18 Best Horror Movies on Netflix
18 Best Horror Movies on Netflix
Though there is technically one month that welcomes the ghoulish critters and the sinister specters out of the darkest corners and most hellish circles to come out and play, getting the you-know-what scared out of you is fun no matter what the calendar dictates. And Netflix is not short on terrifying titles that will do just that. Here, 20 of the best horror films, from cult classics to creature features to slasher favorites, now streaming on the platform.
Green Room
Sir Patrick Stewart, Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, and Alia Shawkat converge on the screen for what filmmaker-on-the-rise Jeremy Saulnier calls his “punk rock siege thriller.” Infested with aggression, murder, and skinheads, Green Room is a menacing standoff between the members of the punk rock band The Ain’t Rights and the white supremacist group whose nefarious deeds have just been found out. Be forewarned: The intensity is turned up to the highest degree here, so we recommend stress-balling, nail-biting, thumb-sucking, or indulging in whatever soothing behavior suits you—no judgments here.
The Evil Dead
The classic 1981 film that engrained director Sam Raimi into the bloody, torn fabric of the horror genre is a wacky trip into the woods, courtesy of five teenagers who reawaken some demons with an ancient book they find in their cabin. And though the special effects available to Raimi at the time—be it technology’s limits or those of his shoestring budget—may be a bit dated now, the film still packs a spooky punch. We’d be remiss to not point out, however, the misogynistic undertones that most likely wouldn’t fly in today’s sociopolitical climate. So watch at your own risk, for sure.
Train to Busan
If zombies can’t die, then neither can their genre, as South Korean director Sang-ho Yeon proved with his 2016 full-throttle action-horror gem. Aboard a train from Seoul to Busan, a father and daughter spend their trip outmaneuvering hordes of flesh-eating zombies while glimpses of their country, teetering on the precipice of the apocalypse due to a viral outbreak, whiz by. Called one the best of its kind by Blood and Ice Cream trilogy filmmaker Edgar Wright, it’s teed up for the American remake treatment with James Wan (Saw, The Conjuring) on board.
The Babysitter
Not your average damsel-in-distress fare, The Babysitter is a welcome reimagined spin on the home-invasion subgenre. Action icon McG (Charlie’s Angels) crafts a culty teen scream with a comedy bent starring Samara Weaving (Ready or Not, Hollywood) in her first leading feature role. The fun begins with 12-year-old Cole getting rescued from bullies after school by his bombshell babysitter, Bee, and then unfurls the following night when Cole spies on Bee and her friends playing a game of WTF spin the bottle.
The Invitation
Karyn Kusama, whose brilliant work includes Sundance 2000 winner Girlfight and the Nicole Kidman headliner Destroyer, invites you to witness one of the most awkward, intense, and unnerving dinner parties to ever have been featured on film. Starring Logan Marshall-Green (Upgrade) and Emayatzy Corinealdi (Roots) as a couple who reunite with estranged friends for a night of canapes and conversation but get a murder party from hell instead, Kusama’s horror delight comes packaged with an extra-special bonus twist at the end.
The Ring
Borrowing from masterful Japanese horror, director Gore Verbinski gave audiences the remake they deserved in 2002. And honestly, this atmospheric cinema of the unsettling still holds up today. Naomi Watts stars as a reporter investigating a string of deaths that hits close to home. Upon learning the source could somehow be a nefarious videotape (we did mention it was 2002, yeah?), she sends herself on a mission to decode its horrifying riddle. Even if that means coming face to face with a waterlogged killer ghost.
The Girl with All the Gifts
If The Walking Dead has taught us anything over the past 10 years, it’s that the moral dilemmas of surviving a zombie apocalypse will stay with you a lot longer than the actual killing of said undead. And that’s just what’s being served up in Colm McCarthy’s book-based Girl with All the Gifts, starring Sennia Nanua as the gifted Melanie, Gemma Arterton as her teacher, and Glenn Close as her doctor. But don’t worry, this one has plenty of the adrenaline-pounding action you require in a good zombie watch too.
Insidious
Master horror maestros James Wan and Leigh Whannell, the duo behind the twisted Saw, can work wonders with scary masks and eerie soundscapes. Never one to weigh his horror work down with overwrought CGI or high-tech special effects, Wan tells his Insidious story with only actors, freaky costumes, and perfectly timed jump scares. Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne star as a couple trying to keep their son from getting lost in The Further, a vast hallucinatory dimension inhabited by evil specters, and let’s just say it. is. so. effective.
Candyman
You’re going to need something to hold you over ’til September when—fingers crossed—Nia DaCosta and Jordan Peele’s Candyman origin story finally releases, so why not use this time to revisit Bernard Rose’s 1992 original? A blood-soaked slasher flick that belongs to a grad student researching the legend of a man with a hook for a hand who fillets anyone who calls his name five times, it also doesn’t shy away from heavy themes of race and class. And we don’t expect the remake will either.
The Witch
A wicked New England folktale that stays loyal to its Enochian and Early Modern English languages throughout, Robert Eggers’s directorial debut was a massive historical undertaking. But whether viewers pick up on all the Colonial, Puritan, Bible significance or not doesn’t really matter, as this religious horror about a family who suspect satanic foul play with their coming-of-age daughter (Anya Taylor-Joy) accomplishes its main goal: to scare the mess out of thou who wouldst attempt to hit play.
The Perfection
A Netflix original starring Allison Williams (Girls) and Logan Browning (Dear White People), The Perfection is a genre-hopping nerve-rattler that morphs from body horror to psychological thriller to all-out grindhouse gore over the course of a quick 90 minutes. Williams and Browning play Charlotte and Lizzie, musical prodigy cellists who share more sordid secrets than they know, and do a solid job of guiding viewers through a narrative with more twists and turns than Stephen King’s stream of consciousness.
The Blackcoat’s Daughter
If queuing up The Blackcoat’s Daughter, starring Kiernan Shipka and Lucy Boynton as students surviving holiday break holed up at school with some sort of a sinister force, is your first introduction to writer/director Oz Perkins, then welcome to Oz. It’s a moody, menacing, atmospheric world that Perkins creates with his lens, luring viewers in with a gripping narrative, and then leaving them scarred and unsettled once the final credits roll.
Under the Shadow
Not to be missed, this under-the-radar supernatural thriller is set in the ’80s during the Iran-Iraq War, when people’s homes were collateral damage in the air raids of the War of the Cities. Its spooky narrative—a mix of social mores, political unrest, and ghost stories—unspools as Shideh and her daughter, Dorsa, wait out the perils of war inside their home, which just so happens to be haunted by a djinn (evil spirit). Dolls, bombs, ghosts: Be prepared for weird things to happen.
Tales from the Hood 2
Rusty Cundieff and Darin Scott’s first installment of tales was released in 1995 and can be streamed via Prime Video, but hopefully, you’ve already been there, done that and are ready for seconds. In his 2018 anthology sequel, Cundieff, with Spike Lee again producing, delivers another four stories centered on the African-American experience. Unlike its predecessor, the second visit to the hood leans into the camp rather than the scares. But just like its predecessor, it’s wholly worth your watch time.
18 Best Horror Movies on Netflix
Sweetheart
There’s a new monster on the block: What Jaws did for the water, Church did for the cemetery, and Cujo did for a Ford Pinto, the “malevolent force” in Sweetheart does for the night. Directed by Sleight helmer J.D. Dillard and starring Hearts Beat Loud breakout Kiersey Clemons, this stellar creature feature/survival tale finds Clemons’s Jenn shipwrecked and washed up on a deserted island, forced to fend for herself tirelessly during the day … and defend her life during night.
Event Horizon
A ’90s time capsule that took a beating from critics but has since become a cult classic, Event Horizon is the kind of sci-fi space horror Ridley Scott would most likely turn his nose up at. But not even the Alien helmer can deny that there is some freaky stuff happening aboard the titular spacecraft. When tasked with checking on a ship that’s emerged from a black hole, the rescue crew find themselves at the mercy of an insidious entity. Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan, and Joely Richardson lead the ensemble film, and just like Ridley’s Ripley, in space, no can hear them scream.
I scream, you scream, we all scream for great scary movies.