Photo: Justin Lubin/Warner Bros./Everett Collection
It’s the best time of year again! As the leaves start to fall and high temperatures drop, we turn to horror movies to kick off the seasonal shift — and the streamers answer the call. The powers that be at companies like Netflix, Hulu, and Peacock understand that horror has always been one of the top performers on streaming services, which is never truer than in the weeks leading up to Halloween. This year, almost every streaming service has an interesting new offering for anyone looking for a chill in their bones to match the one in the air. Some of these have already premiered at film festivals like Toronto and Fantastic Fest, while others are still tantalizingly unknown quantities. We picked out ten of the most interesting ones for your calendar, with another ten alternates for the real genre completists, and will be updating later in the month as new titles drop.
Hold Your Breath
October 3, Hulu
It wouldn’t be October without Sarah Paulson haunting your streaming algorithms, but she’s actually not involved in the recent Ryan Murphy projects Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story or Grotesquerie. Instead, she’s leading a new Hulu original horror film that premiered at the end of the Toronto International Film Festival last month. Set in 1930s Oklahoma, Hold Your Breath is a story of a terrifying dust storm which a young mother asserts hides a supernatural entity that means her harm. It co-stars Emmy winner Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Bear), and critics praised Paulson’s work out of Toronto. Of course they did. She almost never misses.
Salem’s Lot
October 3, Max
Creatives keep returning to Stephen King’s second novel, now almost four decades old. Tobe Hooper made an underrated miniseries version in 1979, and the less said the better when it comes to the Rob Lowe take from 2004. This film version really sparked to life after the success of It in 2017, when every studio went looking for a King classic to remake. The Conjuring mastermind James Wan was attached as a producer from the beginning, as was writer-director Gary Dauberman, who wrote the two movies about the murderous clown. Starring Lewis Pullman of Lessons in Chemistry, the tale of a writer who returns to his hometown to find it overrun by vampires was actually shot years ago and was set to be released in September 2022. COVID reportedly delayed postproduction and then the notoriously weird things going on over at Max/WB appeared like they could bury this film forever à la Coyote vs. Acme. It seems like it took King himself asking questions in February 2024 to get the film a release date. It’s also worth noting that it opened the famous genre celebration Beyond Fest late last month, usually a sign that there’s something worthwhile about to drop.
It’s What’s Inside
October 4, Netflix
The biggest deal to come out of Sundance this year wasn’t for a clever comedy about a family coming to terms with one another — it was for the film that Netflix hopes will be the next huge horror hit for the streaming company. That’s why they paid $17 million for Greg Jardin’s It’s What’s Inside, though the director doesn’t exactly embrace the genre branding, telling producer Colman Domingo that “it’s a sci-fi thriller with jokes.” What’s the killer concept that broke the bank in Park City? At a pre-wedding party of close friends, one shows up with a body-swapping machine, leading to revelations, betrayals, and what Jardin calls “existential chaos.” The key to the film’s likely success is that it doesn’t sound like anything else on any of the streamers, and standing apart from the genre crowd is sometimes the best thing a new movie can do.
The Platform 2
October 4, Netflix
Five years after the original took Netflix by storm, Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia returns with The Platform 2, a sci-fi–horror sequel that promises to expand on the many ideas brought up by the first movie. The Platform cleverly imagines a future prison system wherein vertical housing facilities include a massive platform that runs down their center and contains enough food for everyone to survive, presuming those close to the top leave enough for those close to the bottom. Of course, that’s not how society works. The Platform was a sharp, grisly piece of work that seemed extra dark as most of us watched it in the early days of the COVID lockdown — and there are so many directions in which a sequel can go, making this easily one of the most interesting original streaming productions of the entire year, not just October.
Sweetpea
October 10, Starz
Ella Purnell has become a reliable force in television, first stealing scenes in Yellowjackets and then anchoring the gigantic Fallout for Prime Video. Her latest for Starz sees her in a new register in this adaptation of the book by C.J. Skuse about an ordinary woman who is pushed to extraordinary extremes by the many people around her who ignore her. Purnell plays Rhiannon Lewis, a bored, annoyed, average woman who struggles at work and in romance. Unlike most people, Rhiannon takes drastic, murderous action, eliminating those who have brought her life down. This U.K. import doesn’t really sound like anything else premiering this season, which might help turn it into the cult hit that Starz could really use this time of year.
Teacup
October 10, Peacock
Even after two episodes premiered at Fantastic Fest, little is known about this promising new Peacock offering, but the pedigree is undeniably impressive. It’s a new series based on the novel Stinger by Robert R. McCammon, a big name in ’80s and ’90s horror. (It’s kind of a deep cut, but there’s an amazing episode of the ’80s reboot of The Twilight Zone called “Nightcrawlers” that was adapted from one of his short stories. There’s a reason it’s on this list.) It was produced by James Wan, the mastermind behind The Conjuring universe, and it stars Yvonne Strahovski (The Handmaid’s Tale) and Scott Speedman (Felicity), along with some other interesting character actors. It seems like the kind of project that’s going to be better appreciated the less we know about it, so let’s just say that it’s about a rural ranch in Georgia, where bad things start to happen. That’s enough for us.
Daddy’s Head
October 11, Shudder
Benjamin Barfoot’s nightmare fuel was one of the few films at Fantastic Fest this year that was legitimately creepy, and it’s making a quick turnaround to Shudder to keep everyone up at night. Rupert Turnbull plays a young man named Isaac whose father dies in a car crash, leaving him alone at an isolated estate in the middle of nowhere with a stepmom who never really wanted to be a single parent. Before the domestic drama can really unfold, Isaac is visited by something that has the same head as his father. Elements of folk horror and science fiction blend into a singular vision, a study of grief that’s unlike anything else on Shudder right now. It’s a movie that will haunt you, especially when you’re alone late at night and you could swear you just heard or saw something that shouldn’t be there.
Hysteria!
October 18, Peacock
Creative people will never tire of mining the awfulness of the satanic panic for horror or even dark comedy. It’s hard to be sure exactly where this one will fall on the genre spectrum, but the involvement of Julie Bowen and Bruce Campbell suggests it may be a little tongue-in-cheek in its telling of the disappearance of a varsity quarterback in small-town America in the 1980s. With townspeople convinced that the athlete was sucked up by the waves of satanism spreading across the country, a group of outcasts in a band named Dethkrunch decides to lean into the panic, turning the members into targets themselves. It sounds fun, and all eight episodes drop on Peacock on the same day.
MadS
October 18, Shudder
One of the best films of Fantastic Fest is a oner that owes a great deal to films like Victoria and [REC], but it’s also got the energy of a George A. Romero telling of the end of the world. Yeah, it rules. David Moreau, who wrote the awesome Ils (Them) from 2006, directs this truly bonkers movie that unfolds in real time over about 90 minutes of escalating horror. It starts when a bandaged, bloody woman jumps into the car of a young man named Romain. After she gets her blood all over him and promptly disappears, Romain starts to act, well, abnormally. But the party must go on. As whatever twitchy, zombie-esque disease this woman was carrying spreads, it becomes clearer that no one is making it out of this night alive. This is a smart, fast-paced movie that’s almost certainly going to become the kind of thing that someone tells you to watch after they discover it on Shudder. Get on the bandwagon early.
Woman of the Hour
October 18, Netflix
Anna Kendrick proves herself to be a nuanced director with her debut, a film that’s closer to thriller than horror compared to most on this list, but it’s chill-inducing enough to qualify. Kendrick also stars as Cheryl Bradshaw, a woman who appeared on The Dating Game in 1978, where she was paired with a seemingly ordinary guy named Rodney Alcala. Later, it was revealed that Alcala was a serial killer, and Kendrick uses this encounter to unpack Alcala’s subconscious and how a culture that casually tosses off phrases like “get the girl” may feed into the worldview of the insane. It’s about systemic misogyny in a way that’s not preachy, and it’s a tightly wound thriller (only 94 minutes!) that will almost certainly become one of the biggest Netflix streamers of the year.
More Streaming Horror
➼ The Bad Guys: Haunted Heist (Netflix, October 3) — The hit books by Aaron Blabey were turned into a huge film for DreamWorks in 2022 but are becoming seasonal staples for Netflix as their 2023 holiday special is now joined by a Halloween outing.
➼ House of Spoils (Prime Video, October 3) — Oscar winner Ariana DeBose plays a rising chef who opens a new destination restaurant in a remote house that just might have ghosts on the menu.
➼ V/H/S/Beyond (Shudder, October 4) — If it’s October, there must be a new V/H/S. This one includes segments directed by Justin Long and Kate Siegel, from a script by her husband, Mike Flanagan.
➼ Caddo Lake (Max, October 10) — M. Night Shyamalan produces this original thriller about a missing girl near the titular lake, an actual hotbed of supernatural activity on the border between Texas and Louisiana.
➼ Mr. Crocket (Hulu, October 11) — A children’s-TV-show host in the ’90s comes out of TV sets to kidnap children and murder their parents in this Hulu original film.
➼ Family Guy Halloween Special (Hulu, October 14) — A Hulu exclusive special for the Griffin clan that features star du jour Glen Powell as the king of the annual Quahog pumpkin contest.
➼ American Horror Stories (Hulu, October 15) — Five new episodes in the AHS anthology series that include appearances by Michael Imperioli, Henry Winkler, June Squibb, Jessica Barden, and more.
➼ The Shadow Strays (Netflix, October 17) — Timo Tjahjanto is one of the craziest action directors alive, helming The Night Comes for Us and The Big 4, among others. His latest isn’t horror but has such a massive fake-blood budget that it qualifies for a list like this one.
➼ MaXXXine (Max, October 18) — Ti West closes out his trilogy with Mia Goth that includes X and Pearl, available exclusively on Max.
➼ Trap (Max, October 25) — M. Night Shyamalan’s divisive latest lands on Max just in time for those looking to perfect their Lady Raven costumes for a Halloween party.
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The 20 Best Horror Movies on Netflix Right NowThe 30 Best Horror Movies on ShudderThe 20 Best Horror Movies on Max
