The only thing better than a good horror movie is twenty-five of 'em — one after the other,
until you can no longer remember a time when you weren't screaming and didn't have crippling
jump-scare anxiety.
(screaming)
From creature features to teen scream-a-thons and indie darlings, these movies are all available
on Netflix — and all guaranteed to scare your pants off.
Here are the 25 best horror movies to stream on Netflix right now.
The Wailing
The atmospheric, artful thrills of K-horror meet a tried-and-true tale of demonic possession
in 2016's The Wailing, which follows a police officer as he tries to uncover the truth about
the mysterious, violent sickness sweeping through his South Korean mountain village.
Although The Wailing is the slowest of slow burns, running a ridiculous two hours and
thirty-six minutes, director Hong-jin Na earns every second of his movie's runtime by ramping
up the tension to the perfect pitch and pacing out the scares like a pro.
The Babadook
This entry from Down Under was on everyone's lists of the best horror films of 2015, and
it's not hard to see why.
Tense, atmospheric, visually striking, and with an Oscar-worthy performance by Noah Wiseman
as the creepy kid to end all creepy kids, this story of a single mother battling an
evil storybook creature called the Babadook is high-quality nightmare material.
As far as ceiling-crawling anti-gravity monsters go, this guy is chilling.
(screaming)
The Unborn
2009 was a dry period for good, original horror fare, with the exception of The Unborn, which
has plenty to make it worth a watch: a family-centric, fetal twist on the usual possession storyline,
top-quality scares and solid production values, and a surprisingly great cast.
The Unborn asks all of the important questions.
"Do you think it's possible to be haunted by someone who was never even born?"
Not only does Oscar-nominated actor Gary Oldman turn up, but senior citizen scares like this
one will probably keep you from visiting grandma for a long, long time.
(creepy moaning)
Sinister
If you've been nostalgic for Ethan Hawke since his 1990s dreamboat days ended, you'll definitely
dig him in this grown-up role as a skeptical dad who doesn't quite believe that he's discovered
a haunted box of Super 8 reels.
Until it's too late, of course, and the scares are coming fast and furious.
Released in 2012, Sinister does a nice job of mashing up the contemporary concept of
found-footage horror with the feel of a classic haunting flick, and the "home movies" that
are central to the film's plot are genuinely creepy, from the first scene on.
The Host
Before he wowed the world with Snowpiercer, director Bong Joon-ho was the director of
the best Korean creature feature of the early aughts.
The 2006 film The Host tells the story of a hapless dad searching for his daughter,
who has been kidnapped by an acrobatic, sewer-dwelling beast with mayhem on its mind.
The movie is as much a Godzilla satire as it is a straightforward monster flick, and
the director's trademark slapstick moments are great tension-relievers in a very, very
taut thriller.
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
As stylish as she is deadly, the veiled vampire at the center of Ana Lily Amirpour's debut
feature film is the best kind of bad girl, and remarkably sympathetic for a person who
feasts on the blood of the living.
The pacing in this horror flick is a bit slow, but made up for by the beauty of its leading
lady and its atmospheric black-and-white world.
When blood spills in Amirpour's setting of Bad City, the splatter is downright elegant.
Housebound
This Kiwi horror comedy takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to a classic trope: instead of movie
about a haunted house, it's a movie about a haunted house arrest.
Small-time criminal Kylie is sentenced to eight months on her parents' property, which
happens to have an angry ghost in residence.
Kylie's ankle bracelet also serves as a clever answer to the question that plagues most haunted
horror films — unlike the dopey characters in other movies who inexplicably stick around
to be terrorized, the heroine of Housebound can't leave her ghost-ridden residence.
"Aren't you lucky Kylie, having all that fancy technology on your foot."
Choosing between brutal ghost ending and a prison sentence was never so difficult.
Bad Milo!
"What is it?"
"You've got a thing in your butt."
Thanks to the oversaturated nature of the horror genre, Bad Milo is not the only movie
you can watch in which a monster emerges from someone's tushie.
It is, however, the best of the bunch.
Sorry, Dreamcatcher.
Starring longtime comedy icon and The State veteran Ken Marino, Bad Milo tells the story
of a man who discovers that his lifelong gastrointestinal issues are the result of a demonic polyp,
which escapes from his bum to slay his enemies at will.
Despite its incredibly gross premise, the movie rises above basic bathroom horror to
be reliably entertaining — and Milo, the butt gremlin who kinda looks like the baby
from Dinosaurs, is really pretty lovable.
(adorable butt-monster noises)
Hush
The ordinary home invasion thriller gets kicked up a notch by the injection of a unique twist
in Hush: the heroine is deaf.
Low on gore and high on suspense, the 2016 film succeeds despite a limited budget and
almost no dialogue, thanks to its deliberate storytelling and creative use of sound and
silence to ramp up the tension.
Add in a stellar performance by Kate Siegel, who also co-wrote the film, and Hush is more
than worth investing the short 80 minutes it takes to watch.
Dead Snow
Gory, ghastly, and campy as hell.
In other words, Dead Snow fulfills all reasonable expectations for a horror film about zombie
Nazis rising from a snow-covered hillside to ruin a perfectly good ski vacation.
You won't get nuanced performances or subtle Hitchcockian tension from this movie; you
will, however, get all the blood-spattered action you've ever wanted.
When will people realize that remote cabins are absolutely terrible vacation spots?
Dead Silence
If you're creeped out by ventriloquist dummies, and seriously, who isn't?...
(everyone's reaction to ventriloquist dummies)
...then you'll thoroughly appreciate this movie by horror virtuoso James Wan, who delved
into dummy fare in between directing his better-known projects Saw and Insidious.
Starring True Blood's Ryan Kwanten, Dead Silence occasionally veers into cheesy territory,
but it's hard not to when your characters are battling the ghost of an evil ventriloquist.
Fortunately, its premise is unique enough, and it delivers solid scares.
We Are What We Are
In this 2013 film, the Parkers are a close-knit and reclusive family bound by a mysterious
shared religious tradition.
But rather than draw out that mystery, We Are What We Are reveals it early on and then
draws its horrors from the resulting family drama.
There's plenty of blood and guts here, too, but the American gothic flavor and subtle
character development elevate it above the average gorefest.
Cabin Fever: Patient Zero
Fans of the original Cabin Fever will like this film for the same reasons as they loved
the original.
It's gruesomely, graphically disgusting, possibly even more than its predecessors.
Centering on the origin story of the series' flesh-eating virus, and the worst bachelor
party in history, Cabin Fever: Patient Zero reveals the shocking truth.
Honeymoon
If you've been missing actress Rose Leslie since her untimely exit from Game of Thrones,
this slow burn horror flick about a honeymoon gone wrong will put her back on your TV screen.
Leslie stars opposite Harry Treadaway in a story about two newlyweds whose post-nuptial
bliss at a secluded cabin is rudely interrupted by something strange lurking in the woods.
Without spoiling anything, let's just say that the honeymoon gets real weird, real fast,
before it's officially over.
It Follows
With every classic horror trope having been done and re-done to hades, it's rare to find
a movie that looks and feels like something you've never seen before.
"Wherever you are, it's somewhere, walking straight for you.
All you can do is pass it along to someone else."
But with its unique premise, slow pacing, and inventive soundtrack, It Follows is one
of the creepiest and most original horror releases in years — a particularly impressive
feat considering its small budget and use of old-school practical effects to bring the
scares.
A million-dollar CGI monster has nothing on a half-naked, toothless intruder peeing on
your kitchen floor.
Take our word for it.
The Awakening
For spooky atmospheric tension and a unique historic premise, look no further than The
Awakening.
Set in the aftermath of the First World War, this movie follows its heroine to a boarding
school with a ghost problem…or is it?
With its characters as haunted by the horrors of war as they are by any spirits on campus,
The Awakening is big on suspense, and the mystery of what kind of evil they're dealing
with persists almost all the way to the end.
V/H/S
For those with short attention spans, there's nothing better than a feature-length anthology
of mini-horror-movies—and V/H/S is among the best.
Using every available found-footage conceit, from recorded Skype calls to vacation videos,
it tells a series of scary stories that run the gamut from alien abduction to wilderness
monsters, twenty minutes at a time.
If you dig the V/H/S anthology, a pair of sequels in the same format, V/H/S/2 and V/H/S:
Viral, are also available to stream on Netflix.
Troll Hunter
Not to be confused with the original animated Netflix series Trollhunters, or even the amazing
Troll 2…
"Oh my goooooodddddddd!"
...Troll Hunter is director André Øvredal's first horror movie, so catch it while it's
still on Netflix.
Set in the remote, forested northern fjords of Norway, this found-footage mockumentary
follows a group of students as they try to catch an elusive species of giant troll on
camera, without being eaten or trampled alive in the process.
Needless to say, some of the characters are more successful in that endeavor than others.
Ravenous
In this 1999 film, a group of mid-19th-century military frontiersmen save the life of a stranger
who stumbles into their camp… who then thanks the frontiersmen by having them all for dinner.
"Man eats the flesh of another, he absorbs the other man's strength…"
(epic, cannibalistic yelling)
Cannibal hillbilly stories are a dime a dozen, but Ravenous breathes fresh life into the
trope with an awesome cast, a nifty historical angle, and some unexpectedly hilarious jokes
about the etiquette of eating your fellow man.
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
"Come on!"
"What is going on?"
"How is he even walking right now, Tucker?"
"He looks like he's going to walk it off.
He's going to be fine."
If you're looking to scream with laughter rather than terror, it doesn't get better
than this pitch-perfect sendup of the camp slasher genre.
Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk star as a pair of backwoods BFFs who are just trying to enjoy
a relaxing vacation at their fixer-upper cabin in the mountains.
But when a group of preppy, judgmental college kids sets up camp nearby, a series of absurd
misunderstandings unleash an unstoppable tide of rage, violence, and accidental endings-by-woodchipper.
An American Werewolf in London
The best practical special effects you'll ever see in a creature feature belong to this
classic werewolf movie from 1981.
An American Werewolf in London is as darkly funny as it is terrifying, in a dry, British
sort of way, like when the mangled spirits of the various victims of David's lunar activities
turn up to scold him for not only slaying innocent Londoners, but being such an unrefined
boor about it.
"What shall I do?"
They just don't make horror like this anymore… although they tried, bless their little hearts.
Don't confuse this one with the 1997 film, An American Werewolf in Paris, which was a
pile of hot garbage.
Odd Thomas
In this film based on a book by Dean Koontz, Anton Yelchin plays a small-town fry cook
and part-time vigilante psychic who uses his gifts to hunt down psychos.
He runs into trouble when his town is invaded by an evil beyond anything he's seen before.
As horror flicks go, Odd Thomas is more whimsical, and occasionally sentimental, but Yelchin
is so charming in the title role that you won't miss the jump scares a bit.
Hellraiser
On its surface, Hellraiser is a cautionary tale about buying and solving puzzle boxes
from sketchy Moroccan street vendors.
But really, it's all about master of horror Clive Barker, and his first foray into the
grotesque fantasy world that would spawn close to a dozen films.
The acting won't win any awards, and the gore is over the top even for a horror film, but
Hellraiser's unique combination of demonic lore and lingering cringe shots of slimy,
torn-off people parts makes it a must-watch for anyone who claims to be serious about
horror.
The Fly
Everyone loves David Cronenberg's 1986 version of sci-fi horror story The Fly, but this version
from 1958 came first.
It's a classic science fiction film, with a cast that includes everybody's favorite
cadaverous leading man, Vincent Price.
As far as the plotline, you know the drill: mad scientist gets overambitious, has careless
lab accident, transfigures self into gruesome half-human, half-fly monstrosity.
But back in the mid-20th century, this movie was groundbreaking—and even by modern-day
standards, it goes to some shockingly dark places.
The Shining
We know you've seen The Shining, or at least the thousands of pop culture references to
it.
"No TV and no beer make Homer something something…"
"Go crazy?"
"Don't mind if I do!"
But no matter how many times you've seen it, you haven't seen it enough.
Stanley Kubrick's 1980 adaptation of Stephen King's terrifying haunted-hotel novel was
notoriously loathed by the author, but it's still a brilliant piece of filmmaking from
a master.
The Shining packs in plenty of gut-punching terror, focusing on a horrific performance
by Jack Nicholson as a man coming undone in the worst way.
In Kubrick's hands, a slow and lingering visual crawl down an empty hallway at the Overlook
Hotel is more terrifying than any jump scare.
But really, see it for the hundreds of pop culture references that will suddenly make
sense.
"Redrum Redrum!"
"Danny stop it!
Danny?"
"Trab pu kcip!"
"What have we told you about writing on the walls?
Go to your room!"
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