Horror movies possess a distinct vibe. The heart-pounding suspense, bone-chilling horror, and various captivating elements will leave you wide-eyed and sleepless. Throughout the ages, humanity has been spellbound by its enigmatic essence. In the mesmerizing world of horror flicks, you can embark on a thrilling journey into the realm of hostility, all while remaining blissfully unscathed. Discover the crème de la crème of cinematic brilliance awaiting you on the notable platform of Amazon Prime. Feast your eyes on our handpicked selection of the best in the genre.
Table of Contents
The Best Horror Movies on Amazon Prime Video Right Now
Night of the Living Dead
IMDb Rating: 7.8
The narrative centers on seven individuals who are confined to a small farmhouse in western Pennsylvania.
Barbra and Johnny, two siblings, travel to a cemetery in a remote part of Pennsylvania to visit their father’s grave. Technical issues cause their car radio to go off the air. As they are leaving, Johnny is killed and Barbra is attacked by a strange, stumbling, ashen-faced man. She runs away and finds refuge in a farmhouse, only to discover the resident woman dead and half-eaten. She notices the man from the graveyard leading an increasing number of odd ghouls as they approach the house. Ben shows up, boards the farmhouse’s windows and doors to keep the ghouls out, and uses a lever-action rifle he discovers in the closet to chase them away.
Director: George A. Romero
Cast: Judith O’Dea, Duane Jones, Marilyn Eastman, Karl Hardman, Judith Ridley, Keith Wayne
Release Date: October 4, 1968
Running Time: 96 minutes
Train to Busan
IMDb Rating: 7.6
This South Korean drama is a blend of heartfelt family drama and scary popcorn entertainment about a career-minded father trying to safeguard his small daughter on a train full of ravaging zombies. It ends with a number of action scenes that I’ve never seen in a zombie movie before, and whenever you can bring something truly unique to the walking dead genre, you’re doing something great. One of the best zombie films of the last ten years has a few standouts, sympathetic supporting players and excellent makeup effects.
Director: Yeon Sang-ho
Cast: Gong Yoo, Ma Dong-seok, Jung Yu-mi, Kim Su-an, Kim Eui-sung, Choi Woo-shik, Ahn So-hee
Release Date: July 20, 2016
Running Time: 118 minutes
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil
IMDb Rating: 7.5
The 2010 dark comedy horror movie Tucker & Dale vs. Evil was created by Craig and Morgan and directed by Eli Craig. Tyler Labine, Katrina Bowden, Brandon McLaren, Alan Tudyk, Jesse Moss, and Chelan Simmons are among the actors who appear in it. A pair of well-intentioned hillbillies who are mistaken for killers by a bunch of stupid college kids are played by Labine and Tudyk. The movie had a limited run in the United States after its Sundance 2010 premiere. Before the film travels back in time, a reporter and a cameraman are killed in the opening scene.
Director: Eli Craig
Cast: Tyler Labine, Alan Tudyk, Katrina Bowden, Jesse Moss
Release Date: January 22, 2010
Running Time: 89 minutes
We Need to Talk About Kevin
IMDb Rating: 7.5
Its plot is based on two popular narrative devices: the “whydunnit” thriller, in which the motives of the murderer are a central theme, and the “family horror,” in which a sinister force torns apart a traditional family. The horror lies in the fact that these seemed to be the only two options available—rather than the fact that a teenager chose complete denial over the humdrum of normal family life. Tilda Swinton is excellent in the lead role as a mother who struggles with guilt over what her son has done and considers his childhood, wondering what, if anything, might have been done in different way when one gives birth to a “bad seed.” Swinton plays the mother with great intensity and nuance.
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Cast: Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, Ezra Miller
Release Date: October 21, 2011
Running Time: 112 minutes
The Wailing
IMDb Rating: 7.4
Hwang Jung-min, Kwak Do-won and Chun Woo-hee are among the cast members of the 2016 South Korean horror movie The Wailing, which was directed and written by Na Hong-jin. The main character of the movie is a police officer who, in an effort to save his daughter, looks into a string of unexplained illnesses and killings in the far-flung Korean village of Gokseong. The movie was a box office and critical hit. A mystery virus comes out and leads the residents of Gokseong, a tiny town in the South Korean highlands, to go insane and brutally murder their family after a Japanese man gets there.
Director: Na Hong-jin
Cast: Kwak Do-won, Hwang Jung-min, Chun Woo-hee
Release Date: May 12, 2016
Running Time: 156 minutes
1408
IMDb Rating: 6.8
The 1999 anecdote of the same name by Stephen King served as the inspiration for the 2007 psychological horror movie 1408. Samuel L. Jackson and John Cusack are the film’s stars, and Mikael Hfström is the director. On June 22, 2007, the movie was made available in America.
The movie follows author Mike Enslin as he looks at purportedly haunted homes and stays in the hotel room 1408 that the title refers to in New York City. Despite his scepticism toward the paranormal, he finds himself locked in the chamber and soon encounters strange and terrifying events.
The majority of the reviews were positive, and the movie had a successful box office run.
Director: Mikael Håfström
Cast: John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson, Mary McCormack, Tony Shalhoub
Release Date: June 22, 2007
Running Time: 104 minutes
House on Haunted Hill
IMDb Rating: 6.8
Although each William Castle film has its own goofy pleasures, House on Haunted Hill is the actor’s finest work. Vincent Price at his silliest, a large eerie home, a mystery, and a strikingly unterrifying walking skeleton are all present. This time, Castle’s “Emergo” gimmick consisted of a plastic skeleton being pulled by a system of pulleys and being flown over the audience; it wasn’t his most inventive trick, but it was brazen sufficient that only Castle would go so low. Despite the fact that it is from the decade’s tail end, in my opinion, this is the prototypical 1950s horror movie. By today’s standards, it is completely subdued, but it does feature some entertaining, outrageous performances, some clever dialogue, and a lot of cheese.
Director: William Castle
Cast: Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart, Elisha Cook, Carolyn Craig, Alan Marshal, Julie Mitchum, Richard Long, and others
Release Date:
Running Time: 75 minutes
Suspiria
IMDb Rating: 6.7
The 2018 paranormal horror film Suspiria, directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by David Kajganich, is based on the 1977 Italian movie of the same title by Dario Argento. In it, Dakota Johnson plays an American woman who enrols in a prominent dancing school run by a group of witches in Berlin. Tilda Swinton is present in three roles: the coven’s leader, a male psychologist who works at the academy, and the company’s principal choreographer. While some of the major characters at the institution are portrayed by Angela Winkler, Ingrid, Sylvie Testud, Renée Soutendijk, and Christine LeBoutte, Mia Goth, Elena Fokina, and Chlo Grace Moretz play supporting roles as pupils. Cameo appearances are made by the original movie’s star Jessica Harper.
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, Mia Goth, Angela Winkler, Ingrid Caven
Release Date: October 26, 2018
Running Time: 153 minutes
Exorcist III
IMDb Rating: 6.5
Exorcist III: The Heretic is not mentioned in The Exorcist III, which takes place fifteen years after the first movie. Although the events of the original movie took place in 1973, the year it was first released, the year Karras passed away in this film is written as 1975 on his gravestone, placing the original movie’s events in 1975. It follows Lieutenant William F. Kinderman, a returning cast member, as he looks into a string of demonic killings in Georgetown that bear the signs of the Gemini, a convicted serial murderer. Blatty based the Gemini Killer in part on the actual Zodiac Killer, one of the many serial killers who liked the first Exorcist.
Blatty, the author of the 1971 novel The Exorcist and the 1973 film adaptation’s screenplay, conceptualized The Exorcist III with Exorcist director William Friedkin attached to direct.
Director: William Peter Blatty
Cast: George C. Scott, Ed Flanders, Jason Miller, Scott Wilson, Nicol Williamson, Brad Dourif
Release Date: August 17, 1990
Running Time: 110 minutes
Dead & Buried
IMDb Rating: 6.5
Melody Anderson, Jack, and James Farentino star in Gary Sherman’s 1981 American horror thriller Dead & Buried. 6 months after the movie’s debut, Albertson passed away. This was his last live-action film appearance. The movie centres on a tiny village where some tourists are killed, but their bodies start to come to life. The early 1980s saw the U.K. outlaw the movie, which had a script by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett, as a “video nasty,” but it was later cleared of obscenity charges and taken off the Director of Public Prosecutions’ list.
Although the movie did poorly at the box office, critics have praised Stan Winston’s spectacular effects and Albertson’s portrayal.
Director: Gary Sherman
Cast: James Farentino, Melody Anderson, Jack Albertson, Dennis Redfield, Nancy Locke, Robert Englund
Release Date: May 29, 1981
Running Time: 82 minutes
The Wolf of Snow Hollow
IMDb Rating: 6.2
In the 2020 American comedy-horror film The Wolf of Snow Hollow, a little Utah community is allegedly being attacked by a werewolf. Jim Cummings, who also stars in it alongside Riki Lindhome, Chloe East, Jimmy Tatro, and Robert Forster, wrote and directed it. As the final of Forster’s career and finished just before his passing, the movie is dedicated to him.
On October 9, 2020, United Artists Releasing distributed it in a few cinemas and on VOD in the US. While on vacation in Snow Hollow, Utah with his girlfriend Brianne, PJ Palfrey gets into a verbal fight with two local hunters. That evening, Brianne hears a growl and is assaulted at their rented home, while PJ is unharmed.
Director: Jim Cummings
Cast: Jim Cummings, Robert Forster, Riki Lindhome, Chloe East, Jimmy Tatro, Kevin Changaris, Skyler Bible, Demetrius Daniels
Release Date: October 9, 2020
Running Time: 83 minutes
The Neon Demon
IMDb Rating: 6.1
The Neon Demon, a 2016 psychological horror film co-written by Mary Laws, Polly Stenham, and Nicolas Winding Refn, was directed by Refn and starred Elle Fanning. The story centres on an aspiring model in Los Angeles whose attractiveness and youth spark strong jealousy and attraction inside the fashion business. Karl Glusman, Bella Heathcote, Abbey Lee, Desmond Harrington, Jena Malone, Christina Hendricks, and Keanu Reeves all play supporting characters.
The movie, a French-Danish-American co-production, was up for the Palme d’Or at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, becoming Nicolas Winding Refn’s third consecutive win after Drive (2011) and Only God Forgives (2013).
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Cast: Elle Fanning, Keanu Reeves, Christina Hendricks, Jena Malone
Release Date: June 24, 2016
Running Time: 117 minutes
Grave Encounters
IMDb Rating: 6.1
The Vicious Brothers are the writers, directors, and editors of the 2011 Canadian captured footage supernatural horror movie Grave Encounters. Sean Rogerson, Merwin Mondesir, Mackenzie Gray, , Ashleigh Gryzko, and Juan Riedinger play members of a paranormal reality tv crew who lock themselves in a purportedly haunted mental hospital in search of proof of extraterrestrial activity while filming what turns out to be their final episode.
At the Tribeca Film Festival on April 22, 2011, Grave Encounters had its world premiere. The film’s trailer gained almost 30 million views online before its launch. After a brief theatrical run in a few American theatres, the movie was made available on August 25, 2011, on video-on-demand.
Directors: Colin Minihan and Stuart Ortiz, “The Vicious Brothers”
Cast: Sean Rogerson, Ashleigh Gryzko, Mackenzie Gray, Juan Riedinger, Merwin Mondesir, Matthew K. McBride
Release Date: April 22, 2011
Running Time: 95 minutes
Daniel Isn’t Real
IMDb Rating: 6.1
Adam Egypt Mortimer and Brian DeLeeuw collaborated on the screenplay for the 2019 American psychological, scary movie Daniel Isn’t Real, which is based on DeLeeuw’s novel In This Way I Was Saved.
Luke, a quiet and unhappy boy, sees a gun massacre at a nearby coffee shop as a child. He comes across cool-headed and self-assured Daniel among the witnesses at the incident, who encourages him to play and rapidly becomes his friend. Daniel is invisible to adults like Luke’s mother, Claire (Mary Stuart Masterson), yet he feels tangible to Luke. The boys become good friends as well as playmates, and their relationship helps Luke deal with his parent’s separation.
Director: Adam Egypt Mortimer
Cast: Miles Robbins, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Sasha Lane, Mary Stuart Masterson, Hannah Marks, Chukwudi Iwuji, Peter McRobbie
Release Date: December 6, 2019
Running Time: 100 minutes
Night of the Demon
IMDb Rating: 6.1
The 1988 American supernatural horror film Night of the Demons, which was written and produced by Joe Augustyn and starred Amelia Kinkade, Cathy Podewell, Hal Havins, and Alvin Alexis, was directed by Kevin S. Tenney. The story centres on a group of high school students who host a Halloween party at a remote funeral home. They are attempting a séance when they unintentionally let loose a demon trapped in the crematorium, which starts to take control of them one by one.
Night of the Demons, which was filmed in Los Angeles in 1987 and had its Detroit debut in September 1988, brought in $3.1 million at the box office. Although it was met with mixed reviews upon release, the movie would go on to become a cult favourite in the years that followed.
Director: Kevin S. Tenney
Cast: Cathy Podewell, Amelia Kinkade, Linnea Quigley, Hal Havins, William Gallo, Alvin Alexis
Release Date: November 1957 (United Kingdom)
Running Time: 89 minutes
The Taking of Deborah Logan
IMDb Rating: 6
This most current take on the incredibly popular possession genre is a really mixed bag. Its basic premise is sound: a student film crew is following an elderly citizen with Alzheimer’s illness as they are being documented by the film crew. They don’t know that as Deborah’s mind deteriorates, somebody or something else might have been allowed in. The movie earns props for being stylish on a shoestring and notably for Jill Larson’s terrifying, nuanced performance as Deborah, but it gradually runs out of steam in the latter third, becoming more and more illogical. There are some excellent, unsettling visuals, but they are balanced out by characters who behave strangely, even in a horror movie.
Director: Adam Robitel
Cast: Jill Larson, Anne Ramsay, Michelle Ang, Ryan Cutrona
Release Date: October 21, 2014
Running Time: 90 minutes
Candyman
IMDb Rating: 5.9
Candyman is a supernatural slasher movie from 2021 that was written by Nia DaCosta, Jordan Peele, and Win Rosenfeld. Based on Clive Barker’s short tale “The Forbidden,” the movie is a direct sequel to the same-titled 1992 film and the fourth entry in the Candyman film series. Teyonah Parris, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Yahya Abdul, and Colman Domingo feature in the movie, and Tony Todd, Virginia Madsen, and Vanessa Williams return to their original roles as well.
In order to create a prequel picture about Candyman and Helen’s romance, the original filmmaker Bernard Rose started making plans for a second Candyman movie in the early 2000s. The studio, however, rejected it, and the project went into development hell.Director: Nia DaCosta
Director: Nia DaCosta
Cast: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris, Colman Domingo, Tony Todd, Vanessa Estelle Williams
Release Date: August 27, 2021
Running Time: 91 minutes
Vivarium
IMDb Rating: 5.9
In 2019, Lorcan Finnegan released the science fiction movie Vivarium, which he directed and co-wrote with Garret Shanley. A collaboration between Ireland, Denmark, and Belgium on a global scale. It had its world premiere on May 18 at the Cannes Film Festival, and Vertigo Releasing distributed it in Ireland on March 27, 2020. The movie centres on a couple who are stuck in an idyllic neighbourhood and have to take care of a mysterious youngster.
The cuckoo’s life cycle is shown in the opening sequence before Gemma, a primary school teacher, and Tom, her handyman lover, are introduced. They take a car to Martin, an estate agent, and accompany him to Yonder, a subdivision of similar homes.Director: Lorcan Finnegan
Director: Lorcan Finnegan
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Imogen Poots
Release Date: March 27, 2020
Running Time: 97 minutes
Hellraiser
IMDb Rating: 5.9
The Cenobite Pinhead is the main antagonist/eventual hero of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser series, summoned from the depths of his own particular hell realm to take you into the darkness with him. There are a sickening amount of horrible Hellraiser sequels. The location of his torture. For all time. All because you cracked open a designer Rubik’s Cube. Pinhead makes the sardonic threat to “rip your soul apart” while staring you dead in the eye. Additionally, the Cenobites are unbreakable. For me personally, it permanently turned me off to puzzle boxes. Hellraiser, an ugly tale of sick hate and worse love, is a perfect example of Barker’s obsession with the dichotomy of pain and pleasure, much as they are in his writing.
Director: Clive Barker
Cast: Andrew Robinson, Clare Higgins, Ashley Laurence
Release Date: October 7, 2022
Running Time: 93 minutes
We Are Still Here
IMDb Rating: 5.7
The 2015 American horror movie We Are Still Here, written and directed by Ted Geoghegan, stars Andrew and Barbara Crampton as mourning parents who become the target of a vengeful spirit attack. The movie’s international premiere took place at South by Southwest on March 15, 2015. After their son Bobby was killed in a vehicle accident in 1979, Anne (Barbara Crampton) and Paul Sacchetti made the decision to relocate to a new house in rural New England. Since Anne has fallen into a profound depression as a result of the tragedy, Paul believes that it will be beneficial for her.
Director: Ted Geoghegan
Cast: Barbara Crampton, Andrew Sensening, Larry Fessenden, Lisa Marie, Monte Markham
Release Date: June 5, 2015
Running Time: 84 minutes
|
The Best Horror Movies on Amazon Prime Video |
||
| Movie Name | Release Date | IMDb rating |
| Night of the Living Dead | October 4, 1968 | 7.8 |
| Train to Busan | July 20, 2016 | 7.6 |
| Tucker & Dale vs. Evil | January 22, 2010 | 7.5 |
| We Need to Talk About Kevin | October 21, 2011 | 7.5 |
| The Wailing | May 12, 2016 | 7.4 |
| 1408 | June 22, 2007 | 6.8 |
| House on Haunted Hill | February 17, 1959 | 6.8 |
| Suspiria | October 26, 2018 | 6.7 |
| Exorcist III | August 17, 1990 | 6.5 |
| Dead & Buried | May 29, 1981 | 6.5 |
| The Wolf of Snow Hollow | October 9, 2020 | 6.2 |
| The Neon Demon | June 24, 2016 | 6.1 |
| Grave Encounters | April 22, 2011 | 6.1 |
| Daniel Isn’t Real | December 6, 2019 | 6.1 |
| Night of the Demons | November 1957 | 6.1 |
| The Taking of Deborah Logan | October 21, 2014 | 6 |
| Candyman | August 27, 2021 | 5.9 |
| Vivarium | March 27, 2020 | 5.9 |
| Hellraiser | October 7, 2022 | 5.9 |
| We Are Still Here | June 5, 2015 | 5.7 |