10 Great Horror Movies to Stream This Weekend

10 Great Horror Movies to Stream This Weekend

The saga of Samara, the stringy-haired little girl ghoul who stalks anyone who dares watch her VHS tape, seemed to come to a suitable conclusion with 2005’s The Ring Two. Nonetheless, beginning today, movie fans can once again watch unfortunate people try to avoid being killed by the specter in Rings, a 12-years-later sequel that does its best to update its analog conceit for the digital age. If early reviews are any indication, however, Rings falls woefully short of its chilling predecessors (it currently sits at 0 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, including pans from Variety and The Hollywood Reporter). But what if you were clamoring for a few good scares this Super Bowl weekend? Never fear — just follow our suggestions for ten superb horror movies available to stream at home, or on your mobile devices, right now.

The Mist (Available on Amazon Prime)

Frank Darabont’s 2007 adaptation of Stephen King’s 1980 novella is a superior supernatural thriller about a group of neighborhood acquaintances who, after a mysterious mist rolls into town, take refuge in the local grocery store — where at least one citizen proves to be as frightening as the dangers lurking outside. As we discussed with Darabont last year, the film also boasts arguably the single meanest ending in cinema history.

Sinister (Available on Netflix)

Before he began opening up pathways to other dimensions in last November’s Doctor Strange, director Scott Derrickson was serving up serious scares with his 2012 hit Sinister, about a true-crime writer (Ethan Hawke) who moves into the house where his latest grisly subject took place — a mistake that invariably puts his family directly in the crosshairs of an evil child-snatching spirit.

Event Horizon (Available on Amazon Prime)

Paul W.S. Anderson may be best known for his Resident Evil films, but his finest effort remains this 1997 sci-fi nightmare about a crew of astronauts (led by Sam Neill and Laurence Fishburne) on a mission to investigate a long-lost space ship that’s suddenly reappeared. Think of it as a cross between Alien and Hellraiser — in the best possible sense.

An American Werewolf in London (Available on Netflix, Amazon Prime and Shudder)

John Landis’s seminal 1981 horror-comedy concerns two Americans whose backpacking trip through England is rudely interrupted by a werewolf attack, which leaves one of them with a seriously hair condition. It still boasts some of the finest pre-CGI human-transformation effects committed to celluloid.

The Devil’s Rejects (Available on Amazon Prime)

Rob Zombie moved to the forefront of his generation’s horror-directing pack with his 2005 exploitation throwback about a family of psychotic killers being pursued (during a sadistic rampage) by a lunatic cop. It’s a nasty, gnarly piece of southern-fried horror.

Stephen King’s Children of the Corn (Available on Netflix and Shudder)

Before she faced off against Arnold Schwarzenegger’s cyborg assassin in The Terminator, Linda Hamilton found herself pitted against a cult-ish gang of Nebraska children determined to kill adults in order to appease their malevolent god in this 1984 adaptation of Stephen King’s short story. Malachai!!!

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Available on Netflix)

Iranian director Ana Lily Amirpour’s 2014 debut is a sleek, moody black-and-white vampire saga about a lonely female bloodsucker in a chador who preys upon the living, and the man with whom she strikes up an unlikely relationship. It’s a chilling, hypnotic take on familiar material.

Alice Sweet Alice (Available on Amazon Prime)

Featuring the screen debut of Brooke Shields, this under-heralded 1976 thriller concerns a murder spree by a fiend in a translucent mask and a yellow raincoat — a get-up that’s almost as frightening as some of the jolt scares found in this surprisingly durable early slasher film.

The Host (Available on Netflix and Shudder)

With more than a bit of Spielberg-ian flair, South Korean auteur Bong Joon-Ho delivers a thrilling saga of supernatural chaos and familial bonds with this import about a clan torn apart by the sudden appearance of a gigantic aquatic monster.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Available on Amazon Prime)

The greatest horror film in history (that’s right, I said it), Tobe Hooper’s 1974 classic concerns a group of road-tripping hippie kids who wind up being preyed upon by a not-very-nice family of cannibals, including the skin-mask-wearing Leatherface.

It Follows (Available on Netflix)

Sex is a gateway to STD-style supernatural doom in David Robert Mitchell’s John Carpenter-esque It Follows, in which a teenage girl (Maika Monroe) must, after a night spent with her boyfriend, flee a host of undead specters that are stalking her.