110+ Best (and worst) Horror Movies of 2024 So Far, Ranked

The Top 10 Horror Movies of 2024 (so far)

1. Strange Darling

2. Longlegs

If you like horror that is filled with creeping dread, then Longlegs should be at the top of your list for 2024. Maika Monroe stars in Longlegs as FBI Agent Lee Harker. After Harker’s unusually accurate intuitive abilities are recognized by her superiors, she is put on a decades-old unsolved case involving a string of murder-suicides with an unsettling connection. As Harker gets closer to solving the case, the mysterious person behind the deaths gets closer to her. The horror in Longlegs stems from a sense of overwhelming dread that begins with Maika Monroe’s uncomfortably tense performance, and ends with a finale that feels excruciatingly inevitable. The stark imagery and the unforgettable appearance of Nicolas Cage as the mysterious Longlegs further heightens the dark effect of this bleak horror film.

3. I Saw the TV Glow

I Saw the TV Glow works on many different frequencies, some of which the viewer might never have known they could hear and feel. The film begins in 1996, and it follows the life of Owen from adolescence to adulthood. Owen feels out of touch with himself, but while in high school, he finds a connection with his schoolmate Maddy and their shared obsession with a TV show titled The Pink Opaque. What this connection means to both of them, and how they both react to it over the course of their lives, is what I Saw the TV Glow explores in a beautiful and devastating way. This is the type of film that won’t work for everyone, but for those it touches, it can be a profound experience that will stick with them for a very long time.

4. Infested

Infested delivers pure, skin-crawling adrenaline. It follows Kaleb (Théo Christine) and a small group of his family, friends, and neighbors as they try to survive and escape when their rundown apartment building is overrun with large, vicious, and rapidly-reproducing spiders. The film is claustrophobic even if you’re not prone to being nervous in tight spaces, it’ll get under your skin even if you’re not an arachnophobe, and it even has some good character development to make you care about the characters who are in tight spaces with more spiders than they can count. Also, the movie looks great, with impactful camera movements, fittingly distressed locations, and great uses of light and darkness.

5. Cuckoo

If you like your horror movies nightmarish and odd, Cuckoo might be just what you’re looking for. The story is about a teenager named Gretchen who moves to a resort isolated in the Bavarian Alps with her father, stepmother, and younger stepsister. Gretchen is still reeling from the death of her mother, and she is struggling to find acceptance within what remains of her family. To make matters worse, Gretchen can tell there is something strange going on in secret at the resort, and she has no choice but to get involved when she is attacked one night by… something. The first half of Cuckoo might be better than the second half as the surprisingly complex plot is illuminated in greater detail, but the scares are phenomenal, the strangeness is unnerving, and the heart of the story is straightforward and emotional.

6. Exhuma

Exhuma is a South Korean mixture of many different subgenres of horror. It begins with a supernatural curse that is affecting a wealthy family. A shaman and her partner enlist the help of a mortician and a geomancer to try to get rid of the curse, but when they exhume the remains of one of the family’s ancestors, they may be doing more harm than good. Before Exhuma is over, viewers will witness curses, folk horror, possessions, monsters, and more. It’s quite the journey, and it’s a fantastically good horror movie.

7. The Vourdalak

The Vourdalak is a gothic fairy tale come to life. Set in the mid-18th century, it begins with Marquis Jacques Antoine Saturnin d’Urfé—a nobleman and envoy to the King of France—stranded in the wilderness after an attack by bandits leaves him with no escort and no means of getting home. Jacques is promised aid by a local family, but the family has problems of their own to deal with first. The patriarch of the family, Gorcha, has been gone for days, and he returns home the same day that Jacques arrives. But Gorcha is not the man he used to be, and whatever is afflicting him threatens to tear the family (and Jacques) apart. With a gorgeous aesthetic, a sense of dark humor, and a bold choice in creating a highly stylized interpretation of its supernatural elements, The Vourdalak is a beautifully haunting movie with a timeless appeal.

8. The Substance

The Substance might be the most visually compelling movie of the year. With its unrestrained body horror and highly stylized aesthetic, it is a movie that demands your attention with every frame. The themes—including absurd beauty standards, ageism, self-loathing, etc.—are hammered home repeatedly with body horror that gets suitably more horrific as the story moves along. Ushering us through this wild journey in a darkly humorous and satirical way are Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley who both give bold and riveting performances, even when they’re covered in pounds of prosthetics and makeup effects. If you missed The Substance in theaters, then you missed out on one of the best theatrical experiences of 2024.

9. The Devil’s Bath

The Devil’s Bath instills a sense of profound sadness in its viewers. Set in Austria during the 1700s, the story follows Agnes, a deeply religious woman who, at the beginning of the film, is newly married and full of hope. But Agnes has a difficult time adjusting to the new way of life that is expected—even demanded—of her, and the toll weighs heavier and heavier on her mind, body, and soul as the days pass by. The Devil’s Bath inches along at a methodical pace that grows to a palpable sense of dread before its devastating finale. It is a beautiful and affecting film that delves deep into psychological and societal horror.

10. Alien: Romulus

From director Fede Álvarez, Alien: Romulus provides one of the best theatrical experiences of 2024. With a story that stands alone while at the same time unmistakably drawing from the extensive lore of the Alien franchise. This movie feels like a blending of the action-forward horror of Aliens, while still retaining some of the dread-horror of Alien. It’s right in-between those two movies (tonally and chronologically), and it’s a mix that creates a familiar and intensely fun time. And though the movie could be broken down into distinct set pieces and action sequences, the central story of a young woman (Cailee Spaeny) and her synthetic brother (David Jonsson) trying to find their place in the universe is compelling enough to tie it all together well. Plus, there are never enough outer-space horror movies like this.

2024 Horror Movies Ranked 11-50

11. Stopmotion

Stop-motion animation is already creepy in the most calming of settings. Put it in a horror movie, especially in a horror movie where the stop motion is combined with live action, and you have the makings of a visually enthralling and totally unsettling film. Stopmotion is a psychological horror movie about Ella (Aisling Franciosi), a stop-motion animator who, after working for her filmmaking mother for years, is attempting to create her own short animated film for the first time in her life. Ella struggles with self confidence and her creative side, and when inspiration comes to her in the form of a young girl living in the same apartment building, Ella’s work begins to take over her life and mind.

12. Frogman

13. MaXXXine

The best part about Ti West’s “X” trilogy—consisting of X (2022), Pearl (2022), and MaXXXine (2024)—is that each movie provides something completely different. X is a gory slasher, Pearl is Psycho meets The Wizard of Oz, and MaXXXine is an homage to Brian De Palma’s giallo-inspired thrillers. MaXXXine does a great job of creating a seedy atmosphere based on a certain perception of the darker side of Hollywood in the 1980s. It also takes its Hollywood setting to heart, creating a story that is bigger and arguably more outlandish than the previous films in the series.

14. Terrifier 3

Art the Clown is back for more murder, and this time he’s celebrating Christmas! Terrifier 3 improves upon the previous entry in the series in many ways, making this threequel a great addition to any splatter fan’s holiday-watching traditions. The gore is just as good as the previous Terrifier films, but what really stands out is the story. The ongoing rivalry between Art (David Howard Thornton) and Sienna (Lauren LaVera) is particularly well done here, making the final scenes in Terrifier 3 more impactful than all of their shared screen time in Terrifier 2.

15. Double Blind

Double Blind is a tense thriller that builds up to a psychological horror finale. It is about a double-blind drug trial taking place in a completely isolated underground facility. The volunteers don’t know what the drug does, but they all submit to the trial for various reasons (mostly for the money they’ll receive). The effects of the drug turn deadly when the volunteers realize they will die if they fall asleep. Double Blind doesn’t take too many big risks with its storytelling, it just does everything exceedingly well. The sterile look of the production design supports the themes, the visual metaphors are clear and unobtrusive, the cast is engaging, and the suspense is tight and effective.

16. Immaculate

Immaculate is an insidious horror movie. It starts off perfectly fine, though it is somewhat similar to other religious thriller and horror movies of the past, such as Deliver Us which was released late last year. But at a certain point early in Immaculate, you can tell it’s something special. The visual style is superb, and Sydney Sweeney is fantastic as Cecilia, an American nun who has just taken her vows in an Italian convent where she finds herself inexplicably pregnant. Immaculate draws on the history of nunsploitation and even more general religious-themed horror movies, but that’s not a bad thing. Immaculate is beautiful, unsettling, and has a finale that is going to be hard to beat this year.

17. Lisa Frankenstein

Zelda Williams (the director), Diablo Cody (the writer), and Kathryn Newton (the star) should collaborate more often. Lisa Frankenstein is a cute horror comedy that emulates movies like Beetlejuice (1988) and Edward Scissorhands (1990) in a loving way. Though it doesn’t quite live up to those classics, Lisa Frankenstein still manages to elicit laughs and a few dark surprises in its tale of an outcast in 1989, Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton), who is surprised to find that a young man who died in 1837 has risen from the grave due to fate and a critical misunderstanding of a wish Lisa makes.

18. Blink Twice

With Blink Twice, Zoë Kravitz establishes herself as a director to watch. The film is a psychological thriller that gets surprisingly dark and unexpectedly violent. The story begins with best friends Frida (Naomi Ackie) and Jess (Alia Shawkat) being invited to the private island of the absurdly rich Slater King (Channing Tatum). The hedonistic pleasures of the wealthy give way to a hidden darkness when Frida notices one morning that Jess has gone missing, but nobody remembers she was ever there. This takes Frida down a path that will change her life forever. Blink Twice is very obvious with the messages it’s trying to convey, but it tells its story with such style and substance that it keeps viewers hooked all the way to the end.

19. The First Omen

Most of the time, a prequel struggles to tell a story that makes it truly meaningful when placed next to the movies that came before it (but take place after it). So, since we know basically where any prequel to The Omen (1976) is going to end (with the birth of the Antichrist), the movie needed to be really good for it to have a true impact. Thankfully, The First Omen is really good. The story follows Margaret, a novitiate in a Catholic orphanage in Italy during 1971. Margaret begins to develop bad feelings about her new home, and she is drawn into a conspiracy that could lead to, well, the birth of the Antichrist. The film is surprisingly engaging thanks to a great cast and a wonderful attention to detail. It does stray into the area of sequel baiting from time to time, and some of its references to the other Omen movies teeter on the edge of drawing too much attention to themselves, but the core of The First Omen is very well done.

20. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

For much of its run time, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice feels like its focus is split a little too far. There are lots of characters with lots of subplots that move along separately for a long time. But the cast is amazing, and even when the movie appears to be multiple movies in one, it’s still a blast to watch. And then, by the end, everything comes together delightfully. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice isn’t better than Beetlejuice, but comparing any movie—even its sequel—to one of the best comedies of all time isn’t fair. As a legacy sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice delivers great nostalgia while never losing sight of what made the original such an entertaining movie to begin with. It’s fun, it’s funny, the visual style is impeccable, and the cast is brilliant.

21. Trap

Does Trap get ridiculous? Yes, it does. But that’s part of what makes it so enjoyable. Trap is like a “dad joke” of a movie. Meaning, it’s dumb in many ways, but it goes so far that it’s obviously supposed to be silly a lot of the time, and if your sense of humor is attuned its particular wavelength, then you’re really going to enjoy it. M. Night Shyamalan is a director who many moviegoers tend to either really like or really dislike. He was obviously having fun with Trap, and so was Josh Hartnett who is fantastic as both a caring father and a heartless killer. The fun the star and director are having in this movie is infectious.

22. Abigail

What is there to say? Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett simply know how to make fun horror movies. The first part of Abigail plays out like a crime thriller as we watch the kidnapping of 12-year-old Abigail and get to know the culprits, their personalities, and their growing distrust for the job and each other. Then, in a twist not so dissimilar from the switch in From Dusk till Dawn (1996), a crime movie becomes a vampire movie. Abigail the vampire attacks her kidnappers, and it’s a cat-and-mouse style bloodbath. A good cast, suitable writing, and amusing chases make Abigail a pleasure to watch.

23. Blackout

Blackout is a modernized tribute to classic monster movies, specifically Lon Chaney Jr.’s Wolf Man, but it’s not a remake of any of those Universal films. Instead, Blackout takes the idea of those movies being products of their time while portraying the monster (at least, the monster’s human side) in a sympathetic way. Blackout is about a painter, Charley (Alex Hurt), who knows he is a werewolf and is responsible for the unexplained deaths in the small town of Talbot Falls. Charley has a way to deal with his curse, but before he does he wants to make a lasting positive impact by taking down the racist, manipulative businessman who has bullied his way into a leadership role in the town.

24. Late Night with the Devil

Late Night with the Devil begins as a pseudo-documentary detailing talk show host Jack Delroy’s career, and the rise and decline of his show Night Owls. The movie then transitions into a found-footage style presentation of a recently discovered episode of Night Owls that “shocked the nation” when it aired live on Halloween night in 1977, a night in which Jack plans to showcase guests with connections to the supernatural. Sticklers who want their found footage to feel authentic might be irked by some scenes (and not only in the last twenty minutes), some of the early exposition hints at too much, and the final sequence isn’t going to work for everyone. Regardless, there’s more good than less-good in Late Night with the Devil, making it an enthralling and imaginative crowd-pleaser.

25. A Quiet Place: Day One

A Quiet Place: Day One takes chances by being quite different from the previous two movies in the franchise, but the foundation of what makes the A Quiet Place movies good—a strong focus on character—is still there. Sam is a terminally ill cancer patient living in hospice beyond her life expectancy. While taking a trip into New York City, meteors burn through the sky, bringing with them countless alien creatures who hunt by sound. While most of New York tries to find ways to survive, Sam and her cat companion Frodo go on a different kind of journey, meeting another lost soul along the way.

26. Faceless After Dark

27. Handling the Undead

Based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist (Let the Right One In), Handling the Undead is a somber movie that approaches a zombie uprising in a very different way than you might expect. The film is a drama first and foremost, and it uses a measured pace to tell the stories of three families affected by their loved ones regaining some semblance of life after death. Handling the Undead is a movie all about mood and emotion, and if you can let yourself be carried by its slower pace, then it can be a profound experience about grief and loss.

28. Destroy All Neighbors

29. Somewhere Quiet

Somewhere Quiet is, as its name would suggest, a very quiet style of psychological thriller. Jennifer Kim stars as Meg, a woman who is trying to resume some semblance of her previous life after escaping from being abducted for six months and presumed dead. Meg travels with her husband Scott (Kentucker Audley) to his family’s isolated house in the woods where they are joined unexpectedly by Scott’s cousin Madeline (Marin Ireland). Meg’s struggles to find normalcy are exacerbated by Scott and Madeline’s increasingly odd behavior, but is it real, or is it all in Meg’s head? Somewhere Quiet is agonizingly tense throughout, and its way of handling the psychological aspects of the film in a way that encloses viewers completely in Meg’s perspective is fantastic.

30. Lowlifes

Lowlifes is a nice surprise. It’s a Tubi Original that, judging by the trailer, appears to be a somewhat typical backwoods cannibal movie. That’s partially a true statement, but the first act of Lowlifes sets something up that makes everything that follows even more enjoyable than you might expect. It also does a really good job of building interesting characters, some of whom you’ll pull for to survive, and some you’ll really want to see get taken out. It’s all very well done.

31. The Platform 2

The Platform 2 is a lot like The Platform. So if you enjoyed the first movie, then there’s a very good chance you’ll also enjoy the sequel. Both films are set within The Pit, a prison-like structure made up of hundreds of rooms aligned one above the other. There is a large hole in the center of every room where a floating platform descends every day with just enough food to feed everyone. The problem is, if the people above eat more than their share, then the people below will starve. In The Platform 2, The Pit is ruled by a mysterious person called Dagin Babi whom his followers speak of as if he is a divinely appointed enforcer of the “law.” Brutal at times, and always interesting, The Platform 2 is one of the standout Netflix movies in 2024.

32. Night Shift

33. Wild Eyed and Wicked

The strength of Wild Eyed and Wicked is in its characters. The story is about a woman, Lily, who visits her estranged father, Gregory, when he calls to tell her that he’s finally going to get rid of her mother’s things after her death twenty years ago. When Lily was young, she watched as her mother died, and the memory has haunted her, and adversely affected her life, ever since. Now, Lily tries to come to terms with her grief and the resentment she holds for her father, while also unraveling a mystery involving her mother and an ancient curse. The film contains many very clear metaphors through the use of medieval fantasy imagery which culminates in cathartic action, and the reason it all works is thanks to the movie’s realistic, interesting, and well-rounded characters.

34. Here for Blood

Here for Blood is goofy fun. Tom O’Bannon (Shawn Roberts) is an independent professional wrestler who volunteers to cover for his girlfriend by babysitting a young girl named Grace (Maya Misaljevic) in her place. The job takes Tom to a secluded house where he ends up fighting for his and Grace’s lives when masked intruders break in. The plot veers in some wild directions after that, but it’s more fun if you let the movie take you where it wants to go. Just know that there is a lot of blood, a good amount of silliness, and a fair amount of watching a pro-wrestler beat people up.

35. Arcadian

Fifteen years after an apocalyptic event, Paul lives with his two sons, Joseph and Thomas, in an isolated farmhouse. Everyone has a strict curfew, because every day they have to secure the house from monsters that only come out at night. But one day, Thomas doesn’t make it back home before dark, and Paul is forced to go looking for him. Arcadian is a good family drama/coming-of-age/apocalypse movie that builds to some very tense and exciting scenes towards the end. The monsters, when we finally see them, are particularly interesting, and are probably the best part of the movie.

36. Oddity

Oddity combines a murder mystery plot with revenge, the paranormal, and a haunted house to create a dark and moody film. Darcy is a blind psychic whose sister was killed. She visits the home of her former brother-in-law Ted—who still lives in the house where Darcy’s sister was murdered—and makes herself at home. While Ted goes to work, Darcy has a conversation with his new girlfriend Yana, and it’s not long before Yana understands that her clairvoyant house guest has an ulterior motive for her visit. Oddity has some intensely scary moments in the latter half of the movie after a tense buildup, and overall it is an excellently executed film.

37. In a Violent Nature

38. Smile 2

Smile 2 is an outstanding followup to Smile. It continues just days after the original movie ended, and it is filled with scares that are just as dark, brutal, and fun as the first. Naomi Scott is superb as the new focal point of the story (and the smiling entity). She is a very different character when compared to Rose from Smile, but her story’s trajectory is familiar. At a high level, Smile 2 reuses some of the types of scares and twists that worked so well the first time. That adds a welcome sense of continuity in the storytelling, but it might also leave some viewers wanting something that is even more different from what came before. Regardless, Smile 2 is effective horror filmmaking of the crowd-pleasing variety.

39. Dancing Village: The Curse Begins

The pace of Dancing Village: The Curse Begins might be a bit slow for some viewers, especially in the first half of the movie, but if you stick with it then you’ll be treated to some exceptional Indonesian folk horror. When we meet Mila (Maudy Effrosina), she is on a trip with her cousin, a friend, and their guide to find a remote village on the island of Java. Mila is tasked with returning a mysterious object that was taken away from the village twenty-five years prior, and her arrival begins a series of events that restarts an ancient ritual that involves a curse, a sacrifice, and—as the movie’s title suggests—dancing.

40. Lumberjack the Monster

Lumberjack the Monster has a lot going on. Some places call it a horror movie and even a revenge film, but even though it’s more of a crime thriller, it’s easy to see why people have a difficult time pinning down exactly what it is. Lumberjack the Monster is about a serial killer, Akira (Kazuya Kamenashi), who is targeted by an ax-wielding killer in a mask. Akira tries to find out who the masked assailant is and why he’s after him, while at the same time dealing with a surprising side-effect of the killer’s initial assault. Meanwhile, a dedicated police detective on the case is getting dangerously close to uncovering Akira’s own murderous activities and his ties to the masked maniac. It’s a lot, but it all comes together well in an entertaining mashup of blood, action, mystery, and drama.

41. Monolith

Monolith is a cerebral thriller made for fans of slow burns and great acting. Lily Sullivan (Evil Dead Rise) is an unnamed journalist who starts a podcast after her career is derailed by a scandal concerning one of her articles. Her podcast is about strange mysteries, and her dismissive attitude about the stories changes when she starts following the trail of a story about odd artifacts described as black bricks. The mystery might be a little underwhelming or unsatisfying for viewers looking for simple answers, but the questions Monolith raises, and the acting of Lily Sullivan, carry the film very well.

42. Milk & Serial

Milk & Serial was a fabulous surprise! Released on YouTube by the comedy duo of Curry Barker and Cooper Tomlinson (known as That’s a Bad Idea), this found-footage movie garnered a lot of well-deserved praise when it came out. The story is about two friends who prank each other as a way of getting content for their online channel, but one friend takes the “prank” way too far. As the character nicknamed Milk, Curry Barker gives a chilling performance that highlights this smart and satisfying horror flick.

43. Kill Your Lover

44. Azrael

Azrael might lose viewers who want a clearly-explained story, but people wanting a solid action/survival horror movie will want to check this movie out. The film is practically dialogue free (and the tiny bit of spoken dialogue is in Esperanto), and it follows a woman in what appears to be a post-apocalyptic world as she is hunted by religious zealots. What is happening in the world, who these people are, what they want, and why they can’t speak are all mysteries best left to your own interpretation as the movie unfolds. That’s because Azrael is more about visceral action than it is about a detailed narrative.

45. The Exorcism

The story in The Exorcism is okay. It’s about an actor, Tony (Russell Crowe), who has a troubled past and a history of addiction. Tony takes a role as a priest and exorcist in a movie, a role that was previously filled by an actor who mysteriously died while rehearsing the part. As production gets underway, Tony seems to be reverting to his old, self-destructive habits, but it might actually be something more sinister (and supernatural). The plot has some odd quirks that aren’t always great, but Russell Crowe’s dedicated performance makes Tony interesting to watch, which makes the whole movie better by default.

46. Founders Day

47. The Bridge Curse: Ritual

Like the movie that came before it, The Bridge Curse (2020), The Bridge Curse: Ritual asks its viewers to go along with it on a journey that doesn’t always make perfect sense. If you can get into the spirit of it though, it’s a good time. The story is about a group of students developing an augmented reality game. They test the game in their school which is already haunted, and, well, you get the idea. This Taiwanese ghost movie is surprisingly entertaining, though the finale does act like it makes things up as it goes along.

48. Under Paris

When it begins, Under Paris appears as if it will be one of the countless Jaws-a-like shark movies in existence. And for a while, it kind of is. The story follows Sophia (Bérénice Bejo), a Parisian marine biologist who is shaken when she learns that the shark that killed her entire crew a few years ago has taken up residence in the Seine river. Sophia and a group of eco-activists each have different ideas about how to deal with the shark, but the mayor of Paris doesn’t want to hear any of it because she has a big event triathlon coming up that can’t be canceled because of some silly shark in the river! This setup takes a while to unravel, and it’s all very average. Then, about halfway through the movie, Under Paris takes a sharp turn into ridiculous, violent action, and the whole experience becomes a lot of shark-attack fun. It’s kind of a silly movie in the end, and it’s all the better for its silliness.

49. Stupid Games

50. V/H/S/Beyond

V/H/S/Beyond is the latest of the now-yearly tradition of a new V/H/S movie. At this point, no real attempt is made to create a frame story that connects the segments of this anthology horror film in any meaningful way, but the stories themselves are fun enough. V/H/S/Beyond has two standout segments—one about skydivers chased by an alien, and one about a woman who stows away on an alien spacecraft—which make the whole movie worth watching.

2024 Horror Movies Ranked 51 and Beyond

51. Deer Camp ’86

When a group of friends travel to a remote cabin in the Michigan woods to hunt deer, their personal issues with each other soon become the least of their concerns. After a Native American woman is killed by an unknown assailant, something in the woods wants deadly vengeance, and the hunters are all fair game. Deer Hunter ’86 takes a while to get to the gore, but the humor infused in the characters and their interactions with each other help keep the movie completely entertaining while waiting for the real action to begin.

52. Laced

Laced has a simple and gripping premise: a wife plans to murder her abusive husband, but nothing goes according to plan. The film is set in an isolated cabin during a snowstorm, which keeps the cast small and the tension high as more and more twists and turns pop up throughout the evening. The plot does start to veer off track at times, but all together Laced is a nicely-made thriller.

53. You’ll Never Find Me

A woman stranded in a storm takes shelter in the mobile home of a man. They don’t know each other, they both have secrets, and they’re stuck together until the storm passes. You’ll Never Find Me is a tense and claustrophobic psychological thriller that progresses at a deliberate pace. The finale might not be worth the buildup for some viewers, but it is engrossing the way the film handles the back-and-forth batting of suspicions between the two characters.

54. Dagr

55. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is satisfactory big-budget franchise filmmaking. It’s entertaining and has its charm, but the writing is just okay most of the time, and the cast—although great—is too big to be able to keep a strong focus on the main plot thread. There is a lot going on, and not all of it is explored well enough, or even conceived well enough. But yeah, it’s totally fine. People say funny things from time to time, the current Ghostbusters team up with the previous Ghostbusters, and there’s a big ice monster.

56. Bag of Lies

57. What You Wish For

Though it is much more of a thriller than a horror movie (which it’s tagged as on certain sites), What You Wish For does deliver effective suspense. The movie is about Ryan, a chef whose career is going nowhere, and who is in serious debt to dangerous people. Ryan visits an old friend from culinary school who is living life as an in-demand chef for rich people with specific tastes. When an opportunity presents itself, jealousy and desperation drive Ryan to take his friend’s place, but he has no idea what is going to be required of him. What follows is a night of tension, danger, lies, and testing just how far Ryan will go to get what he wants. The suspense in What You Wish For is good, but some odd quirks in the writing make the logic and tone of the proceedings a bit unstable, which keeps it from being great.

58. Clickbait: Unfollowed

Clickbait: Unfollowed proves that you should never underestimate a Tubi Original. There is no shortage of movies satirizing/examining social media influencers, and a quick glance at Clickbait: Unfollowed might give you the impression that it’s yet another average horror-comedy about that subject. And, well, it is a horror-comedy about influencers, but it does a lot of things extremely well. It sets up some truly despicable characters you’ll want to see get their comeuppance, it establishes likable characters you’ll want to see prevail, and the central premise of a deadly social media competition is a surprisingly engaging format for the story. It’s comical horror done well.

59. Model House

60. The Strangers: Chapter 1

The Strangers: Chapter 1 is essentially a remake of The Strangers (2008). By comparison, the newer movie doesn’t fare well against the original, but on its own The Strangers: Chapter 1 is a pretty good home-invasion film. There are some egregiously foolish character decisions that will prohibit much enjoyment for viewers who get hung up on that kind of thing, but if you can get into the likable main characters’ story, then there are some good horror moments to be had here. Overall it’s a very middle-of-the-road movie that does its job, and it seems to make a promise that what’s to come might be even better.

61. My Bloody Galentine

62. Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey II

We said that Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey II would be better than the first Blood and Honey, and it is. By a lot. Pooh and his friends look better, there’s more killing, and the story is greatly improved. Christopher Robin (played by Scott Chambers) drives the story this time as he deals with the effects of the first film and memories of his past when he first became friends with Pooh. The movie does run out of steam by the end, but seeing Pooh and Tigger run wild through a rave is great.

63. Departing Seniors

Departing Seniors is a high-school slasher comedy with a supernatural twist. After Javier (Ignacio Diaz-Silverio) is bullied and tumbles down a flight of stairs, a knock on his head unlocks a psychic power. Javier can now see into the past and future of any person he touches. This leads him to the discovery of a killer dispatching his classmates, so Javier and best friend Bianca (Ireon Roach) try to stop the murderer before they strike again. Departing Seniors is light and cute, but the action can be awkward, and the mystery ultimately isn’t very mysterious.

64. Slay

65. Invoking Yell

Set in Chile in the 1990s, Invoking Yell is a found-footage movie that follows three women as they document their trip into the wilderness to record paranormal sounds of the dead for their black metal band. Andrea, the leader of the group, also has other dark and sinister plans while out in the woods with Tania, her childhood friend, and Ruth, the probationary/potential member of the band. Invoking Yell has a great vibe, and the character work is really well done. However, the movie is rather slow, with certain aspects of the story being belabored unnecessarily and for little purpose. Also, the payoff isn’t necessarily worth the wait.

66. The Girl in the Pool

In a setup reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948), the plot of The Girl in the Pool centers on a dead body hidden in a box while a party is being held. The body in question is that of Hannah (Gabrielle Haugh), the mistress of Thomas, a man with a wife and two young-adult children. The party is for Thomas. It’s a surprise birthday party taking place in the backyard of his home, just hours after he hid Hannah’s body in a box located on the side of the house. How did Hannah die? Did Thomas do it? Will he be caught? These are the questions that drive the story. As a thriller, The Girl in the Pool is okay, but the movie gets strangely goofy at times, and the resolution might not be very satisfying for most viewers.

67. Amp House Massacre

A house full of nothing but social-media influencers sounds like a horror show all on its own. If you agree with that statement, then the beginning of Amp House Massacre might put you off the rest of the movie. It begins in a sort-of pseudo-documentary style as it explains the backstory of Amp House, an influencer-run content mill that is home to various aggravating internet personalities. Stick with it though, because once the story really begins (which is presented in a more traditional narrative style that makes abundant use of in-world cameras), you’ll be treated to a nicely-made whodunit slasher with a surprisingly good final act.

68. Art of a Hit

To call Art of a Hit a horror movie is an overstatement. It’s a compelling drama, but the horror—what little there is of it—is irrelevant. The film focuses on Ryan (Ryan Donowho), a musician who is hoping for one last chance at relevancy. He used to be in a successful rock band, but their frontman left years ago, and the band drifted apart in the ensuing years. Ryan gets most of the band back together and convinces them to give it one more shot at recording a hit song, but Ryan’s mental state declines which threatens to destroy the entire process. Again, it’s good drama that is well acted, but the horror feels tacked on as we see dreams/delusions from Ryan’s perspective later in the film.

69. The Camp Host

Brooke Johnson stars as the title character in The Camp Host, and she is a woman who takes her job way too seriously. Sadie (Rachel Colwell) and Ed (Dillon Casey) are living the van life and decide to stop at a scenic campground for the night. They meet the camp host who tells them the rules of her forest, and they realize too late that breaking her rules could very well mean death. This isn’t a straightforward slasher movie though. It turns into something else about halfway through which keeps things interesting even if it does stretch believability pretty far.

70. All You Need is Death

71. Prey for the Bride

72. The Seeding

73. No Way Up

74. Trim Season

Trim Season has some interesting ideas, and it has some striking visuals, but the characters, tone, and story are too uneven to produce great results. The story is about a group of young people who are enticed by the idea of earning a load of money by trimming marijuana for a few weeks. They’re taken to an isolated farm deep in the woods, and soon enough they realize they are now trapped with a trio of dangerous people, including a woman with supernatural powers and sinister plans. The movie struggles to find a fitting tone, vacillating between inarticulately comedic to underwhelmingly scary. The characters are also rather flat, with the most interesting arcs moving forward in sudden leaps that feel expected yet disingenuous. The more horror-forward stuff towards the end is pretty good though.

75. The Watchers

In The Watchers, Mina (Dakota Fanning) becomes hopelessly lost in the woods and is forced to take shelter with three strangers in a small structure. Every night mysterious, potentially deadly creatures known as the “Watchers” approach the structure and watch the four survivors through a one-way mirror. There is an interesting mystery to the story when we, as viewers, don’t know exactly what is happening. But that period of not knowing what is happening lasts way too long, and it only leads to something mildly worth the wait. The Watchers also stretches logical sense too far at times, and the ending is wrapped up in a strangely melodramatic way that feels obvious and odd. In all, it’s too little substance and not enough style to make up for it.

76. Hell Hole

The premise of Hell Hole is a body-horror movie a that is a little like The Thing, but with a parasite instead a shapeshifting alien. A fracking crew in in Serbia discovers a goopy mass underground, and the tentacled goop begins infecting and killing people from the inside out. It’s a fun concept, and most of the special effects are well done, but the pace is slow, and there isn’t much action. There is, however, a lot of talking. If you enjoy the Adams family’s previous movies, then you might enjoy this one too, but it is the lesser of their efforts over the past few years.

77. Baghead

Baghead begins with an intriguing premise somewhat reminiscent of Talk To Me (2022) in how its horror could be approached. Iris (Freya Allan) inherits her estranged father’s pub, and after arriving there she finds something strange in the basement. A creature, the eponymous Baghead, lives in the walls of the basement with the ability to not only channel the spirits of the dead, but to completely take the dead’s form. The movie is quite creepy and intriguing for the first two thirds, but the story takes a strange, convoluted turn towards the end that leaves a lot of its most interesting drama and character development behind.

78. #AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead

If the title, #AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead, seems to you like it’s a bit much with a hashtag, an initialism, and a full title, then the actual movie itself is going to feel like too much as well. This slasher is a “hat on a hat” situation where the motives and twists and red herrings become detrimental at a certain point, despite the biggest part of its whodunit mystery being astoundingly easy to figure out if you’re paying attention. There’s fun to be had, but the movie just goes in too many directions to be satisfyingly entertaining, and the copious amount of CGI blood (with, to be fair, some practical effects mixed in) doesn’t help much.

79. The Curse of the Necklace

The Curse of the Necklace isn’t bad, it’s just a little bland. It’s a story about a cursed necklace that leads to supernatural events that plague a mother and her two children while they go through a difficult time as a family. The plotting blends multiple related subgenres of horror—including cursed object, haunted house, possession, and exorcism—as the supernatural shenanigans gets worse inside the family’s home. The acting is good, and it’s great seeing real-life sisters play sisters on-screen, but the way the story is presented is not always as engaging as it could be. It’s like it has so many plot points to get to that is skips past most of the drama and intrigue.

80. AFRAID

81. Blackwater Lane

Blackwater Lane is a psychological thriller that dips into the crime thriller, murder mystery, and even haunted house genres. The mystery at the heart of the action involves a murder in a car on a road, the eponymous Blackwater Lane, during a dark and stormy night. Cass (Mika Kelly) passed by the car on her way home, and now she’s having a myriad of problems. She’s becoming forgetful, she’s seeing and hearing things in her house, and she fears she might be the next victim of the unknown killer. Blackwater Lane attempts to achieve a slightly gothic, “Old Dark House” vibe, but, despite some nice moments, the plot gets too twisty for its own good. To top it off, the resolution has a twist that undermines most of what we’ve seen up to that point, making the whole movie a frustrating experience.

82. Latency

Hana is agoraphobic, a condition that stems from her tragic past. The good news for Hana is that her time spent indoors has led to her getting really good at video games. As a professional gamer, she is sent a new device to test: a headset that synchronizes with the user’s brain activity so that they can control their computer with their mind. Hana is super into it, but it’s not long before she’s having terrifying visions and losing chunks of time. Ultimately, Latency is a rather tepid psychological thriller that never really embraces its video-gaming subject matter in a meaningful way.

83. Refuge

84. Imaginary

85. Primbon

After getting lost in the woods and remaining missing for a week, Rana (Flavio Zaviera) is presumed dead by everyone except her mother. Rana unexpectedly returns home, but most people don’t believe it’s Rana who returned. Instead, they think something sinister from the forest that has taken Rana’s form. The first half of Primbon is rather clichéd with its attempts to scare, but the second half of the movie—when the drama starts to really pick up—is actually pretty good.

86. Lovely, Dark, and Deep

Lennon (Georgina Campbell) is on a mission. She lost someone close to her (like, literally lost them in the woods) when she was young, and she’s dedicated herself to a life of service as a national park ranger as a means to continue searching locations where many people have gone missing over the years. After years of work, she’s finally gotten a position in the backcountry, and she might finally be on the verge of discovery, but her own trauma combined with the mysterious forces in the forest send Lennon into a mind-bending nightmare. Lovely Dark and Deep is a psychological horror movie that means well, but it spends way too much time wandering around lost in its mysteries to produce anything particularly meaningful or engaging. Before we get to any big revelations, many viewers will have lost interest.

87. Ship of the Damned

88. Night Swim

If you think a movie about a haunted swimming pool would be hard to pull off, then Night Swim proves you right. Despite a good cast led by Wyatt Russell and Kerry Condon, Night Swim is just okay. It does have a few good scenes and creepy moments, but they all add up to something very average.

89. ROMI

ROMI is a smart-home thriller with supernatural elements, potential stalker vibes, and family drama. It’s a lot, and it doesn’t always mesh well, but it’s intriguing more often than not. The story is about a young woman, Maddie (Alexa Baraja), who runs afoul of the artificial intelligence installed in the house she is temporarily staying in. Maddie has serious troubles with her mother, the AI won’t listen to her half the time, and the technician who installed the system is getting a bit too friendly. Plus there might be a ghost in the machine.

90. Sunrise

Guy Pearce costars in Sunrise as the film’s outrageously infuriating villain, and he is the best reason to watch the movie. The plot involves a mysterious man named Fallon (Alex Pettyfer) who wanders into town and winds up staying with a single-parent family led by Yan Loi (Crystal Yu). Fallon has dangerous secrets, some of them involving his past enemies, and some of them involving exactly who (or what) he is. There are good ideas in Sunrise, but it is slow to get where it’s going, and it disappointingly falls apart towards the end.

91. History of Evil

In a near future where America is overtaken by extremist ideology, a family of three is on the run as terrorists and fugitives. Accompanied by a member of the resistance, the family stays at an old house in the woods until a rescue team can pick them up. Why do they think the house is safe from the prying eyes of the enemy? Because the house is said to be haunted. History of Evil is kind of like The Shining (1980) in how the house affects the family (specifically the father), but it’s nowhere near as good. It’s like History of Evil can’t decide what to focus on—the horror, the politics, or the family drama—so it waters down all three. It also fails to realize what the most tense part of the movie is, getting rid of it prior to the actual finale.

92. Last Night at Terrace Lanes

Last Night at Terrace Lanes is a horror comedy that feels almost disjointed in its switch from the drama and horror buildup in the beginning, to the weird comedy and nonsensical plot points towards the end. The story is about a young woman, her father, and her friend/crush who try to survive the night when members of a cult invade a bowling alley. There are some fun gore effects, and the movie is fine overall. There’s just too much squandered potential.

93. The Inheritance

The Inheritance needed to spend more time fleshing out its characters. Instead, this story—which is about an old man who gathers his family together to protect him from something that he says will kill him tonight—is all plot and no sauce. Nothing particularly interesting happens, and the paper-thin characters are little more than archetypes slotted into position to move the plot along in a predictable way. There’s little to get invested in here.

94. Salem’s Lot

Salem’s Lot looks pretty good, but its story is weak. As an adaptation of Stephen King’s original novel, it tries to do too much. The movie tries to cram in as much of the novel as it can (with some significant changes), but by trying to adapt so much of the action found in the book, it skips a lot of the context that gives the story its power and emotion. What we are left with is a slick-looking modern production with no heart.

95. Festival of the Living Dead

96. Cold Blows the Wind

Cold Blows the Wind begins as a thriller about a couple who have accidentally hit a jogger with their car, put the jogger’s body in their trunk, and are now spending their night trying to figure out how to cover up the incident. The horror of the movie gradually enters the story in the form of a mysterious and spooky woman who knocks on the couple’s door in the middle of the night. Cold Blows the Wind looks good and has an interesting premise, but the way the story is told comes across as a little too vague and meandering to keep its hooks in you.

97. Cinderella’s Revenge

98. The Hangman

99. Tarot

Tarot is about a group of friends who each find themselves cursed to die after having their horoscopes read told using an old deck of tarot cards. Each friend is targeted by a monster resembling the being pictured on the final tarot card drawn for them. The monsters in Tarot look great and creepy, but unfortunately the monsters are the best part of the movie. The story and plot feel like a cross between Final Destination (2000) and Ouija (2014), with the quality skewing way close to the latter.

100. This Never Happened

The setup of This Never Happened is good. A woman travels to the childhood home of her boyfriend. She discovers he’s really rich, and over the course of a night she also discovers he and his friends have a dark past that has been waiting to get revenge. So, This Never Happened is a ghostly revenge movie, and in the first half it’s not bad. Then, when the killing starts and more supernatural events occur, it’s not so good. Effects are distractingly bad at times, character actions and reactions get ridiculous, and the big reveal at the end is just okay.

101. Punch

Punch is a slasher set in a small seaside town in England featuring a killer wearing a mask inspired by the Mr. Punch character from the puppet show “Punch and Judy.” Frankie (Alina Allison) is back in her hometown for a few days before returning to university, and as she reconnects with a few estranged friends, the Punch-masked killer appears to be murdering his way towards her. Punch is a decent slasher, but the pace slows down at times, and it ends up coming across as a little flat overall.

102. Project Dorothy

Project Dorothy is a sci-fi/crime thriller that follows two criminals who hide from pursuing police in what appears to be an abandoned warehouse, but is really a scientific facility that houses a dangerous artificial intelligence. The idea is good, but the execution struggles to provide much sympathy for the humans, or much tension between the humans and the machines (which mostly consist of AI-controlled killer forklifts).

103. Salem Witch Doll

The horror in Salem Witch Doll all happens within the movie’s final twenty minutes. Up until that point, it’s a lethargically paced drama about a depressed young woman, Sarah, who tries to hold herself together at a family reunion after her mother’s death, and after a horrific experience while away at school. The drama mildly interesting at first, but by the time the witch doll appears, the patience of many viewers will have already run out.

104. Séance Games – Metaxu

Séance Games – Metaxu has some interesting ideas, but its mixture of haunted house, vengeful spirits, streaming influencers, relationship drama, and online “games” is a bit too much for it to handle. The basic plot is about four aspiring social media influencers who take part in a game/challenge to stream from the scariest places they can find. They decide to perform two séances over two nights at an old house in the middle of nowhere. The séance conjures something real, secrets are revealed, and people start dying in what is an unnecessarily convoluted supernatural horror film.

105. Horny Teenagers Must Die!

Billed as an homage to slashers from the 1980s, Horny Teenagers Must Die is a valiant attempt at a slasher comedy that is unfortunately underdeveloped in most ways. It is eye-rolling in a way that might connect with people who love bad movies, but otherwise it’s really awkward a lot of the time.

106. Byte

Byte appears to be one of those movies that started with a clever(ish) title, then the script was written to somehow make sense of that title. Byte is a movie about a mobile app that turns people into werewolves. A guy performs the ritual required by the app, he turns into a werewolf, and his friends try to figure out how to save him. The movie is silly enough to be funny, but it’s also dumb enough to be, well, just dumb.

107. Witches’ Well

Witches’ Well tells a story about an author, Leona Chantraine, who is writing a book about witch trials in Scotland. Through found footage, we watch as Leona—who is a skeptic about the supernatural—endures a potential haunting while a stalker watches her every move. Unfortunately, found footage probably wasn’t the best choice for this story. The hidden cameras spread throughout Leona’s apartment significantly reduce the tension and drama of certain scenes, and the stalker’s camera is only effectively creepy in a few brief moments. There’s also not enough story to fill up the already brief one-hour run time.

108. Alice in Terrorland

109. Snow Valley

110. The Mouse Trap

111. Inverted

Inverted sounds interesting. It’s a retro-styled movie made to look like a 1970s Satanic-cult-inspired exploitation film. In some ways it accomplishes that goal, but not all of those movies are very good. Inverted feels stiff and awkward a lot of the time. It’s also quite repetitive, with its story involving cult members “testing” a small group of potential members/victims in gruesome ways.

112. Insane Like Me?

Jake, a combat veteran, is wrongly accused of killing his girlfriend—who is missing after an attack by vampires—and sent away to a mental asylum. Years later, he returns to his hometown with a mission: to kill vampires and find his girlfriend. It’s a fine pitch for an action-horror movie, but the execution of that premise in Insane Like Me lacks in almost every way.

113. They Turned Us Into Killers

They Turned Us Into Killers is like watching three or four different movies thrown into a blender and dumped onto the screen. The plot is amazingly convoluted which keeps viewers at a safe distance from coming close to anything like tension, excitement, or coherence. The basic idea is about revenge, but trying to explain the full story is pointless. It’s frustrating to watch, and all the detours lead to nowhere in particular.

114. Shadows Side

Shadows Side is bad. It’s Birdemic levels of bad. It follows Sophie as she travels to Brazil with her fiance Cal for a romantic getaway. Cal is originally from Brazil, and the house they’re renting used to belong to his parents. Almost immediately, Sophie starts to have creepy experiences, and soon she is left alone in the house while enduring a wide variety of supernatural happenings. The movie is awkward and awful to the point of humor, if that’s your thing.

Further Reading

• Best Horror Movies of 2023
• Best Horror Movies of 2022
• Best Horror Movies of 2021
• New and Upcoming Horror Movies
• 12 Underrated 2023 Horror Movie Gems That Deserve to be Seen by More People
• 9+ Top Scream Queens of 2023