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For some, spooky season begins sometime in late August, when Home Depot puts out the animatronic skeletons and ghost projectors, and when every vacant retail space is possessed by a Spirit Halloween. For others, it's a no go until after Labor Day. Still other gorehounds believe there's no better time for a heart-rending scares than Valentine's Day.
Whatever timing you prefer, there's a horror flick worth catching on Netflix—or 25 of them.
28 Years Later (2025)
As much as I enjoyed the earlier 28 movies, I didn't expect to care much about a legacy sequel. Danny Boyle, Alex Garland, and co. have still got it, though, grounding this visceral, sweaty, post-COVID installment in the story of Alfie Williams' Spike, a young boy coming of age amid the apocalypse alongside a distant dad and a dying mom—and then Ralph Fiennes comes along to steal the movie with his bone temple (not a euphemism).
Deadstream (2022)
There’s life in the found-footage genre yet, as proven by this fun and inventive horror comedy that cleverly calls back to the original Evil Dead with its blend of goofy good humor and wonderfully gross practical effects. Director/star Joseph Winter plays Shawn, a once-popular YouTube personality working on a comeback (one of the movie’s most clever conceits is in tricking you into liking a character who does not deserve your love). Popular for his outrageous stunts, he builds an all-night livestream around locking himself in a purportedly haunted house. You can certainly see where this is going, but Winter and company deftly blend solid scares, technical wizardry, and a few laughs to create a movie that’s loaded with scares and still manages to get in some good digs at our toxic social media landscape.
Heart Eyes (2025)
Director Josh Ruben is on a roll, from clever two-hander Scare Me, to the surprisingly effective video game adaptation Werewolves Within, to Heart Eyes, a clever slasher that’s also a very solid rom-com. Olivia Holt plays Ally, a pitch designer for a jewelry company who doesn’t quite understand why her “doomed couples” commercial is seen as offensive. Love, she’s pretty sure, is dumb, so the Heart Eyes Killer running around murdering lovers doesn’t quite register—she’s not dumb enough for romance. At least until consultant Jay (Scream’s Mason Gooding) shows up, their will-they-won’t-they chemistry putting them firmly in the sights of the killer.
The Blackening (2022)
A horror comedy that serves both genres pretty darn well, Tim Story's modern slasher updates that horror trope wherein the Black character dies first. Here, everyone is Black, so who's the killer going to go for? A group of friends show up at a cabin in the woods to celebrate Juneteenth, only to discover their hosts are nowhere to be found, and that they're being targeted by a masked killer who wants them to play a Scream-esque game of Black culture trivia, with deadly stakes. Satire aside, the threats are intense and the would-be survivors (played by Grace Byers, Jermaine Fowler, Melvin Gregg, Sinqua Walls, Jay Pharoah, and Yvonne Orji) are better developed (and funnier) than in many a slasher, in tht you might actually care who lives and who dies.
Train to Busan (2016)
Before Parasite, Yeon Sang-ho’s film was, perhaps, the biggest South Korean film to break into the American market, even if some of the subtext gets lost stateside (Busan was a haven for refugees during the Korean War). The 2016 film follows Seok-woo, a workaholic divorced dad who comes to feel that he’s running out of time to be the father he ought to be for his daughter Su-an. He has no idea how right he is. The train trip he plans for them as bonding time becomes something much more desperate when a zombie-infected woman hops aboard just before departure. What follows is one of the best action-horror movies of the past decade, but also a surprisingly moving story about a father and daughter reconnecting at the end of the world, as well as one that doesn't shy away from some pretty pointed critiques of modern capitalism. You can stream Train to Busan here.
Frankenstein (2025)
I think we're supposed to call this a gothic drama—its cast is too A-list, and it's been written and directed by perennial Oscar-fave Guillermo del Toro, so it must be more than mere horror. And yet! This unusually faithful version of Mary Shelley's classic novel finds the humanity in the monster, but there's plenty of existential horror on offer, aplus some of the gnarly, stomach-churningly grisly special effects sequences in recent memory It's up for nine Academy Awards, which doesn't mean that it isn't disturbing.
El Conde (2023)
The spectre of the fascist rule of Augusto Pinochet continues to loom large in Chile, despite his having died a couple of decades ago. This is hardly unusual in the history of dictatorships—there are always those who remember the horrors, and those who made out OK and wonder if things weren't better back in the bad ol' days. This dark comedy/horror from Pablo Larraín (Spencer) turns that psychological omnipresence literal: Pinochet (Jaime Vadell) is a 250-year-old vampire who faked his own death, continuing his bloodsucking habits on a less public stage, while a determined nun seeks to exorcise him for good. There are bloody bits, and also some wild, but well-deserved swings at other dictatorial world leaders you might have heard of. With a nod to the original Nosferatu, the gorgeous black-and-white cinematography earned an Academy Award nomination.
Blood Red Sky (2021)
German widow Nadja is taking a flight to New York with her kid, Elias. She seems sick—we and her fellow passengers are meant to think that she has cancer, which makes her an easy mark for the terrorist hijackers who board the plane and shoot her out of pique. Big mistake. The vampires-on-a-plane high concept at work could have been silly, but at no point does the movie forget that we're seated for gory bloodsucking action.
Nightbooks (2021)
So, Nightbooks is technically for kids, and therefore might not provide quite the volume of scares that a grown-up horror audience might be hoping for. That being said: There are some legit frights here, frankly a little beyond what you’d expect from a kids’ movie. It’s the old story of kids kidnapped by a witch (Krysten Ritter), with the added twist that one of the kidnapped, Alex (Winslow Fegley) writes scary stories, and has to tell one each night that he’s trapped in the witch’s apartment in order to stay alive. There’s imagery here to creep out just about anybody.
Incantation (2022)
Taiwan's biggest-grossing horror movie of all time inspired a TikTok challenge a couple years ago, asking viewers whether they could watch the whole thing without looking away. Possibly a little overly dramatic, but Incantation is certainly an intense found-footage horror film that draws us in by asking us, as viewers, to chant along with characters to help save a cursed child. Six years before the film's start, pregnant Ronan and her boyfriend interrupt a rural ritual while attempting to document it for their YouTube channel, and their lives have been very messed up ever since.
Apostle (2018)
If you’re familiar with the wild tower action spectacle The Raid, you might have some sense of the energy that director Gareth Evans brings to Apostle’s second half, even if the styles are very different. This one’s pure folk horror, with nods to The Wicker Man: Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey, The Guest) plays Thomas Richardson, a now-faithless missionary who returns home to discover that his sister has been kidnapped by a religious cult on a remote Welsh island. What starts out feeling a bit like a sleepy period drama evolves into a truly wild gorefest before it’s done. You can stream Apostle here.
His House (2020)
As fraught (and snooty) as the term “elevated horror” has become, it’s good to remember that a movie can have deep emotional resonance and a social conscience, all without sacrificing the haunted-house chills. Here, Bol and Rial (Sope Dirisu and Wunmi Mosaku), with their daughter Nyagak, flee war-torn Sudan to find refuge in a quiet English town, only to find that there’s evil waiting there for them.
Don't Listen (2020)
If the neighbors refer to your house as the "house of voices," I genuinely hope that you find that out before signing the papers—which obviously did not happen here. House flippers Daniel and Sara movie into a new place with their 9-year-old kid, Eric, who very quickly starts hearing voices coming from pretty much everywhere. The family hires an EVP (electronic voice phenomenon) expert to help, with very mixed results. This Spanish import works as a haunted house movie, but it's far more brutal than the usual, with a strong visual flair to top things off. You can stream Don't Listen here.
Gerald’s Game (2017)
Gerald’s Game, from the 1992 Stephen King novel, never seemed terribly filmable. The story is set entirely in an isolated cabin in the woods, and involves a single immobilized character for much of its page count. Enter director Mike Flanagan—who, in addition to his successful miniseries projects (The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club), did the impossible in crafting a killer adaptation of King’s lesser-loved Shining sequel, Doctor Sleep. Carla Gugino stars as a married woman trapped when her husband, played by Bruce Greenwood, dies after having handcuffed her to the bed. Increasingly delirious, she’s forced to face not only her past trauma, but the hungry dog that keeps sniffing around.
Creep (2014)
One of the better (maybe one of the best) found footage-style films of recent years, Creep takes place within the camera of Aaron (Patrick Brice, who also directed) and stars Mark Duplass (The Morning Show) as a dying man who hires the videographer to document his final days for his unborn son. The movie builds its tension around, initially, Aaron’s excessive friendliness—there are few better ways to create an atmosphere of unease than by offering up a character who’s a little too nice. Before long, the guy’s effusiveness curdles into an unpredictability that gets, well, creepier and creepier. You can stream Creep here.
The Platform (2019)
The metaphor might seem a little heavy-handed—but modern life has begun to teach us that even the direst of dystopian sci-fi is just around the corner. The titular platform is a large tower, euphemistically referred to as the “Vertical Self-Management Center,” in which food is delivered via a shaft that stops on each floor from the top down: those near the top get to eat their fill; those at the bottom get scraps. The Spanish-language thriller is wildly violent, but inventive, and it’s not as if real-life capitalism is particularly subtle in its deprivations. You can stream The Platform here.
Under the Shadow (2016)
In Tehran during the Iran-Iraq War, a woman estranged from her husband is forced to protect her child from mysterious supernatural forces as the bombs continue to fall. Writer/director Babak Anvari’s Under the Shadow invokes the jinn (neither necessarily good nor evil, but potentially threatening) as a way to talk about the strife and turmoil of war and political conflict, as well as about the anxieties of women in oppressive societies. The atmospheric film plays simultaneously as the story of a haunting, and also as one about women and civilians in times of war; each element serves to heighten the other.
The Call (2020)
I love a time-travel horror movie (a tiny but venerable genre that includes movies like Timecrimes, Triangle, and Happy Death Day). This one involves Seo-yeon (Park Shin-hye) visiting her childhood home in 2019, only to discover that an old cordless phone still works (never a good sign), and connects her to Young-sook (Jeon Jong-seo), living in the house in 1999. The two bond over shared experiences, but things soon go very wrong when Seo-Yeon tells the other young woman about the future, and influences her to make changes. Some events, it seems, are best left alone. Clever and disturbing, with a solid high concept.
The Block Island Sound (2020)
Strange doings are afoot on the title's Block Island, the most obvious being the vast numbers of dead fish that keep washing ashore. Almost as alarming, though, is the behavior of one of the local fishermen, Tom, who keeps waking up in strange places and generally losing time. His daughter Audry (Michaela McManus) works for the Environmental Protection Agency and is sent to investigate the mass fish deaths; she brings along her daughter and reunites with brother Tom (Chris Sheffield) along the way. Together, they discover that no ordinary environmental catastrophe is to blame (I guess it wouldn't be much of a horror movie if it were), as the film blends family drama and the eerie local events as it builds to a pretty chilling climax. You can stream Block Island Sound here.
Cargo (2017)
With the always-welcome Martin Freeman in the lead, this is, OK, yet another zombie film, but one that still manages to do things a bit differently. An Australian import, this one tweaks the rules so that the infected have just about 48 hours of humanity before they turn, meaning that everyone has a bit of time to contemplate their fates, and maybe even to think about how to make the best use of their time. It’s a more melancholic take on the zombie apocalypse, full of chilling outback atmosphere and some genuine scares. Don't get confused with the 2020 sci-fi movie of the same name, also on Netflix. You can stream Cargo here.
Verónica (2017)
Loosely based on purportedly true events, this import from Spain is all spooky atmosphere and old-school chills. It's the story of a young woman who conjures up evil demons following some ill-conceived Ouija-play. (Seriously: Stop messing with those things). When some friends try to conjure up lost loved ones during a solar eclipse, they wind up making contact with a spirit they weren't expecting. Because of course they do. It's not the most original chiller, but the creepy fundamentals are sound, and there are plenty of solid scares. The sequel, Sister Death, is also streaming on Netflix. You can stream Verónica here.
The Ritual (2017)
What do you do when one of your best friends is murdered in a botched liquor store robbery? Go to Sweden and tromp around in the woods, obviously! The four friends here do just that in this effective film that blends don’t-get-lost-in-the-woods horror with some genuinely mythological frights that play to the best traditions of folk horror.
May the Devil Take You (2018)
Indonesia has been a particularly fertile ground for the development of horror movies for a long time, and Netflix has hosted a few recent bangers. This one’s a pretty straight-up story of demonic possession and being very careful what you wish for, involving a man who sells his soul for wealth and success, only to release a demonic presence that brings goopy, gory harm to his loved ones. It might not be the most visually explicit in terms of its body horror, but it’s up there. The 2020 sequel, May the Devil Take You Too, is almost as good.
Fear Street Trilogy (2021)
I'm covering three movies at once here, as each film in the trilogy, adapted from the R. L. Stine books, shares a tone, quality, and director (Leigh Janiak, best known for Honeymoon prior to Fear Street). Fear Street Part One: 1994 kicks off the films by introducing the town of Shadyside, which the local kids call “Shittyside,” and has a dark history of multiple murders, most of them covered up. A group of teens upsets the grave of a witch, kicking off the revival of a murderous cult. The vibe here is a little bit Stranger Things, with some legit gore and scares (it’s YA, but definitely not kids’ stuff) as Janiak pays homage to a wide range of horror movies past. The series continues with a camp slasher homage in Fear Street Part Two: 1978, and then an origin that brings things to a conclusion in Fear Street Part Three: 1666. There's a standalone fourth film in the series, Prom Queen, which is fine...but this initial trilogy is something special.
The Perfection (2018)
A short synopsis, involving Charlotte Willmore (Allison Williams) returning to her prestigious music academy after an absence and finding that another woman (Logan Browning) has taken her place at the head of the class, might make it seem as though we’re entering Black Swan territory, at worst—but the intentionally disjointed narrative here quickly careens into wildly claustrophobic body horror. It might not be the first film to mine dark thrills and gore out of arts education (Suspiria, anyone?) but it goes as far as any of them, and even beyond. You can stream The Perfection here.
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