There are times when you want to curl up on the couch and enjoy a heartwarming rom-com, and others when you fancy flexing your brain with a good psychological drama or losing your troubles with a side-splitting comedy.
And then there are those times when — for reasons perhaps understood only to you — you just want to have the living shit scared out of you with maniacal serial killers, blood, gore and creepy children singing nursery rhymes way too slowly.
For those times, there are a plethora of options available on Netflix to make you feel that all your Halloweens have come at once. Here’s our round-up of the best horror movies on the streaming platform.
Creep
Creep leans into the “found footage” genre that made The Blair Witch Project such a success and is not your typical gory horror flick. Instead, this film is sure to fill you with a sense of unease as it tells the story of Aaron (Patrick Brice), who answers an online ad and drives to a stranger’s house to film him for the day.
The man, Josef (Mark Duplass), wants to make a movie for his unborn child, but his requests become more bizarre as the day goes along.
The Invitation
While attending a dinner party at his former house, a man (Logan Marshall-Green) starts to believe that his ex-wife (Tammy Blanchard) and her new husband (Michiel Huisman) have sinister plans for the guests.
This one is a great psychological thriller that was described by one reviewer as “a delightfully demented thriller that plays on the awkward social dynamics of dinner parties.”
Orphan
Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard, Isabelle Fuhrman, C. C. H. Pounder and Jimmy Bennett star in this psychological horror film which follows a couple who, after the death of their unborn child, adopt a mysterious nine-year-old girl and watch as their world begins to unravel.
As the trailer suggests, “There’s something wrong with Esther” and when that particular character says: “I have a surprise for you Mummy” it’ll make you want to drink your wine with a birth control pill chaser.
Lights Out
Teresa Palmer stars as Rebecca who, as a young girl growing up, was never really sure of what was real when the lights went out at night.
Now, her little brother Martin (Gabriel Bateman) is experiencing the same unexplained and terrifying events that jeopardised her safety and sanity thanks to a supernatural entity that has returned with a vengeance to torment the entire family.
Definitely, one to watch with the lights on.
Us
If you watched Get Out, then you know that filmmaker Jordan Peele is truly masterful at finding the horror in the reality of systemic racism and social inequality.
Peele brings his Midas touch to Us, a psychological thriller starring Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, and Tim Heidecker.
In this incisive and terrifying film, Adelaide Wilson (Nyong’o) returns to the beachfront home where she grew up as a child, this time joined by her husband, son and daughter.
Haunted by a traumatic experience from the past, Adelaide grows increasingly concerned that something bad is going to happen. Her worst fears soon become a reality when four masked strangers descend upon the house, forcing the Wilsons into a fight for survival. When the masks come off, the family is horrified to learn that each attacker takes the appearance of one of them.
The Babadook
The Babadook is the intensely scary story of a single mother, who has lost her husband to a violent death, and her struggles with her son’s fear of a monster lurking in the house. Is the little boy’s imagination running wild? Or is he seeing things exactly as they are?
The film has been praised for its use of metaphors and for leaning on the power of suggestion as opposed to ostentatious frights and it is strongly encouraged that you don’t watch this one alone.Â
Read more: Why Wait For Halloween? Get Your Scare on With These Horror Films Landing In Cinemas Soon
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