While the winner's family does receive their prizes, the winning boy is killed, so he may become the new creature, the following year, when he is resurrected, as a gnarled monster with a pumpkin head.

Ultimately, the October Boy manages to make it to the church, with the help of some of the local teens, where he finds that his father has died by suicide.

[6] A reviewer for Dread Central was critical, writing that "the author forgot to tie up a lot of loose ends, for example why the entire town is in lock-down in the first place and dependent on the massacre of its perennial monster.

"[7] The reviewer for the Austin Chronicle was more favorable, as they felt that "The only weakness is Partridge's insistence at times to intentionally use a distracting second-person narrative.

The film stars newcomers Casey Likes and E’myri Crutchfield in the lead roles, and was released by MGM in 2023, with a screenplay by Michael Gilio.