The Best Horror Movies To Stream On Netflix Right Now

The horror genre is often at its best when translating the internal to the external, turning the personal fear into a boogeyman that anyone can relate to. In the case of Gerald's Game, a Netflix original by horror maestro Mike Flanagan, the internal is externalized to an almost absurd degree. Based on the novel by Stephen King, Gerald's Game seemed entirely unfilmable, since nearly the entire story takes place in a single room following one character. Both the novel and the film follow Jesse (Carla Gugino), a woman on a vacation getaway with her husband Gerald (Bruce Greenwood) in an effort to rekindle their flagging relationship. 

Unfortunately, Gerald's got a bondage fetish, and it's so extreme that it involves real handcuffs, and some very extensive role play. To make matters worse, Gerald's got a weak heart, and he dies while Jesse's handcuffed to the bed with no one else around for miles. Nearly the entire story, minus some flashbacks, takes place on the bed as Jesse's left to contemplate what led her to this situation. 

It's the kind of setting that could easily lead itself to an incredibly boring cinematic experience, but Gugino's powerful performance and Flanagan's steady escalation of tension and danger manages to make a single room feel endlessly interesting. Be warned, however: while Gerald's Game has plenty of internal horror, anyone squeamish about gore should be prepared for an incredibly visceral climax.

Few things are more uncomfortable than being trapped in a social situation with someone who's either oblivious or intent on ignoring social cues. That could be the line of thinking that led to Creep, a found-footage horror movie about a videographer named Aaron (Patrick Brice) who finds himself working for the very strange and very creepy Josef (Mark Duplass). Aaron's been asked to film a series of messages for Josef's unborn son before Josef succumbs to terminal cancer, and he's been offered enough money to offset some of Josef's odd behavior. That is, until Josef pulls out a wolf mask and starts talking about his wife.

As with most found footage horror movies, there are moments that might make you scream at your screen to turn off the camera and start running. Nevertheless, Duplass and Brice, who also wrote the movie together, have enough chemistry that you understand why Aaron sticks around. It's not a film that's likely to convince avowed found footage haters to embrace the subgenre, but it's definitely one of the best no-budget horror movies around.

Certain things lend themselves to horror more than others. Sure, you could probably make a horror movie about an evil bowl (in fact, someone has), but generally it's easier to turn something that's already a little spooky into real horror. The Autopsy of Jane Doe manages to make working in a morgue even scarier by bringing in plenty of body horror and a Jane Doe (an anonymous female corpse) that might not be as dead as she seems.

With director André Øvredal (Troll Hunter) at the helm, The Autopsy of Jane Doe is as tightly paced and inventive as you would expect. As things get worse in the morgue and the father-son team race to find out what actually killed their mysterious Jane Doe, tension builds like a game of Jenga on a fault line. If nothing else, watching this movie will probably make you grateful that you have a job that doesn't involve slicing open dead bodies for a living.

Stop us if you've heard this one before: a young girl, burdened by issues at home, suddenly finds herself at the mercy of a supernatural entity that seems to be pushing her down a dark path. Veronica sounds like a few dozen other horror movies from the logline alone, but plot isn't everything in horror. What sets Veronica apart is the steady, versatile directing of Paco Plaza (probably best known to American audiences as the director of the original REC) and a wonderful lead performance from Sandra Escacena as the titular young woman. 

If you've seen one exorcism movie, you've seen most of them, but Veronica demands your interest with the smaller details: children with photo negatives covering their eyes as they gaze at an eclipse; Veronica using music and headphones to briefly escape her responsibilities as a surrogate mother for her siblings; the mutable nature of high-school friendship. When Veronica first dropped on Netflix, plenty of sites heralded the film as one of the scariest films ever made. While that might not be true for everyone, Veronica's certainly worth a watch.

The Evil Dead looms large over modern horror. Partially, that's due to Sam Raimi's continued status as a beloved cult filmmaker (who also made Spider-Man). Partial credit also goes to the surprisingly long legs that the franchise has had in pop culture, with multiple sequels, comic book tie-ins, a cancelled crossover film with Friday the 13th and The Nightmare on Elm Street, multiple video games, and even a well-regarded television show on Starz. Still, all the franchises, memes, and success of both director Raimi and star Bruce Campbell shouldn't distract from the original Evil Dead film being a pretty great horror movie.

Nearly everyone involved in the production has been pretty up-front about how funding for the film was barely secured after begging, borrowing, and stealing from everyone they knew. Unlike plenty of other low-budget horror movies, however, The Evil Dead makes a stupendous use of the scant budget available. Monsters look truly monstrous, while the one filming location available builds the claustrophobia around the characters and the audience alike. At the center of all the horror is Campbell's beleaguered everyman Ash, who is not yet the wisecracking Deadpool-esque cheeseball that he'd be in later films. Campbell gives a solid performance, and while later sequels would emphasize the Looney Tunes-style comedy, The Evil Dead is a lean, terrifying little thriller. Minus one truly uncomfortable scene that even Raimi himself regrets putting in the film, The Evil Dead is a classic horror film for a reason.

Horror movies about getting lost in the woods and finding some sort of monster or evil entity are a dime a dozen — sometimes literally that price if you're cruising through an especially cheap used movie store. As with any genre trope, there are good examples and bad examples, well-known forest horror flicks and completely unknown variations. Ultimately, it comes down to what kind of spin the filmmakers can put on the well-worn formula. Whether that means subverting expectations or just hitting the notes with exceptional aplomb, there are plenty of ways to breathe new life into a seemingly dead subgenre.

Speaking of breathing new life, 2017's The Ritual turned out to be far better than its summary would imply. After the death of their friend during a convenience store robbery, four pals venture into the Swedish woods on a hiking trip to mourn him. We're sure that you can guess what happens next, but the beauty of The Ritual is how it refuses to let a familiar conceit define the movie. Questions about one of the group's culpability in their friend's death creates drama, even when our protagonists aren't running into crucified deer carcasses or terrifying statues. We don't want to spoil the very best attribute of the film, but know that The Ritual has one particular aspect that will truly impress even the most hardened horror film buff.

When it comes to the folk horror subgenre, The Wicker Man is the gold standard against which all other films are measured, and it's often a joy to see how various other films riff on and pay tribute to that classic. One thing worth noting about The Wicker Man is, of course, that it's a slow-burn film that waits until almost the very end to reveal the full horror of Summerisle and its people. If you're looking for a film that plays with some of the same ideas but leans much harder into the horror elements, Gareth Evans' Apostle is for you.

The film follows Thomas (Dan Stevens), a man who visits an island off the coast of Wales in search of his sister, and finds a cult driven by a charismatic leader (Michael Sheen) who is convinced of the island's mythology, which says a blood sacrifice is what made it the lush, green paradise it seems to be now. What begins as a somewhat straightforward mystery surrounding the cult soon turns much more horrific, as Thomas learns that the folk stories about the island are truer than he realized.

Apostle may not ever live up to The Wicker Man in terms of sheer aura, but it succeeds in different ways because it's willing to go further and deeper with its folk horror mythos. The result is an intense, haunting movie driven by two stellar lead performances.

Sometimes you just have to go with a classic, whether you've been browsing for hours unsure of what to watch or you're just eager for some horror movie comfort food. In that regard, it doesn't get much better than Poltergeist.

Director Tobe Hooper and writer/producer Steven Spielberg's film remains one of the most effective, iconic haunted house movies of all time, one that remains remarkably timeless despite occasionally dated visual effects and a set design that places it firmly in the territory of the 1980s. This story of a family who moves into a new home and quickly finds they aren't alone holds up remarkably well, thanks in no small part to just how human it feels. Just about everyone can identify with at least one member of the Freeling family, whether you identify with their individual goals and desires or with the things that terrify them, and that roots the movie in a sense of reality that still reaches out and grabs you.

Of course, if that's not why you're watching Poltergeist, you'll still find a lot of things to love. The scares in the film, from faces sloughing off in sinks to skeletons in a hole to that creepy clown doll, are still effective nearly 40 years after the film was first released, so whether you've seen it a dozen times or you're arriving at it for the first time, Poltergeist can still feel brand new.

The horror genre has always been a place for low-budget invention, whether we're talking about the rapid fire shooting of Roger Corman films or the found footage allure of The Blair Witch Project. It's a genre where less is very often more, and terrifying stories can be told almost entirely from a single location. Session 9, an exercise in psychological terror from director Brad Anderson, is a masterclass in getting the most out of a relatively small movie.

The film follows an asbestos removal crew who takes a job cleaning out an abandoned mental institution. Eager for the bonus pay they'll get if they finish the job fast, the crew launches into an exhausting marathon of work, but then things start to get weird. One member of the crew finds an old lobotomy pick hidden away with other trinkets, while another stumbles upon audio recordings of a former patient at the asylum, who seems to be revealing different personalities on each tape. As the job goes on, it becomes clear that a darkness is stalking them, and it's a darkness as much rooted in the asylum itself as it is the disturbed past of one of their own.

Featuring brilliant performances from David Caruso and Peter Mullan and some beautifully understated horror directing from Anderson, Session 9 is one of the ultimate less-is-more horror movies — proof that creating an atmosphere is often more important than jump scares and gore effects.