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You want tense thrillers? You got it. Gore galore? Done. Monster movies? Yeah, obviously. The indies, which end up being that much scarier because of their low-fi vibes? Again, yes. What we're trying to say is that Netflix is the only place you need to go to scare the shit out of yourself.
And after you binge-watch all the scary, terrifying, and disturbing movies on this list (or this list of the Best Horror Movies Every Year Since Psycho), laugh off your fear with the best comedy movies Netflix has to offer. If you have a special someone to cozy up with in front of your laptop screen, you might want to browse our list of the best romantic movies available on Netflix right now. Not feeling a specific genre? Just pick one of the overall best movies that are streaming on Netflix right now. Or if you're looking for a smaller (or greater, depending on how many episodes you watch) commitment, check out the top TV shows on Netflix right now. You can't go wrong with these selections. When you've un-glued yourself from your couch, you'll be thanking us.
Argentina's own Adrin Garca Bogliano can't be put into any one kind of box within the horror genre. With each new film, the young writer-director totally shifts gears and challenges himself to subvert a common scary movie trope; in Here Comes the Devil, Bogliano tries his hand at the supernatural, telling an unsettling and unpredictable tale about two loving, though romantically fragile, parents struggling to figure out where their two young kids have been acting so oddly after returning from a mysterious cave. Achieving a steady, overwhelming mood of dread from start to finish, Bogliano's latest twists and turns its way into a lane occupied by the most daring of horror movies, where familiar concepts and images never play out how one might expect and interesting, if not sometimes questionable, behind-the-camera choices show a director who's gamely open to risks.
But Mickle and Damici figured out how to set their post-Dracula flick apart: by making the vampires unsociable killing machines that are actually secondary to rich character development. Damici, a worthy action hero for the IFC circuit, and fresh-faced Connor Paolo play a pair of grizzled survivors (which includes scream queen Danielle Harris) trudging through a post-apocalyptic wasteland full of supercharged vamps, Satanic cults, and gorgeous cinematography.
Jim Mickle is more than ready for his close-up. Quietly, the independent writer-director is the horror genre's most gifted young talent, a compelling mix of Terrence Malick and a young Wes Craven. Although his films don't chump out on the gore and violence, Mickle's style of scary moviemaking is impressively elegant, putting heavy emphasis on characters, cinematography, and patient, human narratives. See his 2011 vampire flick Stake Land, or just go directly to his latest, the cannibal drama We Are What We Are, his best movie yet.
A remake of Mexican filmmaker Jorge Michel Grau's grim 2011 festival darling of the same name, Mickle's We Are What We Are is the rarest of genre re-imaginings, one that's much better than its predecessor and doesn't merely rehash what's already been done. Mickle and writing partner Nick Damici move the story flesh-eating family dynamic to rural upstate New York, centering on a God-fearing, subtly tyrannical patriarch (a menacing Bill Sage) and his two teenage daughters (Ambyr Childers and Julia Garner), both of whom want to drop their family's history of ritualistic cannibalism and live like normal kids. Daddy doesn't want that for them, unfortunately, and We Are What We Are shows the family's disintegration, one murder and intestine feast at a time.
Patience is a must while watching The Den, writer-director Zach Donahue's more-than-meets-the-eye exercise in found-footage horror. In its early sections, the film, about a grad student (an impressive Melanie Papalia) researching the user habits of a video-chat website, suffers from lazy online weirdo caricatures. Papalia's character gets bombarded by horny dudes looking to score, and it's all one-note and hindered by hammy performances. But The Den takes an unexpectedly dark and fucked-up turn for its third act, and that's when Donahue pulls off some of the creepiest first-person POV sequences in recent memory. The Den's bleakness and Internet-as-Hell theme accelerate as Papalia's situation worsens.
Say you're feeling miserable, right, and one of your buddies is always smiling and lighting with joy-you're looking to bring him down a peg, eh? Invite him over, flip open your laptop and consult Netflix for some Antichrist, yet another mega-downer from Danish polarizer Lars von Trier. The heartwarming tale of a married couple's descent into madness and graphic mutilation in the wake of their infant son's accidental death (which von Trier shows in slow motion, mind you), Antichrist is liable to make a Glee reject want to lock his or herself indoors for an extended period of time. At least they'll have done so after watching a beautifully shot and commendably fearless work of mean-spirited art.
Directors: Kaare Andrews, Angela Bettis, Ernesto Diaz Espinosa, Jason Eisener, Bruno Forzani, Hlne Cattet, Adrin Garca Bogliano, Xavier Gens, Lee Hardcastle, Jorge Michel Grau, Noboru Iguchi, Thomas Malling, Anders Morgenthaler, Yoshihiro Nishimura, Banjong Pisathanakun, Simon Rumley, Marcel Sarmiento, Jon Schnepp, Srdjan Spasojevic, Timo Tjahjanto, Andrew Traucki, Nacho Vigalando, Jake West, Ti West, Ben Wheatley, Adam Wingard, Yudai Yamaguchi
Comprised of 26 directors each presenting a different means of life termination based on letters from the alphabet, The ABCs of Death boasts one of those concepts that sounds amazing in theory but has a high potential of turning into a clusterfuck in execution. But it comes with fervent, pleasant enthusiasm to report that The ABCs of Death is an absolute blast.
Granted, several segments are complete wastes of time, namely The House of the Devil filmmaker Ti West's disappointingly lazy "M is for Miscarriage" and Angela Bettis' "E is for Exterminate." The combined weakness of the film's lesser offerings is easily dismissible, however, when one takes into account the awesomeness of The ABCs of Death's high-points, from Deadgirl director Marcel Sarmiento's exceptional "D is for Dogfight," Ben Wheatley's (Kill List) intense first-person exercise "U is for Unearthed," and Jason Eisener's (Hobo With a Shotgun) demented and uncomfortably hilarious "Y is for Youngbuck."
Contracted is a tricky movie. First and foremost, it was advertised poorly, and critics criticized it for marketing a rape that occurred in an early scene as a "one night stand." Still, it has all right elements of a horror film, particularly in the way that it uses the genre to speak about serious moral issues. Samantha, a young woman devastated after being broken up with by her girlfriend, heads to a party where her friends offer a ton of alcohol and drugs. She is then raped by BJ, a disgusting man who has had sex with a toxic corpse. In many ways, Samantha has become infected, and what seems to be just an STD morphs into something more sinister. While Contracted certainly has the opportunity to inspect the trauma that occurs when someone is raped, it never fully commits to this. Still, it does have some smart ideas and, at least on a surface level, is a pretty horrifying and disturbing film.
It's been almost a year since Wes Craven passed away, but Netflix, fortunately, has no intention on letting his legacy die. Great evidence of this is Wes Craven's New Nightmare, a metafilm that's sort of part of the Nightmare franchise, but still very much its own entity.
The film follows Heather Langenkamp (the actress from the original film) who has become pretty popular for her role. Things seem good for her and her family, her husband Chase and son Dylan, but, this doesn't last when they are soon haunted by Freddy Kruger, the iconic serial killer who kills people in their dreams, which causes them to die in real life as well. All of Craven's films are horrifying and fun, but what makes New Nightmare so wonderful is its self-awareness, its ability to take a close look at the genre and at the filmmaker's own work. As a result, what could have been another standard addition to the series, ended up being much more.
Horror movies tend to get a bad rap and don't often reach critical acclaim and that's the case for the worst horror movies on Netflix. Fans of the genre typically know better than to judge a film based on its critical reception like when critics initially balked at horror movies that became classics like John Carpenter's The Thing. Yet, critics and viewers mostly agree that much of it falls short when it comes to Netflix's original horror content.
It's always fun seeing what new original horror movies Netflix is releasing, but some of the worst have plots that feel clichd and characters that don't feel compelling. Some of these films venture into so-bad-it's-good territory, as purposely watching critically panned horror films is something of a pastime for some viewers. The worst horror movies on Netflix include a reboot of a popular slasher franchise and an adaptation of a short story by Stephen King, meaning any source material, no matter how renowned, can sometimes suffer under the weight of poor execution.
Eli follows a young boy suffering from a rare condition that makes him allergic to the air he breathes. His parents take him to a medical facility that promises him life-changing treatment, but those who seek to help him have sinister intentions of their own.
While Stranger Things actress Sadie Sink does make an early appearance in the film, Eli suffers from pacing issues, making the final act of the movie rushed on top of the somewhat predictable plot. Critics mainly were apathetic to the movie, giving it a 48% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and audiences disliked it even more, giving it only a 37% rating. Eli seemed doomed because Netflix picked it up when Paramount couldn't figure out how to market it (via Deadline).
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