8 scary movies and TV shows that are also sexy

October brings with it a taste for candy corn (we know, we know, unpopular opinion) and scary everything. But scary doesn’t have to mean just disgusting, Drag Me to Hell-style epic vomiting scenes. It can also be delightfully sexy. Here are eight movies and TV shows that are thrilling in more ways than one:

1. True Blood

Part love story, part campy science fiction, part soft-core pornography, HBO’s True Blood is a celebration of all things mythical, alive and undead. Yes, there’s plenty of gore, especially whenever a vampire meets their true death (think: chunky-style blood geyser), but that’s easy to overlook when there are also so many steamy inter-species sex scenes, vampire orgies, and forbidden love stories. Oh yeah, and so much Alexander Skarsgård and Joe Manganiello.

2. Jennifer’s Body

Jennifer’s Body is a really underrated movie starring Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried. Megan Fox’s character is possessed by a demon after a boy band tried to sacrifice her in a deal with the devil for their success. She goes on to seduce and then devour (literally) several eager high school boys. We learned from this movie that Megan Fox looks good even when she’s vomiting black tar. Oh, and there’s a steamy scene between Fox and Seyfried as the cherry on top!

3. The Fall

The tension is palpable between Gillian Anderson, who plays a detective, and Jamie Dornan, who plays a serial killer. With his Irish accent and sneaky ways, Dornan’s character is quite appealing (and even a little endearing?) for a serial killer, mostly because Dornan himself has a quiet, brooding, chiseled, gazelle-like sex appeal. Likewise, Anderson will have you swooning with her professional success and her silk blouses. It’s a killer combo, and the show is tense and exciting (sexually and otherwise).

4. The Witch

Set against the backdrop of Puritan New England in the 1600s, this eerie, quiet movie feels tense and fraught from the first scene. The central character and her family are exiled and begin living alone at the edge of the woods. As the family falls apart in the face of isolation, chaos builds, as does an undeniably sexual energy that’s just below the surface. It’s more metaphorical than literal, but it’s there and it’s potent. We won’t spoil the ending, just know that this movie is feminist horror at its best and it’s downright delightful.

5. Dexter

Over eight seasons, Michael C. Hall portrays Dexter, a forensic analyst and blood spatter expert who is a serial killer on the side. While yes, Dexter has a series of relationships, some of which are steamy (we’re looking at you Yvonne Strahovski), it’s more Dexter’s smoldering sexual energy that got the show on this list. Is he a good guy? A bad guy? A psychopath? Who cares!

6. Ex Machina

A sexy sentient robot seduces a human man to release her from captivity? It’s a tale as old as time. While there’s little in the way of actual sex, the chemistry is palpable and the robot (played by human woman Alicia Vikander) is quite, well, robotically sexy.

7. Teeth

The myth of the vagina with teeth in it that will bite off any penis or finger who dares to enter is an old one. In Teeth, we see this myth come true in what is partly torture porn and partly a feminist coming-of-age story. It’s funny, it’s empowering, it’s strangely sexy, and it’s oh-so-satisfying.

8. American Psycho

It’s not totally fair to put this on the list, because it’s only here due to Christian Bale’s raw sexual charisma and shirtlessness. Plus at this point in time it’s pretty hard to suspend disgust at the entitled white man who works on Wall Street and goes around murdering everybody long enough to get excited about anything else. But if anybody could pull it off, it was Christian Bale in 2000.