Mischief Night Is Calling and Tubi Has the Movies to Cause Trouble
Eight chaotic movies are ready to turn October 29 into a free-for-all on Tubi.
Halloween gets all the attention, but what about the night dedicated to causing trouble before the costumes even come out? Mischief Night has entered the chat, and good behavior is looking optional.
October 29 is Halloween's less responsible sibling. No elaborate costume required, no trick-or-treating schedule to follow, and absolutely nobody volunteering to be the voice of reason. It's the one night when the neighborhood's unofficial troublemakers get their moment in the spotlight, although we're pretty sure the local homeowners' association would like a word. Halloween can keep its ghosts and goblins. Mischief Night has a reputation to uphold.
Watching fictional troublemakers make spectacularly bad decisions is much more entertaining when you're not responsible for cleaning up afterward. You can spot the terrible idea from a mile away, recognize exactly when someone should've walked away, and still find yourself hoping things get a little more ridiculous. Movie characters, thankfully, have a remarkable talent for ignoring every warning sign the audience can see coming.
Tubi's Laugh & Scream collection has a whole lineup of horror-comedy troublemakers, with plenty of outrageous personalities and enough twisted humor to make Halloween's pregame an event of its own. The eight movies below have their own approaches to causing chaos, and none of them seem concerned about who has to deal with the aftermath.
Your neighbors can keep their pumpkins. We've got trouble to get into.
Mayhem
Every office has rules. Derek Cho is about to discover how quickly they become optional when the entire building loses its ability to behave.
Steven Yeun stars as Derek Cho, a corporate employee having an exceptionally terrible day in Mayhem. After losing his job, Derek finds himself trapped inside an office building where a mysterious virus has stripped his coworkers of their inhibitions. Teaming up with Melanie, played by Samara Weaving, he decides to fight his way through the company's violent hierarchy. The corner office has never looked less appealing.
Forget filing a complaint with HR. Derek and Melanie are taking their grievances directly to upper management, and the meeting is about to get physical. Yeun and Weaving make an excellent pair of disgruntled employees, especially when their frustration turns into a very physical response to corporate nonsense. Their unlikely partnership gives the movie plenty of sharp exchanges between its bloody confrontations, while director Joe Lynch treats the office like an action-movie playground. Climbing the corporate ladder has never involved this many people trying to knock you off it.
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Scary Movie
Ghostface has spent years terrifying teenagers. Someone probably should've warned him that Cindy Campbell and her friends aren't exactly working with a full set of survival instincts.
Horror's biggest clichés get absolutely demolished in Scary Movie, where a group of teenagers finds itself stalked by a masked killer after covering up a deadly accident. Anna Faris leads the madness as Cindy, while Regina Hall's Brenda and Marlon Wayans' Shorty contribute their own spectacularly questionable responses to danger. The familiar slasher setup is there, but practically every serious moment becomes an excuse for another ridiculous joke.
Horror's most recognizable scenes are practically begging to be pranked, and Scary Movie is more than happy to volunteer. The movie throws subtlety out the window with outrageous physical comedy, absurd misunderstandings, and characters who respond to mortal danger with the worst possible instincts. Even the genre's most intimidating villains aren't safe from the jokes, something we celebrated in our look at three of Scary Movie's wildest chapters.
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Psycho Goreman
Ancient evil has awakened. The universe is in danger. Humanity's last hope is a little girl with absolutely no interest in respecting anyone's authority.
Siblings Mimi and Luke accidentally unleash an immensely powerful alien monster in Psycho Goreman, only to discover that a mysterious gem gives them control over the creature. Rather than panic about the possible destruction of civilization, Mimi decides their new extraterrestrial acquaintance should participate in her games and follow her orders. The monster would probably prefer to get back to conquering planets, but nobody asked him.
Mimi has all the makings of a legendary little troublemaker, except her partner in crime is an ancient being capable of destroying entire civilizations. Watching him reluctantly participate in her childish demands is a comedy all its own, especially when his terrifying reputation means absolutely nothing to her. Director Steven Kostanski fills the screen with outrageous creature designs and practical effects that look like they've escaped from a particularly unhinged Saturday-morning cartoon. Cosmic horror has officially met its most demanding babysitter.
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Cheap Thrills
We've all accepted a dare we probably shouldn't have. Maybe it involved an embarrassing dance or an unfortunate haircut. Craig and Vince are about to make those decisions look downright responsible.
Money troubles bring two old friends together in Cheap Thrills, where a wealthy couple offers them cash to complete a series of outrageous challenges. Pat Healy and Ethan Embry play the desperate participants, while David Koechner and Sara Paxton portray their suspiciously enthusiastic hosts. The early dares might seem like easy money, but the evening develops a very expensive definition of entertainment.
Every Mischief Night has someone who suggests taking the joke one step further. In Cheap Thrills, that person has money to burn and an alarming amount of enthusiasm for watching other people suffer. Koechner's wealthy instigator treats humiliation like a competitive sport, cheerfully encouraging Craig and Vince to outdo each other for another payout. Director E.L. Katz lets the awkwardness linger as the two friends start measuring their dignity against another stack of cash. The dares get nastier, the competition gets personal, and suddenly “easy money” sounds like a threat.
This title is available on Tubi until further notice.
The Blackening
A cabin in the woods, a masked killer, and a group of friends who have watched enough horror movies to know exactly how badly this could end. Finally, someone brought genre awareness to the party.
A Juneteenth weekend reunion becomes a deadly game in The Blackening, where a group of friends discovers that their getaway has attracted a killer with a particularly twisted sense of entertainment. Instead of quietly accepting their assigned horror-movie roles, the friends question the rules, argue over their next moves, and refuse to make surviving easy for whoever is behind the mask.
The killer has a deadly game planned, but convincing this particular group of friends to follow the rules is another challenge entirely. Their running commentary, hilarious disagreements, and spectacularly bad timing make the movie feel like watching a group chat come to life during a horror emergency. Jermaine Fowler, Grace Byers, X Mayo, and the rest of the ensemble have the kind of chemistry that makes even a heated argument entertaining. Their refusal to play along recalls the sorority sisters navigating their own killer problem in our spoiler-free look at Buzzkill, where the friendships are just as entertaining as the scares.
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Cooties
Teachers deserve better pay. After watching this movie, they might also deserve hazard insurance, protective equipment, and permission to cancel school indefinitely.
Elementary school becomes a battlefield in Cooties, where a mysterious infection transforms children into vicious little monsters. Elijah Wood stars as substitute teacher Clint, who finds himself fighting to survive alongside a group of educators including Rainn Wilson's aggressively confident gym teacher and Alison Pill's fellow faculty member. The staff was prepared for classroom disruptions. Nobody mentioned having to barricade the doors against their own students.
Schoolyard pranks are one thing. A playground full of murderous children is a disciplinary problem nobody covered during teacher training. Cooties lets the kids run absolutely wild, with outrageous practical effects and dark comedy that make the faculty's desperate attempts to restore order even funnier. Wilson's overconfident gym teacher and Wood's bewildered substitute make an especially entertaining pair when their usual classroom authority becomes completely useless. Parent-teacher conferences are going to be very awkward after this.
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Fear, Inc.
Every horror fan knows someone who insists nothing scares them anymore. Joe Foster is about to discover why that's a very dangerous thing to announce out loud.
Joe is obsessed with finding a terrifying experience, so hiring a company that specializes in elaborate horror scenarios sounds like his dream come true. Fear, Inc. focuses on his decision to enlist the mysterious service, whose employees promise to turn his worst nightmares into reality. Joe is thrilled. His girlfriend and friends have significantly more reasonable concerns about the arrangement.
This is Mischief Night's elaborate-prank mentality taken to its most ridiculous extreme. Joe has essentially paid strangers to terrorize him, and now he's determined to prove he's too clever to fall for their tricks. Every suspicious encounter becomes another opportunity to congratulate himself on recognizing a horror trope, even as the situation grows harder to explain. The movie keeps viewers guessing alongside him, turning the familiar thrill of a good scare into a question of whether the joke has gone too far.
This title is available on Tubi until further notice.
Tragedy Girls
Being popular in high school is exhausting. Being internet-famous is even worse, especially when your content strategy involves a suspicious number of dead bodies.
Best friends Sadie and McKayla are determined to become true-crime celebrities in Tragedy Girls, where their obsession with social media attention inspires disturbing schemes. Alexandra Shipp and Brianna Hildebrand play the ambitious teenagers, whose friendship is as fiercely devoted as their pursuit of online fame is deeply questionable. The girls aren't waiting for the next local tragedy to happen. They're a little too interested in helping the headlines along.
Sadie and McKayla are the kind of troublemakers who don't simply participate in the chaos. They organize it, promote it, and make sure everyone knows who's responsible for the spectacle. Shipp and Hildebrand play their characters with such cheerful confidence that even their most disturbing schemes become an outrageous extension of their friendship. Their enthusiasm makes the violence even more shocking, especially when they treat murder like another opportunity to go viral. Someone should probably revoke their posting privileges.
This title is available on Tubi until further notice.