Underappreciated Horror Movies You Need To Watch On Netflix

Where can you go to find all the best horror movies you've never heard of? One word, cinephiles: Netflix. From festival darlings that never found a distributor to limited release or direct-to-video sleeper hits, the streaming service is packed with zombies and vampires and hauntings (oh my!) that have flown under the radar too long. These hidden gems from the scary movie oeuvre never got the attention they so richly deserve—but can now be discovered and enjoyed by you, in the comfort of your living room. These are the most underrated, scream-worthy, stream-able films currently available.

Anton Yelchin, the handsome and talented star of Odd Thomas, was tragically killed in 2016 at the age of 27 and will never make another movie again, horror or otherwise. Hence, we must enjoy his existing body of work (with a box of tissues handy if need be). In this film based on a book by Dean Koontz, Yelchin plays a small-town fry cook and part-time vigilante psychic who uses his gifts to hunt down killers, but runs into trouble when his town is invaded by an evil beyond anything he's seen before. As horror flicks go, Odd Thomas is more whimsical—and occasionally, surprisingly sentimental—than spooky, but Yelchin is so charming in the title role that you won't miss the jump scares a bit.

This Kiwi horror comedy takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to a classic trope: instead of movie about a haunted house, it's a movie about a haunted house arrest. Small-time criminal Kylie is sentenced to eight months on her parents' property, which is ghastly enough even before she realizes that her folks' place has an angry ghost in residence. Kylie's ankle bracelet also serves as a clever answer to the question that plagues most haunted horror films; unlike the dopey characters in other movies who inexplicably stick around to be terrorized long after they should've run screaming out the front door, the heroine of Housebound can't leave her ghost-ridden residence.

In Hush, the ordinary home invasion thriller gets kicked up a notch by the injection of a unique twist: the heroine is deaf. Low on gore and high on suspense, the 2016 film succeeds despite a miniscule $1 million budget and almost no dialogue, thanks to its deliberate storytelling and creative use of sound and silence to ramp up the tension. Add in a stellar star performance by Kate Siegel, who anchors the movie she co-wrote with ease, and Hush is more than worth investing the short 80 minutes it takes to watch.

The source material for this period horror flick will be unfamiliar to all but the most hardcore Stephen King fanatics, but Netflix definitely knew what it was doing when it snagged this little story for a screen adaptation. Based on a novella from the author's Full Dark, No Stars anthology, 1922 stars Thomas Jane as Wilfred James, a farmer living in rural Nebraska during the period leading up to the Great Depression. Money troubles and marital conflict lead Wilfred to hatch a murder plot that leads him to some very dark places—and just goes to show that sometimes, getting away with it is much worse than getting caught. Like many of Stephen King's best works, this is a character-driven horror, and strong performances make it a standout—particularly from Jane, who immerses himself in the role so thoroughly that it's hard to believe this same miserable, hay-chewing yokel wearing a pair of overalls with nothing underneath is the same cosmopolitan hero who once played The Punisher.

With The Dark Tower and It tearing up the big screen in 2017, you might have totally missed some of the other, smaller adaptations in the works of stories by horror-master Stephen King—including this one based on the 1992 novel of the same name. Gerald's Game centers on Jessie Burlingame (played here by Carla Gugino), who ends up trapped, handcuffed to the bed at her lake house after her husband, Gerald (Bruce Greenwood), has a heart attack mid-coitus and dies. As she struggles to find a way to escape, Jessie is visited by a series of entities—some real, some imagined, and some that seem to straddle the line between this world and the next. One of Netflix's original feature films, Gerald's Game was eagerly anticipated by hardcore King fans but didn't get the kind of widespread attention merited by its creativity and star power. Despite the obvious challenges of holding down an entire two-hour film on her own, Gugino keeps it riveting, making this the finest horror movie set entirely on a bed since, well, maybe ever! Unless you count Bed of the Dead, but tragically, Netflix doesn't have that one.

If you've ever suffered through the exquisite agony of a couples dinner date where two members of the party used to date each other, you'll understand why The Invitation is nightmare fuel from the get-go. The film centers on Will (Logan Marshall-Green), who is reluctantly attending a dinner party hosted by his ex-wife Eden (Tammy Blanchard) at the home they used to share. Eden and her new hubs (Game of Thrones' Michiel Huisman) mysteriously dropped off the radar two years ago, but now they're back and want to make amends to all the friends they lost touch with ... or do they?

The big reunion becomes uncomfortable when it turns out that the guest list also includes two boundary-challenged strangers whose behavior is cringe-worthy and inexplicable even before the night devolves into a series of tense confrontations and weird, invasive party games. Even as Will starts to wonder if the dinner party pretense is cover for a much more sinister plan, The Invitation expertly mines the inherent awkwardness of group social gatherings to keep both its characters and its audience guessing, and, rather than going for supernatural scares, the horror is all too human. This underrated gem will leave you asking yourself how well you really know your friends—and shuddering when you realize the answer.