this variation moves the jack o’lantern inside what appears to be the cluttered study of a genre author or occult scholar. Jack’s jagged smile peers out from a kitschy desk stacked with grinning skulls, creepy dolls, and other eerie knicknacks. Outside, a thunderstorm rages with frequent lightning that seems to activate the scene. A copy of Macabre Tales occasionally makes way for a line of miniature trick-or-treaters, and a disembodied hand periodically answers an antique phone emitting cackles from its rusty receiver. Markedly busier than the previous installment, Return of the Ghoul Log is perfect background noise for working on seasonal projects or curling up with a frightening book.
Trick ‘r Treat Sam o’Lantern (2020)
With most of the year’s terror occurring in the larger world, the 2020 installment nods to a beloved holiday classic. Michael Dougherty‘s Trick’ r Treat Sam o’Lantern is a thrilling addendum to his 2007 Trick ‘r Treat, the fan-favorite anthology film in which Sam (Quinn Lord), a tiny sprite covered in burlap, criss-crosses a town of revelers to enforce the rules of Halloween. Inspired by the iconic figure’s eerie face, this pumpkin is decidedly more sinister, with rough Xs for eyes and a line of vertical slashes that imply a mouthful of jagged teeth. Though the jack o’lantern sits alone on the darkened sidewalk, a cavalcade of noise can be heard in the distance, occasionally referencing the film’s harrowing vignettes. Picking up Dougherty’s festive, yet gleefully mean tone, the Sam o’Lantern is perhaps better suited for older audiences in search of more edgy festivities. The only entry no longer available on Shudder, Dougherty’s Trick’ r Treat Sam o’Lantern can now be found on AMC+.
Night of the Ghoul Log (2021)
The surprisingly simple Night of the Ghoul Log feels like the classy older sister of this gourdian family. A jolly jack o’lantern graces a clean hardwood porch surrounded by elegant candles and bright holiday lights. With a bowl of delicious candy sitting in the background, Jack’s two square teeth seem to welcome rather than guard against an evening filled with costumed visitors. Wind chimes and rustling leaves provide a soothing ASMR experience while the scene’s monochromatic decor bathes the viewer in warm, whimsical light. Seemingly designed by Martha Stewart herself, this gorgeous tableau may not be the scariest outing, but it’s the perfect addition to an upscale Samhain soirée and will undoubtedly impress your more aesthetically conscious friends.
A Very Ghoul Log Christmas (2021)
For horror fans dedicated to keeping the Halloween spirit throughout the year, 2021 gifted Ghoul Log devotees with a bonus entry for the holiday season. Injecting a smidgen of horrific imagery into the yuletide classic, A Very Ghoul Log Christmas features a cheery Jack with benignly blunted teeth sitting in front of a roaring fire topped with a furry Santa hat. Ornaments and garland surround the hearth, decked out with stockings for PG, Bob, and Ernie—nods to the horror streamer’s original offerings. Though more or less innocent, this cheery scene does feature a few sinister elements. Some trinkets are emblazoned with the Shudder logo, while an ax sits ominously next to the fire. A Krampus figurine seems to guard the tableau, reminding us that darkness often lurks within even the most wholesome holidays.
Mad God Ghoul Log (2022)
Phil Tippett‘s Mad God Ghoul Log offers the most creative iteration of the series to date. Inspired by the masterful stop motion horror film Mad God, we’re drawn into a dark, industrial world. A strangely humanoid furnace traps flames behind bars resembling jagged teeth while hot coals seem to hint at blazing red eyes. A bulbous ogre emerges from a creaking, iron door to pull a lever, dropping a single pumpkin onto a workspace directly above this fiery face. While the sounds of ironworks can be heard in the distance, a band of mysterious imps diligently carve a series of increasingly psychotic jack o’lanterns, revealed at regular intervals. The third iteration features a jagged smile ripped into the face of this frightening gourd, topped with uneven eyes and menacing pupils. Perhaps not the most devious face, this mad Jack seems pulled from another world, evoking a sense of unnerving terror.
Son of Ghoul Log (2023)
Son of Ghoul Log feels like a return to the traditional tableaux of earlier entries. This time, Jack sits on the leafy ground of a bright Halloween evening in front of a wooden fence sparkling with multicolored lights. The soothing sounds of a blissful autumn night can be heard in the distance before an ominous bell chimes to signal the end of the hour. The scariest element of this minimalist entry is undoubtedly Jack’s grinning face, which features slightly inverted triangular eyes and a gaping mouth filled with jagged teeth. Some appear to be slightly elongated, hinting at a sophisticated vampire hiding in plain sight. This staunchly traditional scene may be less active than previous installments, but the iconic imagery is perfect for seasonal ASMR, and the stripped-down design perfectly complements a variety of Halloween gatherings.
The Rise of the Ghoul Log (2024)
This ultra-stylized gourd almost seems to have been carved from clay. The Rise of the Ghoul Log features a jack o’lantern with leathery skin wrinkled around an animalistic nose and rounded eyes that each contain a blood-red pupil. His smile is filled with worn-down teeth that were once sharp and menacing, while a curling vine seems to reach towards the pumpkin patch from which he arose. But nothing on this undead gourd’s face is quite so scary as where he sits. Rather than a front porch or suburban street, Jack is now perched atop a mound of dirt in a moonlit cemetery. With crooked headstones and sinister statues that occasionally seem to move on their own, he watches over an open grave filled with a host of restless, rotting corpses. Perhaps the scariest entry to date, The Rise of the Ghoul Log is perfect for gothic get-togethers or nights spent sharing scary tales.
Revenge of the Ghoul Log (2025)
Revenge of the Ghoul Log feels like an evolution of this exciting series. A seamless pumpkin sits nestled into a mystical nature scene. Amidst the mossy plants are candles and orbs that bathe the scene in gently shifting neon light. With diamond eyes, a triangle nose, and two fangs dripping from its grinning mouth, this jack o’lantern is lit from within by unearthly green light, seemingly drawn from a witch’s cauldron.
This ethereal scene lulls us into a false sense of safety before directors Courtney and Hillary Andujar draw us into a world of unexpected horror. Nodding to John Carpenter‘s Halloween, we suddenly see through Jack’s eyes and gaze out at a stylish apartment. We slowly approach a woman blissfully working on a jack o’lantern at a dining room table. Picking up her discarded carving tool, we chase her out onto a moonlit balcony. But before Jack can strike a killing blow, we find ourselves back in the mystical garden. Is this revenge for generations of painful carving or a memory of Jack’s own creation? Perhaps this vision foretells the grisly death playing out inside the home Jack guards. We’re left to ponder these disturbing questions while imagining what more we will see in new Ghoul Log chapters to come.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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