We're deep into spooky season now, and while we've already given a list of the 13 new horror movies you need to catch in October, it's time to look at some older titles you could dive into on Netflix right now.
We've narrowed it down to four, all with essentially universal acclaim from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, each hitting the mark of at least 95% positive reviews. They're all available on Netflix US, and range from a bona fide classic to an Oscar winner to a recent but under-the-radar option.
And if you want some non-horror fare this week, here are 7 new movies and TV shows to stream on Netflix, Prime Video, Max, and more this weekend (October 20).
His House (2020)
RT Critics Rating: 100%
Director: Remi Weekes
Runtime: 93 mins
A haunted house movie where the haunting isn't so much of the house as its inhabitants. Bol and Rial are a pair of refugees from South Sudan who've arrived in the UK, to a dark, grim house that isn't exactly welcoming for a fresh start.
That's not really the problem though. The problem is that they're being chased by the demons of their past in a seemingly literal way, which is making it hard to stay sane, let alone integrate and fit into a new country and community. A great example of using horror for social commentary, it explores how the horrors of your past can interfere with your best attempts and intentions to build something new.
Get Out (2017)
RT Critics Rating: 98%
Director: Jordan Peele
Runtime: 104 mins
An instant classic on its release, and Oscar winner for Best Original Screenplay, Get Out is a tense, agonizing film that caused my Apple Watch to ask me if I was doing okay the first time I watched it. That heartrate had really spiked…
It follows Chris, who is going to visit his girlfriend's family in upstate New York with her for the first time. What follows is a series of situations that get increasingly creepy. They're ones that will have savvy horror viewers yelling the movie's title at the screen, but in reality we know that someone actually in the situation would brush off.
The situation descends further and further, and to talk more about its themes would give a lot away for people who haven't seen it, but it's again threaded through with social commentary among the extreme tension.
Jaws (1975)
RT Critics Rating: 97%
Director: Steven Spielberg
Runtime: 124 mins
Who the hell gave Jaws a negative review to bring its rating down to 97%!? Whatever, look, it's Jaws. Not everyone would probably choose to class it as a horror, but I think any movie that has as a child getting eaten in an erupting, swirling mass of blood qualifies.
I probably don't need to persuade anyone to see Jaws, but it's loved for a reason – the nightmare of facing a menace you can't really do anything about, with people around you who won't help properly out of self-preservation, is familiar to too many people. And then when they head out to deal with the shark, it's just iconic moment after iconic moment.
It Follows
RT Critics Rating: 95%
Director: David Robert Mitchell
Runtime: 100 mins
Another modern classic that had a huge effect on horror movies that came after it. It Follows doesn't rely on shocks or many intense, claustrophobic attack scenes. It's about a constant sense of dread. I would say a building sense of dread, but it doesn't even need to build so much. Once you realise the conceit – that you could look up any time and see someone walking towards you who could be the immortal, un-stopping harbinger of your doom, or could just be some guy, or even your friend – every frame of the movie is instantly tense.
Jay is an absolutely regular young woman who's starting to date a new guy, and after they sleep together, he reveals that he's given her a sexually transmitted curse. It will follow her now, and kill her, unless she sleeps with someone else. But even if she does, and that person dies, the thing will return to following her. Shot in these incredible wide angles or panning camera movements that are designed to have you constantly hunting for the thing in the background, it's a great modern horror spin.
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