By Emily R. Zarevich, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Happy Halloween, Burlington! It’s the time of year to put heart rates and nervous systems to the test by sitting down for something spooky and adrenaline-spiking to watch. Something that curdles the blood and makes the sweat bead on the forehead. The people of Burlington are spoiled for choice when it comes to quality horror films and shows with a local flair. A host of actors from our city have made their mark in the genre as scream queens and villains’ victims. From gruesome serial killers to supernatural forces, Burlington natives have faced it all in fiction. Here’s what’s available for hardcore horror film and TV show fans.
In horror movies, the character of the babysitter is always a vulnerable figure. They are left alone as the sole authority figure in an unfamiliar home, in charge of children who are not their own. The doors may be locked, and the neighbourhood streets supposedly clear, but almost anything could be lurking in the shadows just outside of the house. The babysitter is exposed to all sorts of threats and dangers, and the horror genre takes ample advantage of this to invoke audience feelings of insecurity and anxiety. Burlington actress Jessica Clement stars as such a character in director Brandon Christensen’s Night of the Reaper, which came out a year ago on September 19, 2025.
Clement plays Deena, an inexperienced college student who is roped into a job as a babysitter for the son of the sheriff of a small town. Already, the setting makes the plot. A small rural town is a familiar and fitting backdrop in horror films for a scary scenario to unfold because the police department is typically too far away and understaffed for help to arrive on time. In Night of the Reaper, the local sheriff is genuinely trying his best to keep his town safe and sound, but evil proves to be more powerful than typical detective work and police procedures can handle.
Clement does a commendable job playing the traumatized target of a lurking murderer known as the Reaper, a masked monster with an unstoppable bloodthirst. After watching this film, young people will think twice about ever taking a babysitting job again. Night of the Reaper can be rented on Prime Video and is distributed by Shudder.
Scared of clowns? Eli Craig directed a blood-splashing movie to pierce that widespread fear of painted faces and red balloons, starring Burlington-born actress Katie Douglas (famous for appearing in Netflix’s Ginny & Georgia). Clowns are supposed to be figures associated with harmless fun and happy childhood memories from birthday parties, circuses, and carnivals. Many horror movies manipulate this sense of nostalgic childhood safety by morphing clowns into ghastly predators with spine-chilling slasher smiles. The film Clown in a Cornfield, which came out last year on March 10, 2025, does exactly this.
Based on the 2020 novel by Adam Cesare, Clown in a Cornfield follows Quinn (played by Douglas), who moves to Kettle Springs to live with her father, who has secured a job as the town’s doctor. Quinn has no idea that she’s just entered an isolated, terrorized community. The mascot of the Baypen Corn Syrup factory, Frendo the Clown, is killing off townspeople, particularly teenagers, one by one. As the killer hides behind the persona of a clown, no one knows who they are or what their motivations are. Frendo is soon joined by other clown comrades, like an infestation. “Send in the Clowns” is suddenly not a playful song anymore.
Like Clement in Night of the Reaper, Douglas takes on the challenging horror movie staple role of “scream queen,” usually a teenage or college girl who becomes the favourite target of the movie’s villain. “Scream queen” often overlaps with a “final girl,” the heroine who has to outsmart the villain. Scream queens and final girls have no power and no real advantage. They have to survive by their wits and whatever weapons they can grab within reach. They also have to be able to run fast and hide at a moment’s notice. Clown in a Cornfield is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video.
“Reader beware, you’re in for a scare” is the infamous tagline of the outstandingly popular R.L. Stine book series Goosebumps, aimed at young readers with a taste for the morbid. The books proved to be so universally loved (and so universally responsible for nightmares) that in the mid-nineties they were adapted into a TV show for Fox Children’s Network, also named Goosebumps, that converted the chapter books into half-hour episodes.
As all the episodes starred preteen and teen protagonists who involuntarily find themselves caught in creepy capers, the show provided many work opportunities for budding child actors who were just starting off their careers. One of them was Burlington-raised actor Ryan Gosling. In his teens, Gosling starred in what is considered one of the show’s most psychologically horrific episodes.
On February 19, 1996, Goosebumps premiered “Say Cheese and Die,” a storyline as macabre as it sounds. Gosling plays Greg Banks, who is part of a friend group of free-range children who like to explore abandoned places in their town. During one of their adventures, they find a mysterious camera that predicts doomed fates for whoever it photographs. In typical R.L. Stine fashion, young people unwillingly become the owners of cursed objects, and therefore have to carry the heavy and world-altering responsibility of dark magic and paranormal power. The episodes of Goosebumps are available on the Paramount Plus Amazon channel. This particular episode was directed by Ron Oliver.
Additionally, Gosling made a guest appearance on the American children’s horror show Are You Afraid of the Dark? He pops up in the episode “The Tale of Station 109.1” as Jamie Leary, a character invented by Stig, who aspires to become a part of the teen scary-storytelling collective The Midnight Society. Jamie is a teen who has to rescue his little brother from a hellish and haunted radio station that lures victims to their doom over the air. This infamous episode was also directed by Ron Oliver.
Burlington-born actor Brennan Clost makes an appearance in another R.L. Stine-inspired work, an adaptation of one of the author’s Fear Street books, which were aimed at more mature young adult readers who were graduating from Goosebumps. Clost shows up in the film Fear Street: Prom Queen as Gerald, an avid supporter of high school prom queen candidate Tiffany. However, loyalty and the rules of high school politics do nothing to protect anyone when a serial killer targeting teens (yet another one) goes on a gory rampage. Fear Street: Prom Queen came out on Netflix on May 23, 2025, and is still available on the platform. The film is directed by Matt Palmer.
For those who want something a little more on the funny side, one of Jim Carrey’s first starring roles was in the 1985 film Once Bitten, directed by Howard Storm. Amidst 80s fashion and humour, Carrey, who spent eight years in Burlington and attended Aldershot High School, plays Mark, a teenager targeted by a predatory vampire-countess (played by Lauren Hutton) who needs to feed on the blood of virgins in order to keep her eternal youth. To maintain her supply of untainted blood, the countess needs Mark to stay celibate, not an easy task when you’re a teenager and sexually frustrated. It’s a semi-comedy because, well, it’s a Jim Carrey film, a first step in his progress towards becoming Hollywood’s reigning King of Ham. It’s available on Amazon Prime.
