It’s officially spooky season, meaning it’s finally time to binge as many horror movies as we can get our hands on.
One of the best parts of the Halloween season is celebrating with scary movies whether they feature goofy ghouls or bloody slashers. Unfortunately, this October doesn’t have many big-time horror movies coming to theaters, though. The largest horror release would go to Five Nights at Freddy’s on October 27, but the rest of the theater slate leaves much to be desired for horror fans. Thankfully, though, various streaming services are loading up their platforms with spooky hits to satiate our desires.
Netflix, in particular, has a hefty handful of horror and thriller movies that are sure to keep you on the edge of your seat. From spooky classics to modern masterpieces, the streaming service has a vast variety of horror movies for us to enjoy at home. Whether it be tense social commentaries or light-hearted good times, here are five movies to check out on Netflix this Halloween season.
It Follows (2015)
It Follows is one of the greatest modern horror movies. Released in 2015, It Follows is a quiet yet terrifying movie that finds its terror in the background of everyday life. Instead of focusing on bloody slasher sequences, the movie relies on creating psychological terror. Nobody is safe, and the audience is constantly second-guessing what is “safe” in this world. Inspired by horror movies of the 70’s and 80’s, It Follows is refreshing and terrifying with a dense theme to bat.
The movie follows Jay (Maika Monroe), a carefree teenager who is dating Hugh (Jake Weary). After the couple has sex for the first time, Jay learns that she is the latest recipient of a fatal curse that is passed from victim to victim via sexual intercourse. Now, death will constantly creep toward her as either a friend or a stranger; literally, it follows. With no idea how to kill this entity, Jay and her friends have to find out how to defeat this curse before it brutally murders Jay. It Follows, which is frequently cited as a metaphor for sexually transmitted diseases, is a psychological horror movie for the ages.
The Babysitter (2017)
The Babysitter, a Netflix original movie, is a wonderfully unique take on the horror genre. Less a nightmare-inducing scare fest and more of a bloody good time, the movie can best be described as a teen black comedy. The Babysitter features hilariously dramatized characters, creepy set pieces, and gory kills galore. If someone were to take the characters of movies like Mean Girls or Pitch Perfect and make them violent Satanists, they would have The Babysitter.
Running at a brisk 85 minutes, the movie follows a 12-year-old named Cole, who finds out that his beloved babysitter (Scream VI‘s Samara Weaving) belongs to a murderous satanic cult of teenagers. Once Cole reveals himself, he learns of the cult’s plan to sacrifice him for personal gain. Now, Cole must put his crush on his babysitter aside as he tries to fight to survive. Samara Weaving is great as the titular evil babysitter Bee, solidifying herself as a low-key comedic horror icon thanks to her work on this movie and 2019’s Ready or Not. Even though it isn’t doing anything particularly unpredictable, The Babysitter is a violent good time outfitted with a hefty handful of laughs.
Lights Out (2016)
If you’re seeking a more traditional horror movie adorned with jump scares and a truly terrifying premise, Lights Out is for you. The 2016 movie uses a hefty handful of genre tropes, but it uses them in an effective manner. With a few compelling performances and some terrifying set pieces, Lights Out is a sturdy horror film akin to movies like James Wan’s The Conjuring or Insidious. The greatest aspect of Lights Out is how it capitalizes on a fear many people innately carry: the fear of the dark. In this movie, darkness literally means death.
Teresa Palmer plays Rebecca, who used to be terrorized by an invisible entity when the lights went out at night when she was a young girl. Now grown up, her little brother Martin little brother Martin (Gabriel Bateman) is experiencing the same unexplained events. The siblings learn that an evil supernatural entity with a connection to their mother has returned with a vengeance to torment the entire family. Now, Rebecca and Martin have to survive the invisible entity, which can only survive in complete darkness. Lights Out might not be the kind of “elevated horror” like some other modern hits, but it’s nonetheless a terrifying time for genre fans.
Creep (2014)
Creep is one of those movies that does a lot with a little. Much like a modern-day The Blair Witch Project, Creep is a found-footage horror movie with a minuscule budget. The movie is essentially just two guys talking to each other and hanging out in his remote cabin, but Creep is anything but boring. Featuring an outstanding performance from Mark Duplass, Creep is very, very creepy.
The plot is simple: a videographer named Aaron is hired by a stranger named Josef to film him for the day. Josef tells Aaron that he has a brain tumor and only a few months to live, so he wants to make a movie for his unborn child. As the day goes along, Josef’s behavior and requests begin to turn more bizarre by the hour. Now, Aaron is thrust into an intense, creepy scenario wherein he must figure out Josef’s true intentions. Creep is small in the best of ways, and it uses its limitations as its strongest assets. It’s wonderfully terrifying.
Get Out (2017)
It’s difficult to overestimate just how great Get Out truly is. The movie, Jordan Peele’s first directorial outing, is one of the foremost examples of the “elevated horror” genre that has been all the rave for the past decade. Get Out is as thematically profound as it is crushingly tense, and every single aspect of the film is utter perfection. While it may not feature mounds of gore or slashing kills, Get Out is a horror/thriller movie that finds its scares in the harsh realities of today.
The movie follows Chris, played by a terrific Daniel Kaluuya. Chris and his girlfriend Rose have finally reached the meet-the-parents milestone of dating, and she invites him for a weekend getaway upstate with her parents, Missy and Dean. The family seems fine at first, seemingly overly accommodating to Chris so as to deal with their internal conflict over their daughter’s first interracial relationship. However, as the weekend progresses, things take a terrible turn for the worse. Get Out, a commentary on modern racism, is scary, tense, and amazingly profound.
If you love horror/thrillers and haven’t seen Get Out, watch it as soon as you can. If you have seen it, this movie is fantastic enough to justify multiple rewatches.
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