The 5 best horror movies that match MTG’s spooky new Duskmourn set

The upcoming release of Magic: The Gatheringthe new set of Twilightintroduces players to a brand new plane of the multiverse, housed entirely in a sprawling haunted house. Filled with unexplained terrors, personified phobias, and ragtag human survivors, the set captures the spirit of Halloween and puts the spooky season into play. Looking through the new cards in the set, some of them seem oddly familiar. The names, the illustrations, and the mechanics bring back vague memories of horror movies I’ve seen while channel surfing on the family TV when I should have been sleeping.

magicThe publisher, Wizards of the Coast, is keeping quiet about the specific inspirations that went into the design of the new cards and world. But for this horror fan at least, these preview cards are a welcome reminder to revisit some of the genre’s most beloved masterpieces and cult classics. Like the perfect glass of blood-red wine to enjoy with your bowl of spiders and eyeballs, here are five horror movie pairings to enjoy with it magicthe most terrible expansion yet.

In the 1987 supernatural horror film The gatetwo 12-year-old boys named Terry and Glen accidentally release a horde of demons through a hole in Glen’s backyard. The climax hinges on Glen’s attempt to stop a giant snake-like demon using a toy rocket launcher (more of a model rocket than a bazooka, but definitely a projectile no 12-year-old should be playing with).

The gate is a pretty forgettable film, but it made me think of it when I saw the drawings of Clammy Prowler. The hole in Glen’s backyard glows a similar shade of magenta just before a small army of tiny demons shows up and attacks the children in the film. And the Prowler himself, with his big claws, spiky head, and tiny extra hands, is reminiscent of the giant final demon that Glen must defeat with his toy rocket.

If you haven’t seen the 1973 British folk horror classic The Wicker Manyou may remember the 2006 remake of the same name starring Nicolas Cage. Both films tell the story of a police officer who visits a remote island in search of a missing girl. As the film’s protagonist explores an unfamiliar environment and its unusual inhabitants, he eventually uncovers a deeper secret related to the islanders’ pagan rituals related to crop failure (or, in the 2006 version, dwindling honey production).

Unfortunately for the police officers in this story, their arrival on the island was part of a larger plan, and they end up being trapped inside a giant wooden doll, the titular Wicker Man, and ceremonially burned to death as part of a sacrificial ritual.

Not only the art on TwilightWildfire Wickerfolk is reminiscent of the wooden figures that are the focus of both films’ climaxes. Each is made of wicker and is clearly ablaze. The additional Delirium ability gives the creature an extra advantage when there are enough other cards in the graveyard. Like the sacrificed cops in those haunting films, Wildfire Wickerfolk must have additional “dead” cards in the graveyard to fulfill its own potential in the game.

In Stanley Kubrick’s groundbreaking adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining – The Return, Jack Nicholson plays Jack Torrance, a struggling writer who moves his family into an empty hotel to focus on overcoming a nagging case of writer’s block. But as his wife and son Wendy and Danny soon discover, the hotel has a sinister effect on Jack’s mental health, and he eventually goes on a killing spree, targeting his wife and son with an axe.

The film has contributed to numerous classic images that have found their way into contemporary pop culture, including a fan favorite The Simpsons Parody in “Treehouse of Horror V”. More than 40 years later, some of these distinctive images have made it to magic

The characters in Unsettling Twins may not resemble the girls in blue dresses that Danny encounters as he rides his tricycle through The Shining – The Return‘s Overlook Hotel, but the flavor text on the card is unmistakable. “Come and play with us,” Danny hears, followed by horrifying images of the girls’ cruel fate.

The art on Break Down the Door is also reminiscent of The Shining – The Returns most famous image, of Jack breaking through a door with an axe during his last psychotic break. It remains unclear whether the figure in the art is a frightened Shelley Duvall or a MTG Character who is better prepared for battle.

Twilight takes television into the world of magicwhich is a strange thing to do 35 years after the start of a franchise project. Regardless, some of these cards were reminiscent of how horror movies play on screen fear, and none do so more memorably than The ring.

In 2002 The Ring, an American remake of a 1998 Japanese film, also known as ringa cursed videotape curses people to die seven days after watching the tape. Victims die for initially mysterious reasons, which are later revealed to be a tormented ghost emerging from a television screen to essentially scare its victims to death.

Perhaps what makes the references to Cursed Recordings and Haunted Screen particularly satisfying is that The RingThe inspiration from can also be felt in the mechanical design of the cards. Like the videotape in The Ring

Haunted Screen, on the other hand, takes its inspiration a step further. Not only can the card gain black and white mana, you can also pay with your life total to gain additional colors. Finally, you can even make Haunted Screen a real threat by investing seven mana to turn him into a 7/7 Ghost creature – easily big enough to kill your opponents with just a few attacks, if they don’t give up in fear beforehand.

Another adaptation of a Stephen King work, 1984 Children of Wrath tells the story of a rural Nebraska community that is taken over by a religious cult of children who have sworn allegiance to a false deity and sacrifice the town’s adults to ensure the success of the community’s corn crop. They have been orphaned by their own actions, and the film captures the community’s ultimate collapse when two travelers stop in town and end up burning down the very cornfield that is home to the evil presence that influenced the children.

Between the name of the card, its graphics and even its ability, Orphans of the Wheat bears an unmistakable resemblance to Children of wrath.

In the film’s opening scene, a boy named Isaac Croner peers into a town restaurant as adults keel over after drinking poisoned coffee. His ghostly gaze, immortalized in the film’s advertisements, bears a chilling resemblance to the characters portrayed in Orphans of the Wheat. Even the card’s text seems thematically connected. Like the film’s children, who grow stronger as the town’s adults are killed, the same is true of the orphans, who are pumped up during in-game combat for every other creature the card’s controller pushes down during attacks.

And don’t even get me started on the name of the card. Structural. Phonetic. The only other name that might have been a bit too obvious was Kids of the Crop, but thankfully magicThe designers of were more creative.

Twilight hits local game stores on September 27th, following pre-release events that begin on September 20th.