The marquee for October at Group Therapy Pub & Playground reads less like a bar calendar and more like a film-school syllabus with a body count. Every Friday at 9 p.m., the Fayetteville venue at 1906 Skibo Road puts two horror movies on the big screen back to back, an 18-and-over affair that runs from October 2 through October 30, 2026.
The lineup is a deliberate mix of new and old, crowd-pleaser and cult artifact. Opening night pairs Sinners with Backrooms. The following Friday, October 9, brings Obsession alongside The Substance. October 16 goes darker with Hereditary and Suspiria (1977), a pairing that sets a modern grief-horror landmark next to one of the most stylized Italian giallo films ever made. October 23 leans into the occult with The Craft and The Witch (2015).
Then the schedule does something a little unusual. The listing shows a second screening on Saturday, October 24, rather than the following Friday, pairing the horror comedy Tucker & Dale vs. Evil with the first two Scary Movie installments. The month closes on Friday, October 30, with a Halloween-eve double bill of Practical Magic and Rosemary's Baby (1968), a combination that runs from witchy romantic comedy straight into one of the most unsettling studio horror films of its era.
The through-line is a venue that was built for exactly this kind of programming. Group Therapy bills itself as a pub and playground, and the Fayetteville location is the brand's second. It opened July 12, 2025, at 1906 Skibo Road, according to BizFayetteville. The Fayetteville Observer, in a roundup of restaurant openings republished by Cardinal & Pine, described it as an "eatertainment" venue offering food, drinks and a mix of entertainment and interactive games.
The concept itself started in South Carolina. Group Therapy Pub & Playground opened in downtown Greenville, in what co-founder Matt Hubbard described as the largest single retail spot in downtown Greenville. Hubbard opened the concept with partners Dustin Pelletier and John Cox, and the Greenville venue's initial lineup included wacky mini golf, axe throwing, curling and ping pong, along with bingo and karaoke. WYFF in Greenville covered the opening under the headline "New downtown Greenville bar, restaurant offers workplace therapy," a nod to the name's double meaning.
The Fayetteville build-out carries that same everything-under-one-roof approach. The venue's own site describes 18 holes of wacky mini golf, digital darts, axe throwing, duckpin bowling, a multi-sport simulator and backyard games, plus a 36-tap self-serve beer wall and a full cocktail and food menu. For movies specifically, the Fayetteville location has an outdoor area with a large LED screen used for films, games and special events. The venue's events page notes an indoor occupancy of 313 with room for another 200 outside.
That scale matters for a recurring screening series. Group Therapy already runs a weekly movie night on Wednesdays, which the venue's calendar describes as free and kid-friendly, with a recent title being Howl's Moving Castle. The October horror series is the after-dark counterpart: same screen, same room, but gated to adults and scheduled at 9 p.m., after the venue's family hours. The venue's booking platform states that Group Therapy is 18-and-over at 8 p.m. for its game experiences, with ages 10 and up permitted earlier in the day.
What the listing does not say is what it costs. The event page states only "9 PM | 18+" and gives no admission price and no ticketing link, and the venue's own calendar did not display the October horror nights when checked. The movie titles themselves are subject to change, as with any bar screening series assembled months ahead. The Wednesday movie nights, by contrast, are explicitly advertised as free, which suggests the horror series may follow a similar no-cover model, but that is not confirmed by any source.
For Fayetteville, the series fits a venue that has leaned hard into themed programming since it arrived. The calendar shows karaoke nights with rotating DJs, general trivia, service-industry nights with half-off games, tailgate parties with games on the big screen, and even a micro-wrestling event. A month of double-feature horror is less an outlier than the logical October expression of a business whose entire premise is giving groups a reason to stay out longer than they planned.
The practical appeal is straightforward. A double feature starting at 9 p.m. runs late, and Group Therapy is open until 2 a.m. on Fridays, so the room is built to hold an audience through two films. The programming also rewards a specific kind of viewer: someone who wants Hereditary and Suspiria in the same sitting, or who thinks the right way to end Halloween season is Practical Magic followed by Rosemary's Baby. It is a bar screening series rather than a film festival, and the lineup reflects that, swinging between prestige horror and slapstick parody within the same month.
Anyone planning to go should treat the details as fluid. The event is listed on Distinctly Fayetteville, the local tourism site, and the venue's official site confirms the space, the screen and the 18-and-over policy, but the October horror series itself has not been independently confirmed by the organizer's own calendar. Admission, ticketing and the final film pairings are all worth checking directly with Group Therapy before making the drive to Skibo Road.