It’s officially horror movie season after all, so let us be your streaming guide.
It is now October – or as it’s known to movie lovers: horror movie season.
And to make it easier for our readers to know what to check out, we’ve compiled a list of – in our opinion – the best 31 horror films streaming on Netflix in the UK and Ireland right now.
That way, you can watch one spooky movie a night the entire month.
To spice things up just a little bit, we’ve also sprinkled in a couple of stand-alone entries in popular anthology TV shows that we think function on their own as cool, short little films.
Without further ado, scroll below to see what made the cut:
1922
The dark plan of a husband and father (Thomas Jane) comes back to bite him in unexpected ways in this atmospheric, haunting Stephen King adaptation.
Apostle
From writer-director Gareth Evans (Gangs of London, The Raid), a man (Dan Stevens) travels to a remote Welsh island in 1905 to rescue his sister from a mysterious cult in this bloody and brutal folk horror epic.
The Autopsy of Jane Doe
Brian Cox headlines this creepy thriller as a small town coroner who experiences increasingly bizarre and nightmarish phenomena while examining a mysterious woman’s body.
‘The Autopsy’ – Cabinet of Curiosities Episode 3
Sticking with the topic of autopsies, this terrific entry in Guillermo del Toro’s Netflix horror anthology directed by David Prior (The Empty Man) also revolves around an aging coroner (F. Murray Abraham) confronted with a strange dead body. It’s also just as creepy.
The Babysitter/The Babysitter: Killer Queen
A teen’s supposedly cool babysitter (an incredible Samara Weaving) turns out to be part of a satanic cult in this fun comedy horror.
While the sequel is not quite as strong, it does co-star a young Jenna Ortega.
Beetlejuice
Tim Burton’s comedy horror classic, which is back in the news thanks to its recent and decent sequel.
The Black Phone
Based on the short story of the same name by Joe Hill, this gripping horror thriller centres around a teenage boy abducted by a serial child killer known as The Grabber (Ethan Hawke).
Discovering a mystical black rotary phone in captivity that allows him to communicate with his captor’s slain victims, the child plots an escape.
Cobweb
The autumnal Halloween vibes are immaculate in this horror about a young boy (Woody Norman) who starts to distrust his parents (Antony Starr and Lizzy Caplan) when he begins hearing strange noises in the walls of his bedroom.
Creep/Creep 2
The micro-budget found-footage horror franchise we were just raving about last week.
Disappear Completely
An unscrupulous tabloid photojournalist (Harold Torres) in Mexico sneaks onto a crime scene, causing him to inherit a curse that makes him gradually lose each of his five senses.
Described by one critic as feeling like John Carpenter or Wes Craven’s take on Nightcrawler, Disappear Completely is a slow burn – albeit a profoundly haunting one.
Fear Street Trilogy
Netflix’s ambitious and spooky supernatural slasher trilogy detailing a town’s curse and how it impacts the teenagers who live there.
Final Destination
A group of teens escape death but death has “a new design” for all of them in this supernatural horror classic that launched a franchise.
Gerald’s Game
An ambitious Stephen King adaptation from director Mike Flanagan (Doctor Sleep, Haunting of Hill House), this claustrophobic horror thriller sees Carla Cugino play a woman who finds herself trapped handcuffed to a bed after her husband (Bruce Greenwood) suffers a heart attack and dies.
Struggling with dehydration and fatigue, the widow is plagued by demons – some of which are inner, others not so much.
Get Out
Jordan’s Peele’s Oscar-winning modern masterpiece in which a man (Daniel Kaluuya) spends a weekend with his girlfriend’s family that slowly becomes a fight for survival.
‘Graveyard Rats’ – Cabinet of Curiosities Episode 2
A grave robber (David Hewlett) faces the repercussions for his crimes in the form of giant rats in this other stand-out entry in the Netflix anthology directed by Vincenzo Natali (Cube, Splice)
Greta
Director Neil Jordan (Interview with the Vampire) helms this deliriously fun horror thriller about a young woman (Chloë Grace Moretz) in New York who becomes friends with an older widow (French acting titan Isabelle Huppert). The latter, however, is hiding dark secrets.
The Grudge
The hugely underrated 2019 US take on the iconic Japanese horror franchise.
In it, a grieving police officer (Andrea Riseborough) comes to realise that several murders connected to a single house over three years may be supernatural in origin.
Gloomy, twisty and very sad – the latter of which may explain the poor reviews.
The Guest
A seemingly benevolent stranger (Dan Stevens) shows up on a grieving family’s doorstep claiming to be a friend of their deceased relative. He’s not quite as nice as he first appears though.
While more of a thriller than a horror, the film’s awesome climax takes place within a Halloween haunted house so it feels worthy of inclusion.
I See You
An extremely twisty horror thriller in which strange occurrences plague a small-town detective (Jon Tenney) and his family (including Helen Hunt) as he investigates the disappearance of a boy.
If you want to watch this, you better do so quick as it’s leaving Netflix on 13 October.
Nope
Writer-director Jordan Peele and star Daniel Kaluuya reunited to put their own spin on the idea of UFOs in this thrilling sci-fi horror epic.
Ouija: Origin of Evil
Skip the terrible first Ouija and just watch this excellent stand-alone prequel helmed by Gerald’s Game director Mike Flanagan.
Set in ‘60s LA, a widowed mother (Elizabeth Reaser) unwittingly invites authentic evil into her home by adding a new stunt to bolster her séance scam business.
The Perfection
When a troubled musical prodigy (Get Out’s Alison Williams) seeks out the new star pupil of her former school (Logan Browning), the encounter sends both musicians down a sinister path with shocking consequences.
Gloriously unpredictable but also incredibly dark and twisted. Be warned, this is not for the faint of heart.
‘Playtest’ – Black Mirror Season 3 Episode 2
Hit anthology series Black Mirror puts a creepy, clever modern spin on the idea of the haunted house story with this entry starring Wyatt Russell and directed by Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane, Prey).
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
From the director of The Autopsy of Jane Doe, this fun adaptation of the classic book series of the same name sees a group of teenagers in a small town in ‘60s America discover a haunted book, unleashing a whole lot of terrors in the process.
Smile
A woman (Sosie Bacon) is plagued by a mysterious entity that causes people to smile unnaturally around her. This is only the start of her horrors, however.
Featuring iconic imagery and a brilliantly dark climax, we can’t wait for Smile 2 landing in cinemas this month.
Sinister
Hailing from the director of The Black Phone, Ethan Hawke stars again as a struggling true crime writer who, for inspiration, moves his family into a home that was previously the site of some gruesome murders. Things get sinister fast.
Scientists once dubbed this the scariest film ever made. We wouldn’t go that far, but it’s pretty freaky.
Talk to Me
In this twisted and visceral Australian horror, a group of teens get in over their heads after discovering that they can contact spirits through the use of a mysterious severed and embalmed hand.
Truth or Dare
Ignore the bad reviews. This flick about a group of teens cursed into taking part in a supernatural version of the title game or else face death plays out like a trashier version of It Follows and Smile. Very fun ending too.
Under the Shadow
In this gripping horror thriller set in 1980s Tehran, a mother and wife (Narges Rashidi) starts to suspect that a missile that struck her building was carrying a malevolent supernatural force.
The Wailing
In this incredible two-and-half-hour plus South Korean horror thriller epic, suspicion leads to hysteria when rural villagers link a series of brutal murders to the arrival of a mysterious stranger (Jun Kunimura).
Gripping, inventive, playful and twisty, the ending of The Wailing is also a knock-out.
Watcher
A young American woman (Longlegs’ Maika Monroe) who has just moved to Romania comes to suspect she is being stalked. One of the best, creepiest horror thrillers of the decade.
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