Film

Equinox

A 1970 horror-adventure about four friends whose picnic goes catastrophically wrong after they find an ancient book. Shot over years by multiple hands, it's a scrappy, ambitious creature-feature with genuinely unsettling practical effects and a dreamlike logic that feels like fever-dream pulp. Perfect for anyone who loves weird horror that knows it's weird and doesn't apologize.

TMDb rating2.6

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love low-budget, stop-motion-and-matte-painting monster movies where the charm lies in creaky ingenuity and a sincere, slightly goofy belief in its own weirdness, much like a cult drive-in find.

Skip it if you need polished effects, tight pacing, or consistent acting; the dialogue and performances wobble, and the middle stretches can feel loose and repetitive.

What it asks of you: It runs about eighty-two minutes and moves in lurches, with long wandering passages between sudden bursts of creature mayhem, so patience helps more than attention.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Invasion of the Body Snatchers1978

Both trap ordinary people in escalating supernatural scenarios where reality becomes unreliable. Kaufman's version shares Equinox's paranoid, disorienting atmosphere and refusal to offer easy comfort.

But It's sci-fi paranoia rather than fantasy-horror, and the tone is colder and more clinical. Less fantastical adventure, more existential dread.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers poster

The Watcher in the Woods1980

A Disney film that shouldn't work but does—atmospheric 80s horror with genuine creep-factor and that same sense of stepping into something ancient and wrong. Practical effects and moody cinematography over jump-scares.

But It's slower and more restrained than Equinox. Some find it too polite or dated in its approach to scares.

The Watcher in the Woods poster

Phantasm1979

Surreal, low-budget horror that prioritizes atmosphere and weirdness over coherent plotting. The Tall Man is iconic, the world-building is dreamlike, and it has Equinox's commitment to looking as strange as it feels.

But Plot takes a backseat to mood and imagery. If you need clear narrative logic, this will frustrate you.

Phantasm poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Equinox

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Annihilation2018

Both films depict the collision between the mundane world and a space operating under different rules—not evil exactly, but incomprehensible and hostile to human survival.

A group crosses into a zone where reality has become fundamentally wrong, where nature is beautiful and terrifying and follows alien logic. Shares Equinox's refusal to fully explain what's happening and its visual strangeness—but with modern craft and resources.

But It's slow, cerebral sci-fi rather than action-horror. The ending is deliberately ambiguous and unsatisfying if you want resolution.

Annihilation poster
More like this (7)

Suspiria1977

An art-horror masterpiece about ordinary people trapped in a supernatural nightmare. Argento's use of color and sound to create dread is hypnotic, and it shares Equinox's willingness to prioritize atmosphere over explanation.

But It's arthouse horror—abstract, sometimes slow, more interested in sensation than story. Completely different visual palette and sensibility.

Suspiria poster

Warlords of Atlantis1978

British adventure-horror with rubber suits, creatures, and a palpable sense of fun. It wears its low budget openly and commits fully to the weirdness, much like Equinox does.

But It's campy in ways that not everyone finds charming. The dialogue and acting are often unintentionally hilarious.

Warlords of Atlantis poster

Let's Scare Jessica to Death1971

Paranoid 70s horror about a woman's grip on reality unraveling. It has Equinox's dreamlike quality and commitment to creeping dread, with a folk-horror undercurrent that lingers.

But Very slow and introspective. There's minimal action and no clear resolution. Demands patience and tolerance for ambiguity.

Let's Scare Jessica to Death poster

The Dunwich Horror1970

A Lovecraft adaptation from the same year as Equinox, equally committed to cosmic weirdness and practical monster effects. Both are trying to film the impossible and mostly succeeding through pure commitment.

But It's stiff and theatrical at times, with performances that don't always land. The pacing can drag.

The Dunwich Horror poster

Häxan1922

Both films are demon-and-supernatural-book narratives that foreground visual weirdness and practical effects over dialogue or plot momentum.

A Swedish documentary-fantasia about witchcraft and demonology that uses actors, animation, and real imagery in ways that shouldn't work but feel genuinely unsettling. Like Equinox, it's visually imaginative and treats its subject with weird earnestness.

But It's a hundred years old, silent, and deeply strange. The tone is difficult to parse—is it sincere? Mocking? Both? And it's very slow.

Häxan poster

Mulholland Drive2001

Both use narrative collapse and dream-logic to suggest that what we're watching has slipped into a different mode of reality altogether—not explained, just experienced.

Lynch's masterpiece about reality fracturing, where the second half seems to retroactively recontextualize the first. Like Equinox, it trusts the viewer to piece together what's real and what isn't, and commits to disorientation as an aesthetic.

But It's 147 minutes of arthouse cinema that deliberately withholds meaning. If you want straightforward storytelling, this is the opposite.

Mulholland Drive poster

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