Hidden Horror Gems On Netflix You Need To Watch

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It can be hard to know which horror movie is right for you. It just might be the most personal genre of all — what it means to be scared or to confront fear is deeply subjective. Even among the most ardent horror hounds, it's hard to agree on what makes a good movie. Some people get a cathartic thrill out of pure terror, experienced through the safety of the screen. Others want to indulge in gory, macabre fun that lets their inner demons run free. Still other genre enthusiasts just want to mediate on some eerie atmosphere. Whether or not you think of yourself as someone who likes horror, the fact is that there really is something for everyone.

Of course, that diversity means that anyone who's in the mood for a good scare is spoiled for choice — maybe to a fault. It also means that your new favorite may very well be something that's totally flown under your radar for years. There's no doubt that you can find you next spooky obsession somewhere on Netflix, but it's tough to even know what you're looking for. That's why we're here with a list of some oft-overlooked horror gems that are secretly among the best Netflix has to offer. Whether you're into demonic possession, murderous dolls, killer cults, or just some nightmarish visions, we've got you covered.

Before Stephen King adaptations became his stock-in-trade, Gerald's Game and Doctor Sleep director Mike Flanagan made Hush. This 2016 Blumhouse production doesn't feature any ghosts or otherworldly demons. It's just a lean, tense slice of home invasion thriller, with the added twist of placing the viewer into the point of view of a protagonist who can neither hear nor speak. The result is a sharp, fresh little movie that feels as innovative as it is old-fashioned.

The project was a labor of love for Flanagan and his star-slash-co-writer-slash-wife, Kate Siegel. The couple developed the screenplay by staging the action in their own home, honing each twist and turn to perfection. That handmade skill shows on the screen, resulting in a movie praised by the likes of Stephen King himself and The Exorcist's William Friedkin, garnering comparisons to John Carpenter's original Halloween and the classic thriller Wait Until Dark.

The Ouija board, unsurprisingly, is a horror movie staple. From its presence in the opening scenes of The Exorcist to its starring role in Ouija: Origin of Evil, filmmakers throughout history have explored the horrific potential that comes with the use (and misuse) of this common would-be "toy" that promises to connect people to spirits from beyond the veil of death. Rarely, though, has a Ouija board been used as a plot device quite as effectively as in Veronica, a Spanish film that made its way to Netflix after a warm reception at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Directed by Paco Plaza (famous for REC, remade in America as Quarantine), Veronica is "based on a true story" — though that claim, as it so often is in horror, is made rather liberally. Using as its jumping-off point the factual case of a Madrid girl who died after using a Ouija board, the movie presents a nightmarish descent into paranoia and demon possession that even gained a reputation in certain corners of social media as "the scariest horror film ever."

It's not often that you can call the seventh movie in a franchise "underappreciated," much less the seventh movie in a slasher series about a killer doll. 2017's Cult of Chucky, though, is something special. MGM may have remade the original Child's Play for the big screen in 2019 (without the involvement of the previous cast or crew), but Chucky's creator never abandoned him. Having written every movie in the series (and directed the last three), Don Mancini is still firmly in control of the original Chucky brand — one that's been refreshed and reinvented without forgetting its roots.

Cult of Chucky picks up four years after the events of the previous film, Curse of Chucky. Nica (Fiona Dourif, daughter of longtime Chucky voice Brad Dourif) has been committed to a psychiatric hospital after taking the fall for the murder doll's most recent rampage. Just as her doctors have finally convinced her of her own responsibility for the crimes, a retro Good Guy doll (from Hot Topic, no less) turns up at the hospital as a therapy tool.

Once the body count begins, Nica has to convince the hospital's residents that Chucky is real before it's too late. She won't be alone — an all-grown-up Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent, reprising his role from the first two Child's Play movies) and Chucky's old flame Tiffany (the always delightful Jennifer Tilly) both race to the hospital for a climax that perfectly sets up Mancini's upcoming Chucky TV series.

The summer of 2017 was pretty packed with high-profile blockbusters, so it's understandable if a quiet little experience like It Comes at Night slipped under your radar. Now that it's on Netflix, you have the perfect chance to see why critics like Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com called It Comes at Night "one of the most terrifying films in years." Be forewarned, though, that it takes place in a world ravaged by infectious disease — something those of us living in 2020 might find just a little too real.

With a small but powerful cast that includes Joel Edgerton (Zero Dark Thirty), Riley Keough (Mad Max: Fury Road), and Carmen Ejogo (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them), It Comes at Night follows in the illustrious footsteps of The Shining when it comes to depicting an isolation-fueled descent into distrust and violence. This moody little story about two families clashing over food and shelter certainly isn't an easy watch, but it just might provide some cathartic thrills for a dark night on the couch.

Animal Crossing might make life on a deserted island seem ideal, but as we all know, isolation can quickly turn into your worst nightmare. Kiersey Clemons takes the lead as Jenn in Sweetheart, a terrifying thriller from Blumhouse about a woman forced to fend for herself after getting shipwrecked. It doesn't take long for Jenn to realize that something is coming ashore each night. When she begins making increasingly grisly discoveries about what happened to the people who came to the island before her, she's faced with the question of what's more frightening — solitude, or the idea that she might not be alone after all?

Sweetheart has the heart of an old-fashioned monster movie, but it's got more than one clever trick up its sleeve. As director J.D. Ballard's tightly-wound tale unfolds, you'll find yourself completely uncertain of what's coming next and questioning everything you think you know about Jenn and her predicament.

Filmmaker Oz Perkins is the descendant of horror royalty — his father, Anthony Perkins, played Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece Psycho. Some of that Hitchcockian sensibility might have been passed down genetically, because the younger Perkins' debut feature as a writer-director, The Blackcoat's Daughter (released in some markets as February), certainly displays a touch of the master's sense of psychological tension.

A uniquely structured thriller, The Blackcoat's Daughter splits its attention among three young women (American Horror Story's Emma Roberts, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina's Kiernan Shipka, and The Politician's Lucy Boynton) with connections to a Catholic boarding school. The tension may be slow-burning, but the chaotic timeline — rife with flashbacks and nonlinear intercutting — will probably make you feel like you need to watch it a second time just to understand exactly what happened. The Blackcoat's Daughter comes to us from A24, and if you've enjoyed the distributor's other atmospheric thrillers (like Under the Skin, The Witch, or Ex Machina), you probably owe it to yourself to check out The Blackcoat's Daughter — at least once.