Netflix's catalog of movies is one of the best among the streaming services vying for
your hard-earned dollars.
With around 4,000 movies to keep you entertained at any hour of the day, it's a good choice.
But what are the darkest movies you'll find on Netflix that are actually still good?
Based on the short story The Forbidden by Clive Barker, Candyman stars Virginia Madsen
and Tony Todd.
Madsen plays a graduate student who's working on a thesis about urban legends when she hears
of a local tale about a man with a hook for a hand called Candyman.
Before long, she discovers that the myth is true and gets the Candyman's attention.
The movie is nearly 30 years old, but it's still absolutely worth a watch.
Todd is extremely eerie as the titular character and Madsen is smart and resourceful, unlike
your typical horror movie protagonist.
The film does have some violence but it's not extremely gory and works far more on a
psychological level.
It’s also a really great examination of inner-city poverty that still holds up well
today, and has a 74 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
The movie didn't make a huge impact on release, but it developed a cult following in the decades
since - enough that a reboot produced by Jordan Peele is on the way with Tony Todd returning
as Candyman.
Found footage horror is a mixed bag.
There are lots of trash ones, and then there are a few that make the whole genre worth
it.
As Above, So Below is one example of found footage horror worth a watch.
Other than being shot with handheld and head-mounted cameras, it's a straightforward scary movie,
so you can ignore the found footage aspect and enjoy.
Written and directed by John Erick and Drew Dowdle, As Above, So Below is like Indiana
Jones meets the devil in the Paris catacombs.
“We found the entrance to the catacombs.”
“Through the library?”
“Right.”
Scarlett, an explorer/archaeologist in the vein of Indiana Jones or Lara Croft, is looking
for the philosopher's stone, a legendary artifact that can supposedly turn any material into
gold.
Her quest leads her into the Paris catacombs with a small team, where increasingly weird
things, inspired by Dante's Inferno, start happening.
Many of the bones seen in this movie are real, because the filmmakers actually got permission
to film in the real Paris catacombs, the first Hollywood production to ever do so.
While the film only managed a 26 percent Rotten Tomatoes score, it has found a small cult
following in the years since.
The Conjuring films are based around the lives of real paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine
Warren.
The movies are mostly based on true accounts but the Warrens' actual stories are questionable
at best.
But the movies are scary, and the original is on Netflix right now.
“Demon.”
“OK.”
In the film, the Warrens help the Perron family with their haunting problem.
But what makes the movie great isn't just the creepy stuff-- it's the chemistry between
Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as Ed and Lorraine, and the Perron family.
The characters feel like regular people caught in a bizarre situation.
Upon release, The Conjuring broke box office records and scored an 85 percent fresh rating
on Rotten Tomatoes.
It also spawned a sequel and the popular Annabelle spin-off series.
This is where it all began and watching it on Netflix is a no-brainer, unless you're
worried about how much sleep you'll lose.
Green Room is not your typical horror movie.
There are no ghosts or monsters.
Nothing supernatural happens at all.
Instead, it's a disturbing movie about a group of people caught in a hopeless situation.
The Ain't Rights, a punk band, are touring the Pacific Northwest and are invited to perform
at a venue in rural Oregon.
Upon arriving, though, they discover that the venue is a neo-Nazi bar - and when they
witness someone being killed, they're locked in the venue's green room where they’re
tormented by angry white supremacists who plan to kill the band to ensure their silence.
You also get to see Patrick Stewart play a villian.
Captain Picard himself is the leader of the Nazis, a very nasty skinhead named Darcy.
It's sad to see Stewart so evil, but he's great at it.
It also features one of the final performances of Anton Yelchin, and it's easily one of his
best.
Writer and director Jeremy Saulnier is also starting to make his mark, too, even directing
some episodes of True Detective.
Green Room sits at 90 percent approval on Rotten Tomatoes.
Hush is a Netflix original, and it’s one of the most intense movies on the streaming
service.
Helmed by The Haunting of Hill House director Mike Flanagan, and written by Flanagan and
Kate Siegel, Hush is a thriller in the rawest sense of the form.
This movie is super tense, and while talking about the edges of seats is a bit cliche,
it’ll really make you sit up and take notice.
Siegel plays author Maddie Young, who is deaf and mute, and she’s working on a novel in
her remote cabin.
And it has all the problems everyone in Hollywood has with remote cabins - a deranged killer
shows up and cuts the power, phone, and internet lines.
Since Maddie is deaf, the murderer also has a distinct advantage over her, but she's no
victim.
A cat-and-mouse game ensues with Maddie locked inside and the killer roaming around outside
the house.
The movie is a bit violent, but not overly so, and it's free from jump scares.
It's a classic home invasion movie, just with an additional layer of fear.
It's such a simple premise, but it plays so well.
And you don't need to take our word for it: Hush is 92 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
From the creators of the original Saw, James Wan [and Leigh Whannel, comes Insidious, a
ghost story about the dangers of oversleeping.
Insidious was actually made as a response to Saw.
The creators wanted to prove they could make a scary movie without gore, and they succeeded.
A suburban family, the Lamberts, move into a new house, and one of their children, Dalton,
has a ghostly encounter in the attic that puts him into a coma, which is a pretty hardcore
reaction to a ghost.
After Dalton returns home from the hospital, the family notices that odd, spooky things
happen around him.
It gets so bad that they abandon their new home and move, the thing that everyone says
they'd do if they were in a horror movie.
At the new house, though, the supernatural events don't stop, and they soon discover
that their son's coma may actually be the cause of the hauntings.
Insidious spawned a whole franchise, with two prequels and a sequel of mixed quality.
If you can only watch one of them, though, watch the first one, as it's definitely the
best, scoring a 66 percent fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Not to be confused with the awful English-language remake starring Joshua Jackson, Shutter on
Netflix is the original Thai version.
At the height of Asian horror's reign in the early 2000s, movies like The Ring and The
Grudge got all the attention, but there were plenty of other great ones that didn't get
as much love.
Shutter is one of those.
It is entirely in Thai, so you'll need subtitles to watch, but it's totally worth it for some
spooky Asian horror.
Jane and her boyfriend, Tun, accidentally run over a young woman after drinking at a
party.
Tun convinces Jane to drive away and leave the woman in the road.
That's when the trouble starts.
Tun is a photographer, and odd white patches and what look like faces begin appearing in
all of his pictures.
Not only that, but he's having awful neck pain, and for no apparent reason, Tun's weight
drastically increases.
We don't want to spoil too much of it, because there are some incredible twists in the film,
but it's a very creepy story about guilt and failing to act when given the opportunity.
While the critics didn't love the movie, giving it only a 58 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes,
it has a cult following among Asian horror aficionados, giving it a 78 percent audience
rating.
Give it a watch and see for yourself.
Sometimes the best horror is subtle and needs time to unfold all of its creepy tendrils,
and some of the greatest classic horror stories are about a handful of characters in a single
place, much like a bottle episode on a TV series.
The Similars is cut from the same cloth.
Like classic Twilight Zone episodes, the film takes place with just a handful of characters
trapped in an isolated space.
In this case, a bus station with a hurricane raging outside.
Ulises, an expectant father, becomes stranded there while his wife gives birth in a hospital
nearby.
After he arrives at the bus station, though, things start getting strange.
Everyone's faces start changing to look just like his.
The group has to unravel the mystery before they all turn into Ulises.
The film also has a unique visual look due to its desaturated color scheme, which makes
it look almost, but not quite, black and white.
There's no gore or jump scares, but it's a creepy, weird little movie with a 95 percent
fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
It is in Spanish, so you'll need to freshen up your subtitle reading skills.
Tusk is a horror movie directed by Kevin Smith and it stars Justin Long, neither of whom
are known for horror.
Yes, it was inspired by a joke on Smith's podcast and it has by far the silliest premise
of any movie on this list.
But believe it or not, Tusk is actually a pretty capable scary movie and some great
body horror as well.
Wallace, played by Justin Long, and Teddy, played by Haley-Joel Osment, are podcasters.
Wallace travels to Canada for an interview that falls through, but he ends up meeting
Howard Howe, played by Michael Parks, a man who is advertising free rent at his house
and promises lots of stories.
Wallace visits Howard and listens to his tale of being rescued from a shipwreck by a walrus
he dubbed Mr. Tusk. Wallace passes out from a drugged drink.
Howe then imprisons Wallace and begins turning him into a human walrus through mutilation
and crude surgery.
“I am a walrus.”
It's equal parts violent and ridiculous.
Not to spoil anything, but Johnny Depp shows up as a Quebecois policeman with an outrageous
accent.
It's goofy B-horror, but the movie does work, primarily due to the performances of Parks
and Long.
The gore effects are fantastic.
It only earned a 45 percent on Rotten Tomatoes with a lot of criticism aimed at its bizarre
concept, but it's truly underrated.
Witches are largely more for cartoony Halloween decorations than for serious horror movies
these days, but The Witch is definitely an exception to that.
A quiet movie with no real violence or jump scares, it works purely on psychological horror
to deliver its scares.
You might want to turn on subtitles because the thick early American accents and dialogue
can be hard to parse on watching.
In 17th-century New England, a family of Puritans, who were kicked out of a colony of other Puritans
for being too uptight and religious, settles into the remote wilderness with a small cabin
and some livestock.
Things go horribly wrong, though, when their newborn son, Samuel, mysteriously disappears
under the watch of Thomasin, their oldest daughter.
From there, it turns into a family drama from hell, with wild accusations of witchcraft,
a creepy illness, and strange happenings.
The tension is high for the entire movie.
Writer and director Robert Eggers, also responsible for 2019's The Lighthouse, knows how to keep
the story going with amazing dialogue and great performances.
The Witch is certified fresh with a score of 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and should
be required watching for the discerning modern horror fan.
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