legepos justille thomasynah
Jessica Wade
No horror movie is as terrifying as the experience of trying to agree on something to watch with your partner as the night draws in. Save some sympathy, however, for the main characters of our most prestige chillers, some of whom have seriously been put through the wringer.
Whether it's the story of a music festival gone seriously wrong in Ari Aster's gaslighting saga Midsommar, or the many societal ills highlighted by Jordan Peele's modern-horror filmography, Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+ have plenty of excellent scary movies to pick from. To make the task of choosing a little easier, we've rounded up the best horror movies that are available to stream, rent and buy now, all for perusal in the comfort of your home, and best watched while wearing an expression of abject terror. Enjoy?
Still hailed as one of the best twist endings of all time, M. Night Shyamalan's crowning jewel, The Sixth Sense, is as good now as it was in 1999. Centred around a young boy who believes he can see dead people and the child psychologist tasked with trying to figure out whether he's just suffering delusions of the mind, the less said about it the better. Just watch. disneyplus.com
Men. This film is about men. Well, it's really about Jessie Buckley's character Harper and a retreat after a traumatic event that gets overturned by a persistent and looming presence of dread. That dread is men, played by a kind of eerie carousel of Rory Kinnear in different disguises. This Alex Garland film is all kinds of weird and twisty, as we have come to expect, and you will leave feeling overwhelming unease. Happy watching! amazon.co.uk
This gothic horror is about as chilling as it comes. Set in a cold, bare mansion that is never allowed to see sunlight, Nicole Kidman stuns as a wartime widow forced to keep going for the sake of her children who are allergic to sunlight. As time goes on, she starts to believe her spacious digs may be haunted, but that's only the beginning. amazon.co.uk
When Midsommar was released in 2019, it was greeted by a slew of five-star reviews and now the Ari Aster-directed scream-fest has finally landed on Netflix. It follows a young American couple on their trip to a mysterious Swedish festival, which, despite all appearances, quickly turns into a nightmare. Unlike most horrors, Midsommar is set mostly during the daytime and is no less terrifying for it. Plus, Florence Pugh is brilliant as the troubled protagonist, Dani. netflix.com
If you're worried that online dating is zapping the magic out of romance, just remember that the old-fashioned way might not always be just sunshine and roses. After meeting in a supermarket, Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is swept off her feet by Steve (Sebastian Stan), but as the relationship progresses she realises the meat market they met at might not have been to both of their tastes. disneyplus.com
Who doesn't fancy sitting down to watch a German-language aeroplane-vampire-action-horror romp? We certainly do. Blood Red Sky starts as a run-of-the-mill plane hijack film, until we discover that one of the passengers, travelling with her son, was bitten by a vampire and now has to take suppressants to stop herself from becoming a ravenous beast. She's shot by one of the hijackers and decides that enough's enough, deciding to make her way through the plane, one hijacker at a time. It's Air Force One for Nosferatu fans. netflix.com
Never underestimate horror for being able to make the most natural, human things incredibly sinister. In Smile, it's, you guessed it, people smiling. After you watch it you'll hope everyone is miserable all the time, if just to avoid seeing people turn up their mouths for a bit. A doctor is plagued with visions after a terrifying incident with a patient, and soon reality blurs with nightmares as she starts to unravel from the horror. amazon.co.uk
Halloween launched perhaps the most convoluted and nonsensical of horror universes (there are 12 films in the franchise), but the original remains the best by far. Fifteen years after being sectioned for the murder of his sister, Mike Myers returns to the town of Haddonfield and is hellbent on yet another random killing spree. Everything from the soundtrack to Jamie Lee Curtis to that chilling final scene makes for horror movie perfection. netflix.com
Armie Hammer is a New Orleans bartender who fancies his friend Alicia (Zazie Beetz) and is growing increasingly distant from his partner, Carrie (Dakota Johnson). After a fight in the bar he works at, he finds a leftover phone that continues to give disturbing, visceral clues about something evil lurking underneath the strange goings-on that begin to happen. With a cast this good, Wounds is worth a watch for its blend of disturbing imagery and top-notch ensemble. netflix.com
As a kid, it's one thing to find out your babysitter is inviting strangers over to your house while they think you're sleeping, but it's quite another to discover that those strangers are part of a human-sacrificing cult. Poor Cole, the nerdy teenager who finds himself in this exact situation in The Babysitter, as the titular girl-next-door villain reveals herself to be more of a girl-from-hell. After signing a deal with the devil to make herself popular, she now needs the blood of teenage boys to keep her end of the bargain. With as many laughs as there is gore, this is the silly slasher flick to watch if you want to avoid nightmares. If you're left bloodthirsty for more, then you can also follow it up with the recently released sequel, The Babysitter: Killer Queen. netflix.com
From the makers of Saw and the recent box office hit The Invisible Man comes this deeply unsettling flick about young parents (Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne) attempting to fight back against the evil spirits who have haunted their son (rather than their house). netflix.com
Set in Eighties Tehran, Persian-language film Under The Shadow depicts both the horrors of war and the supernatural, providing sharp social commentary and scares in equal measure. The plot follows Shideh, a medical student who's banned from continuing her studies because of her political views and whose husband has left to serve in the military, as she lives a life of increasing isolation with her daughter, Dorsa. Things start to get spooky when an unexploded missile crashes into their apartment block and, as if that experience wouldn't be terrifying enough, brings a malevolent force with it. Equally thoughtful and terrifying, this one's a must-watch for everyone, not just the horror buffs. netflix.com
In an attempt to spice up their sex life, married couple Jessie (Carla Gugino) and Gerald (Bruce Greenwood) invest in a pair of sturdy steel handcuffs. Chained to the bed, Jessie's arousal soon turns to panic as her husband dies from a sudden and unexpected heart attack. What's more, there are no neighbours for miles, the handcuffs are too strong to break and the phone is just out of reach. Far more than just a sex game gone wrong, this suspense-driven Stephen King adaptation from Hush director Mike Flanagan tests the viewer's psychological endurance almost as much as Jessie's, who, at one point, must helplessly watch a dog begin to eat her husband while she remains unable to move. netflix.com
A cult horror, Creep is recorded in the style of "found footage" and its premise is effectively simple: a filmmaker, Aaron (played by the film's director Patrick Brice), answers an online ad for a one-day job in a remote town to record an adieu from Josef, a dying man (Mark Duplass), to give to his unborn son when he comes of age. Josef's idiosyncrasies (a wolf mask, a tendency to overshare) soon become warning signs and a call to Aaron from Josef's wife confirms our worst fears. So disturbing is the ending we recommend watching soothing "Tiny Kitchen" videos on repeat afterwards. netflix.com
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