Everybody grab some candy and some insulin, spooky season is here! And to get you ready, we’ve selected the best Halloween movies on Netflix.
How exactly a pagan harvest festival transformed into a month-long celebration of carving pumpkins, decorating your house with enormous spiders, and selecting a death-themed Twitter display name is a question for the ancients (perhaps to be incanted over a dusty text in an attic full of pentagrams and runes), but it’s a tradition nonetheless—and watching scary movies while gorging on candy is part of it.
So as you prepare for the big night itself, we’ve got you covered with a list of the best horror movies streaming on Netflix right now. We’ve got slasher films, family Halloween movies, movies you might not immediately think of as horror films but are still scary, and everything in between.
Let’s hit the list in the scariest order of all: alphabetical!
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Stanley Kubrick’s early-’70s masterpiece, based on Anthony Burgess’s novel, is not something commonly associated with Halloween, but it should be: it’s a horror film. Can you think of anything scarier than marauding bands of teens on nightly violent sprees? Or the concept of government mind control? Well, this movie’s got both. What’s more, the “height of fashion” look that Malcolm McDowell and his Droogs embrace has been a choice Halloween costume for edgy party-goers for decades. Viddy well!
The Babysitter (2017)
Samara Weaving: is she coming to your suburban house to keep you safe at night, or are she and her squad of self-described “hot people” coming to perform satanic rituals? In the words of a well-loved GIF, “why not both?” This peppy, splashy, and extremely bloody (but in a fun way) horror pic was a bit of a return to form for director McG, who brought us the early aughts Charlie’s Angels movies and produced The O.C. and Supernatural. Bella Thorne, Hana Mae Lee, Robbie Amell, and Andrew Bachelor round out Weaving’s circle of zing-slinging devil-worshippers who need “the blood of the innocent,” i.e. a human sacrifice in the form of our pre-teen protagonist, played by a wide-eyed Judah Lewis.
Bird Box (2018)
Danish director Susanne Bier (whose In A Better World won the Best Foreign Language Oscar) and screenwriter Eric Heisserer (who wrote Arrival and Final Destination 5) joined forces to create what future historians might deem Netflix’s first viral sensation based off an original film. Sandra Bullock, a performer who smashes through genres like the Kool-Aid Man does through walls, plays a protective mother in a dystopian environment where evil creatures force innocent people to kill themselves—but only if they are looked upon. As such, our heroes in this survival horror picture (and those of us who took the “Bird Box challenge” for laughs online) must make their way across streams and through forests blindfolded. John Malkovich, Sarah Paulson, Jacki Weaver, Trevante Rhodes, Rosa Salazar, and Machine Gun Kelly co-star.
CAM (2018)
There is no shortage of low-budget horror movies that use social media and/or “cam girls” as their hook, and CAM is the best of the bunch. Written by Isa Mazzei, adapting her own book about her experiences in the field, and directed by Daniel Goldhaber, whose recent How To Blow Up A Pipeline is making moves on the festival circuit, CAM certainly features gore and scares, but gets under your skin with its unnerving psychological Twilight Zone-y tone. Madeline Brewer plays the striving cam girl “Lola” whose popularity on an adult service is overtaken by someone else, also calling herself Lola, who looks and sounds *exactly like her—*and the scenes of our Lola watching the other Lola are creepy as hell.
The Conjuring 2 (2016)
Wait, which one is The Conjuring 2 again? The “Conjure-verse” is a vast pocket universe if you count all the prequels and sidequels, but this is the one where the series really hit its funhouse stride, with Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson returning as paranormal investigators Lorraine and Ed Warren (based on the real-life Lorraine and Ed). This time they go to 1970s England and, honestly, what’s more terrifying than that place? This movie’s got Ouija boards, twirling crucifixes, and an 11-year-old girl who sounds like a septuagenarian man. Also: Patrick Wilson in a sweater vest. There is a chill in the air, after all.
Crimson Peak (2015)
And now we reach the vibe subcategory of Halloween movies. Crimson Peak isn’t all that scary (unless you are the wuss of all wusses) but director Guillermo Del Toro is very much in his element in an amped-up Edwardian-era English manor. This is a love story as much as it is anything else, but with ghosts, penniless gentry, deteriorating buildings, lots of eyeballs, and some of cinema’s most eerily shot falling snow. Of films released in the last 10 years, this is essential stuff for anyone interested in design (perhaps even more so than Del Toro’s Oscar-winner The Shape of Water), and the performances by Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston, and Charlie Hunnam (underrated!) are all top-notch, too.
Deliverance (1972)
This box office sensation that garnered three Academy Award nominations (best picture, best editing, and best director for John Boorman) is not regularly associated with Halloween. If anything, it seems like a summer movie, what with a group of people taking a canoeing trip. But it is a survival horror picture, with some still-shocking acts of violence throughout. Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight, Ronny Cox, and Ned Beatty are four Atlanta businessmen who find themselves grossly out of their element among the locals, whose landscape is about to be severely changed due to a coming dam. If only the gang split after their nice banjo encounter!
Eerie (2018)
This often-overlooked movie is just one of the many foreign language gems tucked away deep on Netflix’s servers. Filipino director Mikhail Red leans in to the title with a chilling tale of a Catholic girls’ school haunted by a past suicide. The location mixes modernist architecture with classic religious iconography, and while there isn’t too much gore (though there are plenty of jump-scares), it’s the tone that does wonders here. Flickering candles, shadows, lots of eyeballs (what’s creepier than eyeballs?), and disorienting nightmares add up to an unusual sensation of dread.
The Fear Street Trilogy (2021)
Netflix’s big Halloween bet for 2021 was a trilogy of films spawned from the R.L. Stine-verse jumping from the 1990s to the 1970s, then to the late 1600s and back. Rare is the motion picture franchise that includes Puritan New England, summer camp, and a barely-disguised Spencer’s Gifts. The total package is a gift for teens who want to test themselves with genuine gross-outs during an epic sleepover session. (But don’t fall asleep! Sarah Fier’s witches’ curse will invade your dreams.) For pure thrills, the middle section, playing in the Friday the 13th sandbox, might be the best, but the “world building” of the entire enterprise is rich and sticks the landing.
Gerald’s Game (2017)
It was only a matter of time before this list of best Halloween movies on Netflix got to the name Mike Flanagan. He’s the big red streamer’s in-house spookmeister general who created some much-loved series like The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and Midnight Mass. With Gerald’s Game, he adapts Stephen King’s 1992 novel about a woman (played by Carla Gugino) who allows her husband (Bruce Greenwood) to handcuff her to the bed in an attempt to spice things up … then he drops dead of a heart attack. How in the hell is she going to get out of this one? The answer will surprise you—and make you puke, too!
His House (2020)
Sope Dirisu and Wunmi Mosaku play refugees from South Sudan whose daughter dies during their perilous escape. They are granted asylum in Britain and placed in a … not particularly glamorous home in the outskirts of London. (Imagine the back cover of the fourth Led Zeppelin album, but worse.) Here they face byzantine rules (thanks to their caseworker, Matt Smith), racist neighbors and, naturally, a haunting spirit. The unwanted guest is what the Dinka people call an apeth, who demands a sacrifice. The final section of the movie whips the narrative in an unexpected direction, coming together at the end to a fulfilling conclusion.
Hubie Halloween (2020)
Do you or do you not want to see June Squibb in a t-shirt that reads “Boner Donor”? Adam Sandler is back as an annoying man-child, this time a Halloween-obsessed dope named Hubie DuBois, who lives, naturally, in Salem, Massachusetts. (Sandler himself grew up New Hampshire, so close enough.) There’s a lot of stupid scares in here, with a production design that’s intentionally on the “Spirit Halloween” side of things. After decades of crying wolf, Hubie has actually uncovered some supernatural things afoot, and must muster his bravery to save the day. Rob Schneider, Kevin James, Tim Meadows, Steve Buscemi, and most of the other Sandler regulars are back, including Maya Rudolph dressed like the Bride of Frankenstein. Highly recommended as a top notch Halloween movie for families!
Hypnotic (2021)
Here’s a suggestion: if you seek professional psychological counseling, make sure you meet with someone who has all the proper credentials. Kate Siegel fails to do this in this agreeable B-picture when she succumbs to the charms (and hypnosis) of Jason O’Mara’s malevolent headshrinker in Hypnotic. At first the sessions add some much-needed pep in her step, but then she starts having weird memory loses. The doc is up to something, clearly, but what? Could he, in some way, be responsible for the gruesome death of our heroine’s fiancé thanks to (checks notes) sesame allergies? Can he really, as the film suggests, scare someone to death? Watch this movie to find out for yourself!
It (2017)
Culture’s most terrifying pronoun is here and ready to drag you into the sewer. The first half of the behemoth Stephen King novel that took you an entire summer to read was a massive box office sensation, as was its sequel (which you’ll have to stream elsewhere.) The Losers, Pennywise the Clown, and “you’ll float, too” all have their origin here, plus the general sense that Maine is a haunted place, and if you should do your best to drive around it if you are ever going up to New Brunswick.
It Follows (2015)
A primo example from the Golden Age of “Elevated” Horror (say that three times like “Candyman” around gorehounds and see what happens) that debuted at the Cannes Film Festival. It Follows, set in a not-quite-current-reality, creates a physical manifestation of destruction after a sexual encounter, that can only be evaded by hooking up with someone else, and sending the demon after them. It’s like an STD for which no cream can conquer the rash! Among the many fun things about this movie is how it turns the most basic horror movie trope on its head: Historically, the couple that has sex is first to get killed. Here, one must schtup to survive!
Marriage Story (2019)
If you don’t consider this a horror movie then clearly you’ve never been caught in sinking quagmire of regret where emotional violence spews shrapnel in all directions. The sequences in which the two parties get their legal bills alone constitute torture porn. Okay, okay, so there’s no blood (wait, actually, there’s that bit with the box cutter) and there’s no violence (wait, Adam Driver bashing a hole in the wall was a never-ending meme) but there was catharsis. How you work this into Halloween is up to you.
The Mist (2007)
We’re back in (oh no!) Maine for another Stephen King-penned story. This time, Thomas Jane and his young son are trapped in a supermarket as a mysterious (and titular) mist envelops the town. Lurking within it are vicious, enormous creatures that grip and fly and skitter about. In addition to that, Marcia Gay Harden won’t stop babbling about sin and the end of the world. Toby Jones, William Sadler, and Frances Sternhagen all make appearances, as does an emotionally brutal ending. Director Frank Darabont, who had previously directed King’s dramas The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, stuck with horror after this, developing a little television show called The Walking Dead.
No One Gets Out Alive (2021)
Here’s another undersung horror winner on Netflix that’s a great Halloween movie pick. Cristina Rodlo stars as a Mexican immigrant who finds under-the-table work in a Cleveland sweatshop and an “ask no questions” place to live in an enormous, dilapidated house. Though certainly photogenic, there are screams coming from somewhere in the dead of night, and some of the other women living there go missing. The story heads in a supernatural direction, but a lot of the dread comes less from ghouls and bewitched archeological artifacts than the one-hundred-and-one ways someone just trying to stay afloat is taken advantage of by people who seem, at first, to be kind.
Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016)
Ah, yes, not just a movie based on a board game, but a prequel to a movie about a board game. But wait! It’s actually good. And just because Ouija boards are sold by Hasbro doesn’t mean they don’t have actual roots in the occult! Directed and co-written by our friend Mike Flanagan, and becoming his first bonafide hit (indeed, some might call this his origin of evil!) this supernatural horror picture with genuine scares took many critics by surprise considering how lackluster the first Ouija was. Henry Thomas as a tormented priest is a nice added touch.
The Perfection (2019)
Alison Williams and Logan Browning star in this All About Eve (or, at least, Showgirls)-type movie set in the world of classical music. The first part of the film is set in Shanghai and on a trip to the Chinese interior, and for as much as the scenery looks good, once the horror aspect of this movie picks up, things get absolutely gross. While far from torture porn, this is definitely an “I dare you to watch” type pf movie, with lots of barfing, the implied soiling of one’s undergarments, and ooze sliming up the screen. The last act, set in a New England conservatory, goes off the rails in a more typically occult way. Quality gross-outs await!
Raw (2017)
This one’s a non-negotiable. Not just one of the best horror movies currently streaming on Netflix, but one of the best movies from the past 10 years, Julia Ducournau’s Raw is a spectacular coming-of-age drama that just so happens to involve the consumption of human flesh. (Hey, we’re all different.) This French-language film is one of those movies that comes together at the end with an “aha!” that makes you reevaluate much of what you already saw to notice the clues left along the way. That’s always a plus. Garance Marillier is marvelous as a college freshman negotiating social structures who must, among other things, remove the stool from an impacted cow. For this they pay tuition?
Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)
This is the fifth of six Resident Evil movies starring Milla Jovovich, most of which were directed by her husband Paul W.S. Anderson and is, by a substantial margin, the most unhinged. The way to approach this movie is not to look for logic, but to let its clear sheen dazzle and wash over you. As per usual, the Umbrella Corporation is evil, and turning people to zombies, and Milla will kill them in acrobatic ways wearing extravagant outfits that somehow include a harness. The twist here are implanted memories (or alternate realities) in which she’s also living a comfortable suburban life. Highlights include action sequences in New York’s Times Square, Moscow’s Red Square, and a very brightly lit white hallway.
The Ritual (2018)
Four British blokes take a holiday to the Swedish mountains, with ruinous results. They’re going in honor of a friend whose idea it was, but was killed during a liquor store robbery. Rafe Spall is the pal most hit with guilt, as he failed to act and help during the attack. There’s a degree of male bonding out there in nature, but then there’s a twisted ankle, a decision to “cut through the forest,” and that’s where the spooky stuff begins. When you see glyphs carved into the sides of trees, that’s when you know to get the hell out of there, but by then it’s dark, it’s raining, and a creature of some sort on their trail. Note to self: go to the Bahamas instead.
Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark (2019)
Could there be a better title for a perfect Halloween movie? This PG-13 adaptation of a beloved book series has Guillermo Del Toro’s producer’s stamp on it, and sticks to an easy-to-digest formula. Set in the late 1960s and weaving some of the short stories already known to readers of the franchise, a spirit is unleashed when a charmed book is yanked from a haunted house. The PG-13 rating is pushed to the limit—which was controversial at the time of release—but this is good. Kids want to be challenged, and need to figure out for themselves when to hide their eyes. (Perhaps during the shot of the pimple filled with spiders, yuck.)
Scooby-Doo (2002)
Freddie Prinze Jr. as Fred, Sarah Michelle Gellar as Daphne, Matthew Lillard as Shaggy, and Linda Cardellini as Velma is, in fact, what Hollywood means by a four-quadrant film. A computer-generated talking dog (the titular Scooby-Doo!) only makes it more of a winner. Certainly this is a fine family Halloween movie, and even the youngest viewers won’t be too scared of the g-g-ghosts. Why you aren’t watching right now is a (cough) mystery.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)
This is not the original, grimy, grotesque, milestone film from 1974. We know this because that is Chain Saw, not Chainsaw (hold that one in your pocket for bar trivia.) This version, well, look, let’s be honest, it isn’t a masterpiece. The Alexandra Daddario one from 2013 was better. But this is a name brand horror flick and it’s hot off the presses, and sometimes you want to stream something where you know what you’re gonna get. Maybe pick up some KFC or Taco Bell, and enjoy.
There’s Someone Inside Your House (2021)
Corn fields really over-index in scary movies, don’t they? Well, this one is set in Nebraska, so it at least makes some sense. The action takes place amongst a group of high school friends—the outcasts of ethnic and gender minorities—who have mixed feelings when the community’s alpha male douche ends up dead. They didn’t like the guy, but murder? A bit far! The gimmick here is that kids aren’t just ending up dead, they are having their deepest-held secrets exposed on social media just before getting bumped off. (This is, I am sure, meant to be symbolic of something.) Another twist is that the killer deploys the use of a 3D printer to create a mask of the victim. Never trust anyone with a 3D printer, is (perhaps) one of the lessons here.
Under the Shadow (2016)
Here’s another foreign language winner from deep within Netflix’s archives. Set in Iran and set during the devastating Iran-Iraq War, Under the Shadow starts off like a typical drama about a mother and daughter trying to get by as the walls are literally crumbling around them. And that’s when the djinn come in. Some of this is clearly a political statement about Iran’s harsh Islamic laws (the director Babak Anvari is Persian-British, and the movie was the U.K.’s Oscar submission for the Best Foreign Language category) particularly when a missile pierces the family apartment building but remains unexploded. Eventually, the looming spirits and warring nations crescendo in true terror.
Unfriended (2015)
Of the many movies out there set entirely “on a computer monitor,” this was the first to get mainstream attention. (It also got more than likes; it raked-it-in at the box office.) While the operating systems may seem a little dated, the drama, centered on cyberbullying, does not. Various messaging, video, and social media apps are used to propel the narrative, in which a group is haunted (maybe) by the spirit of a girl who died by suicide. The pleasant Skype ringtone transforms into a “bell tolls for thee” type chime in this highly effective and creative movie.
John Carpenter’s Vampires (1998)
He goes by @thehorrormaster on Twitter and he made his bones with Halloween, so it would be absurd not to include some John Carpenter on the list of best Halloween movies on Netflix. Vampires (technically called John Carpenter’s Vampires) is, um, not his finest hour. It’s not The Thing or They Live or even The Fog. But maybe you’ve never gotten around to it after all these years, and it definitely has a quality. It’s got James Woods and Daniel Baldwin as vampire hunters, Sheryl Lee as a psychic, and Maximillian Schell as a Cardinal. (That’s a Catholic cleric, not a bird.) It’s extremely gory (some fine work by Greg Nicotero) and though the storytelling may be sloppy, sometimes, especially around Halloween, it’s fun to watch vampires and vampire hunters do their thing.
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