With Halloween falling on a weekend this year, it means there’s plenty of time for trick or treating and Halloween parties. If staying around the house is more your style, it’s a great time to catch up on some great horror movies. Netflix offers up a wide variety of horror, from classics to slasher flicks to newer takes on the genre. Whatever your favorite may be, we highly recommend checking out these eight films.
Think we missed one? Tell us what it is in the comments!
The Prophecy
The Prophecy was written and directed by Gregory Widen, who is best known for writing movies like The Highlander and Backdraft. In the film, the archangel Gabriel (Christopher Walken) has come to Earth to harvest a soul that will help him win a war in Heaven, and a cop (Elias Koteas) and a little girl have to stop him. Add in stellar appearances by Eric Stoltz as the angel Simon and Viggo Mortensen as Lucifer himself, and you’ve got a horror film that’s definitely worth watching.
Rosemary’s Baby
A young couple moves into a creepy Manhattan apartment against the advice of their landlord. They experience odd occurrences, including a woman committing suicide. When Rosemary (Mia Farrow) unexpectedly turns up pregnant after a horrible nightmare about being assaulted by a horrible creature, she begins to suspect that her seemingly benevolent neighbors may have some secret plans for her unborn child. It’s a classic horror film that every genre fan should watch at least once.
Scream
Scream is both a fantastic horror film and a subtle deconstruction of the genre, all rolled into one movie. Even though it’s directed by one of the genre’s masters (Wes Craven), Scream doesn’t hold back from taking jabs at previous slasher films, and yet it somehow manages to make a pretty good slasher film itself. We’ve seen its effects on horror movies ever since it hit theaters in 1996.
The Others
If your idea of horror is spooky stories about haunted houses, then The Others is right up your alley. Grace (Nicole Kidman) lives in a secluded Victorian mansion on the Isle of Jersey with her two photosensitive children as she waits for her husband to return from service in World War II. But when new servants arrive to take the place of the previous crew that simply disappeared, strange things begin to happen. Grace’s daughter admits talking to spirits and apparitions, but her mother refuses to believe her. Once she finally does, she must discover the terrifying secret that the house and the staff hold.
The Babadook
The Babadook may be the newest film on this list, but it’s also one of the creepiest. When Amelia (Essie Davis) lose her husband to a violent death, she struggles to keep her six-year-old son Samuel (Noah Wiseman) under control. He begins to have hallucinations about a monster coming to kill them both, and when a storybook about “The Babadook” shows up at their house, he is convinced that it is the monster from his dreams. Amelia medicates her son to try to control the dreams, but soon learns that her son’s warnings may be all too real.
Let the Right One In
A mixture of scary moments and solid storytelling, the Swedish thriller Let the Right One In was solid addition to the vampire genre when it debuted in 2008. It’s the story of a bullied young boy who befriends a new neighbor girl, only to learn that he’s the vampire responsible for a number of recent local deaths. It can be a bit slow at times (and also a bit bloody), but it’s a dark film that brings the sinister horror back to the vampire genre. Fair warning – this is one is only in English in the subtitles.
The Omen
A classic from 1976, The Omen stars Gregory Peck as an American diplomat living in London with his wife (Lee Remick) and young adopted son (Harvey Stephens). The son, Damien, is found to be marked with the “number of the beast,” 666. Soon enough, unpleasant deaths begin piling up, such as the nanny hanging herself. What makes The Omen so compelling is that you’re never really sure how the story is going to turn out, even near the end. It’s the very best kind of horror – the kind that keeps you guessing.
Hellraiser
Hellraiser was the first film directed by Clive Barker, and it embodied everything we’d come to expect from his work. It featured a very memorable villain appropriately named Pinhead (Doug Bradley) because his face was studded with metal pins. He was the leader of a group of demons known as the Cenobites who have take control of a man named Frank (Sean Chapman). Frank is an undead creature that’s awakened when his brother moves into Frank’s old house. This is a more adult-oriented slasher movie, mostly because of the overtly sexual overtones, but it’s still a great film for slasher and gore fans alike.
