Focus World / Wild Bunch
It’s Halloween season and while everyone is rushing to get their outfits and parties planned; some people are just looking to spend the Holiday curled up watching a great scary movie! Thankfully, the internet gods have blessed us all with an immense selection of horror movies on Netflix, the only problem… where are all the “good ones”?
Search no more! We’ve rounded up THIRTEEN of our favorite scariest horror movies on Netflix that will have your Halloween season looking extra spooky!
13. Train to Busan
Starring: Gong Yoo, Jung Yu-mi, Ma Dong-seok, Kim Su-an
Directed by: Yeon Sang-ho
Release Date: July 20th, 2016
Set in a cramped and crowded South Korean train, this action packed and fast moving Zombie movie will get your heart racing no doubt! While headed to the city of Busan by train with his daughter, an overworked business man must protect his family while also trying to survive the deadly outbreak consuming the whole of South Korea. Skip the dubbed version and stick to subtitles as the dub seems a bit over the top and cheesy.
12. Saw
Starring: Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, Monica Potter, Michael Emerson, Tobin Bell
Directed by: James Wan
Release Date: October 29, 2004
With the upcoming release of the latest installment of the Saw franchise, Jigsaw, let’s take the time to watch (or rewatch) the first chapter in this long running horror series. Primarily set in a dirty and dingy bathroom, two men find themselves chained to a wall with a mysterious body and tape recorder found in the middle of the room. What follows is one of the most acclaimed horror movies of our time and marks the start of a bloody and trap-filled horror series.
11. Hush
Starring: Kate Siegel, John Gallagher Jr., Michael Trucco
Directed by: Mike Flanagan
Release Date: April 8th, 2016
A woman is home alone and a deranged killer is desperate to kill her. Sounds generic right? Wrong, this movie takes the classic tropes of slasher movies and gives it a genre defying twist… our main heroine is deaf. Using the main character’s lack of hearing, this great slasher puts the audience in the shoes of our hero and allows us to fully look for audio clues and gives us actually frightening scares!
10. The Nightmare
Starring: Siegfried Peters, Steven Yvette, Yatoya Toy
Directed by: Rodney Ascher
Release Date: January 26th, 2015
The only movie on this list to feature real-life horrors, this 2015 documentary looks into the terrifyingly real phenomena of sleep paralysis. Telling the stories of eight people affected by it, this documentary takes things up a notch by fully recreating the scenes the affected are telling. Sleeping after watching this one won’t come too easily…
9. We Are Still Here
Starring: Barbara Crampton, Andrew Sensenig, Lisa Marie
Directed by: Ted Geoghegan
Release Date: June 5th, 2015
This criminally underrated horror film takes evil and sets it within everyone’s safe space…their home. As an elderly couple decides to move into a rural New England home after the death of their son, they begin to realize that this seemingly idyllic home is nothing of the sort. As the home “wakes up” and demands new blood every thirty years, this family must figure out how to stop the evil before it takes them.
8. Creep
Starring: Mark Duplass, Patrick Brice
Directed by: Patrick Brice
Release Date: June 23rd, 2015
Shown to the audience as a faux-documentary, this unsettling and “creepy” study of a psychopath works its way into the viewers fears by making the primary evil a simple yet creepy man. After answering a crytic Craigslist ad, a filmmaker is tasked with recording the habits of a man (Duplass) for one day, only for things to get psychotic by the end.
7. Would You Rather?
Starring: Brittany Snow, Sasha Grey, Jeffery Combs, John Heard, Logan Miller
Directed by: David Guy Levy
Release Date: October 14th, 2012
Unable to afford her brother’s lukemia treatments, Iris (Snow) decides to take a mysterious offer that will allow her to make the money for her brother’s care. Unknowingly, she has just signed up for a life or death game with a room of strangers and the ultimate goal of only one being able to walk out alive.
6. Gerald’s Game
Starring: Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood, Carel Struycken
Directed by: Mike Flanagan
Release Date: September 29th, 2017
Based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, this Netflix exclusive Horror movie follows a couple as they begin a wicked sexual game in their secluded cabin home. As her husband has a heart attack and dies, Jessie (Gugino) is left to her own devices handcuffed to the bed. With no one for miles and no help in sight, Jessie must figure out how to get free before her own mind destroys her.
5. Raw
Starring: Garance Marillier, Ella Rumpf, Rabah Nait Oufella, Laurent Lucas
Directed by: Julia Ducournau
Release Date: March 10th, 2017
This visceral and masterfully directed cannibal horror film from acclaimed director Julia Ducournau has been the talk of many horror fans this year. Following a sixteen year old lifelong vegetarian who suddenly develops a taste for human flesh, this bloody horror romp will disturb viewers for years to come.
4. The Invitation
Starring: Logan Marshall-Green, Tammy Blanchard, Mike Doyle, John Carroll Lynch
Directed by: Karyn Kusama
Release Date: April 8th, 2016
Get ready for the dinner party from hell with this unsettling and terrifying movie from acclaimed director Karyn Kusama. While attending the dinner party, a group of friends start to realize that the perfect life their hosts seem to have is far from what meets the eye. As the party descends to Hell, truths will be revealed and all is not what it seems…
3. The Babadook
Starring: Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Daniel Henshaw, Barbara West
Directed by: Jennifer Kent
Release Date: May 22nd, 2014
This already classic horror movie has seared its terrifying imagery into the minds of millions of viewers and as another Halloween season descends upon us, it’s time to watch (or rewatch) The Babadook! Set in the home of a struggling widowed mother as she tries her best to raise her son, a creepy children’s book makes it way into their home bringing an unspeakable evil to their home.
2. Under The Shadow
Starring: Narges Rashidi, Avin Manshadi, Bobby Naderi, Ray Haratian
Directed by: Babak Anvari
Release Date: October 7th, 2016
Set during the “War of the Cities” in 1980’s Tehran, this claustrophobic and unsettling horror movie pits mother versus daughter as spirits invade their home. While the rest of her apartment building begins to flee for their lives, Shideh decides to stay in her home with her child while war goes on outside. As their building is hit with a missile that never explodes, an evil creeps its way in to begin terrorizing our heroines.
1. It Follows
Starring: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Daniel Zovatto, Jake Weary
Directed by: David Robert Mitchell
Release Date: March 13th, 2015
A masterclass in Horror filmmaking, this 2015 slow-burn of a movie (and also my favorite Horror movie of all time) takes its time unraveling its mysteries as we follow a rag-tag group of teens trying to stop the madness involving one of their own. As Jay (Monroe) finally loses her virginity to a boy she thinks she can truly trust, she is thrown into a life or death game of cat and mouse as her would-be suitor has just given her a sexually transmitted DEMON to get rid of!
