What if there was a company you could call that, for a premium, would bring your fears to life? You don’t have to leave your house, your office, or your vacation; the scares are customized to your tastes and arrive at your doorstep when you least expect it. But like texting an ex at 2am, what sounds like a great idea at the time, can end up getting you killed.

When horror movie enthusiast Joe Foster and his girlfriend, Lindsey Gains, are handed a business card for such a company, Joe’s curiosity gets the best of him. As the Fear, Inc experience seemingly begins, scares start popping up right out of Joe’s favourite horror movies, quickly turning him into a kid in a candy store. If the kid was a self-righteous thirty year old and the candy store was the prop room from SAW. After a friend explains the company’s dangerous reputation, his rollercoaster of a journey goes from light hearted fun to uncomfortably realistic as things take a major turn for the worse. Joe’s sense of reality spirals out of control as he’s forced to take responsibility for his actions, no matter the cost.

Why we’re looking forward to this: The premise alone sounds like Fear Inc could well be a fun, roller coaster of a fright flick, and the trailer feels like the first Scream film, promising a movie that is self-aware, meta and with enough in-jokes to satisfy the most ardent of genre fans.

An isolated house, a group of horror loving friends, intruders in masks carrying a smorgasbord of deadly weapons—what’s not to love? Halloween is all about being scared half to death, but it’s also about fun horror films as well, and Fear Inc looks like it could be a blast.

Fear Inc is being shown at a special ShocktoberFest presentation at the Prince Charles Theatre in London on 22 October 2016. Ticketing and other details are available here.

RICHARD COSGROVE