The 12 Best Horror Movies on Netflix

There are, conservatively, fourteen billion terrible horror movies out there, and a lot of them available on Netflix. There are also some really good ones, but thanks to the streaming site's insistence on using incomprehensible algorithms to serve up suggestions and thumbnails that very regularly have nothing to do with the stuff they're meant to represent, it's hard to tell what's good and what's written by Roberto Orci. We found a dozen horror movies on the service we can, in all good conscience, recommend. Go get scared.

A Dark Song

Irish horror has seen a resurgence outpacing even that of the overall genre, itself in something of a renaissance. A Dark Song is everything you want from an indie chiller: a cold, secluded setting, strange rituals, and the creeping idea that the past never stays dead for long. A story about pain and loss wrapped up in a mystery wrapped up in an effectively scary ghost movie.

Creep 2

It's near essential you watch the first Creep (also on Netflix) before sitting down to Creep 2. But the simple fact is the sequel builds on and outdoes the original in every possible way, wringing new dramas, laughs, and even scares from a conceit long thought bled dry. It's a tiny modern masterpiece.

He Never Died

Henry Rollins (yeah, that Henry Rollins) plays an ancient being who requires blood to stay immortal, and that's about all we know for the longest time in this dark, gleefully violent movie that takes a hard turn into a mythology you almost certainly weren't expecting. It's a fun, original idea for a vampire movie—only swap out a vampire for something much, much more interesting.

Holidays

God help me, I love a good anthology horror. As with any of them, some segments in Holidays are certainly better than others, and one or two might be full-on duds. Looking at you, Kevin Smith, and your entry in this film, in which each short film is inspired by a certain holiday. The standouts are Easter and Father's Day, but there are some great ideas running throughout the entire thing.

Hush

Mike Flanagan might be the most consistent and prolific horror filmmaker working today. His sleeper hit debut, Absentia, is as ambitious as it is fucking dark, and his most recent film, the Netflix original Gerald's Game, has been hailed as one of the best ever Stephen King adaptations. Hush is Flanagan at his most low-key, but also his most creative, in which a home-invasion thriller finds new life in the conceit of our protagonist being a deaf woman. Flanagan puts us in her shoes occasionally, removing arguably the most important sense when it comes to scary shit, and somehow uses it to make things even scarier.

It Follows

If you haven't seen It Follows yet, what are you even doing? David Robert Mitchell's astoundingly assured pure terror of a film is a loud, fast nightmare with some images that will haunt you for a long time after it's over.

Piranha

Billed as Piranha 3D in theaters, you simply won't have more ridiculous, trashy fun watching a marine-based horror movie this summer, and, yes, that includes the unforgivably dull The Meg.

Raw

One of the most hardcore, batshit films to have come out of the French Horror wave, Raw is both a well-considered coming of age movie, and an absolutely bonkers sexy cannibal movie. You're going to absolutely adore it.

The Boy

I've spoken at length about the virtues of the cult hit puppet movie The Boy before. It's a gothic horror that's far more stylish than its trashy trappings demand, and while it's not an art-house triumph, it keeps the tension going up until one of the greatest twists in modern horror. Seriously.

The Invitation

If you were to distill my favorite movie genre into a Netflix-style collection title, it would be something along the lines of "jerks at a tense dinner party where something really, really wrong is going down." So, yes, The Invitation is the perfect movie. Thank you.

The Strangers

Released to little fanfare more than 10 (!) years ago, this freaky little home-invasion horror does enough original stuff to claw its way above the vast majority of "folks in masks scaring an attractive couple" movies. There's even a sort-of sequel that came out earlier this year that isn't half bad, either!

Train to Busan

I thought I was burned out on zombie movies, and I certainly though I was burned out on "horror movies that use an external threat to underline the selfless virtue of fatherhood." I am very, very glad this movie proved me wrong.