Staff Reporter | On 29, Oct 2019

If you’re looking for something spooky to stream this Halloween, Amazon Prime Video definitely has you covered. For £5.99 a month, the site’s horror line-up is scarily diverse, covering everything from recent remakes and cult comedy to modern and old classics. If subscription VOD services are meant to be missing all the movies from before the 1990s, Amazon’s team clearly didn’t get the memo.

We round up the best horror movies on Amazon Prime Video, some spooky, some silly – all of them perfect for Halloween.

Hereditary

This haunting study of family grief and inherited fear is a heart-wrenching, heart-racing horror. Unbearably haunting and dripping with emotional dread, this is a powerhouse of genre film-making that will leave you cowering in the corner with the lights on for weeks.

The Devil’s Backbone

This stripped-down ghost story is a haunting, melancholic tale of the divide between monsters and monstrous humans.

Pan’s Labyrinth

Guillermo del Toro’s fantasy fairytale horror is a masterpiece bursting with scares, sentiment and stunning imagination

Night of the Living Dead

George A Romero’s 1967 classc, which sees a group of people barricaded in a farmhouse to survive the reawakening of the dead, remains as chillingly relevant as ever.

Shaun of the Dead

“You’ve got red on you…”

Eden Lake

This 2008 horror about a couple (Kelly Reilly, Michael Fassbender) who find themselves hounded by a group of kids by a lake offers food for thought – and a showcase for director James Watkins, who has gone on to helm The Woman in Black and an episode of Black Mirror.

Final Girl

Abigail Breslin stars in this stylish thriller that deliberately up-ends the standard stalk-and-slash set-up to entertaining effect.

Wolf Creek

This Aussie horror about some tourists who find themselves captured and tortured by a sinister bushman is graphic, brutal, horrifying stuff.

The Innkeepers

There’s something about corridors that freaks people out. Is it the ghost of The Shining lurking around the corner? Ti West does well to avoid it in his haunted hotel flick, The Innkeepers. Joining lacklustre staff members Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) for the last few days of business, West’s workplace hangout feels closer to The Office than a horror movie – and that defiantly low-key shamble is mostly its best feature.

Plan 9 from Outer Space

Bela Lugosi stars in Ed Wood’s (unintentionally) seminal sci-fi horror, which sees aliens from outer space reanimate the Earth’s dead in an attempt to save the human race.

House on Haunted Hill (1958)

The inimitable Vincent Price stars as a suave, eccentric millionaire who invites five guests to spend the night in a sinister haunted house, offering each $10,000 but only if they survive until morning.

Blade

Wesley Snipes kicks undead butt in this excellent vampire flick.

X The Man with the X Ray Eyes

A doctor uses special eye drops to give himself x-ray vision, but the new power has disastrous consequences in this classic 1960s B-movie.

Annabelle

Before The Conjuring, there was this surprisingly creepy doll.

Compliance

Craig Zobel’s horribly gripping thriller takes us right back to the horror of Milgram’s 1960s experiments that showed humans would do anything if they think they’re following orders. A phone call from a police officer to a fast food restaurant is the starting point for a nailbiting incident, with Ann Dowd excellent as the manager caught in the middle of the cop’s instructions. You’ll hate every second – but you won’t stop watching. This is horrible gripping stuff.

Anti Matter

This wonderfully ambitious micro-budget sci-fi follows Ana (Figueroa), a PhD student at Oxford, who accidentally invents a teleporting device. The resulting events dive into a rabbit hole and come out the other side with a gripping study of what makes us human.

Honeymoon

Paul and Bea are a young couple celebrating their marriage by going on holiday to a cabin in the woods. What could possibly go wrong? At first, not very much, as they make love, cook eggs and make lots more love. It’s a slow start that allows director Leigh Janiak to set up her central relationship, showcasing the natural chemistry the couple have. That focus is also what gives Honeymoon its creepy edge.

The Day of the Triffids

Based on the novel by John Wyndham, this 1960s British monster movie is a fantastic example of the genre.

Cockneys vs Zombies

This unlikely blend of two iconic races gives you more than enough Roy Hudd for your Bread and Honey. A sequence that sees the late Richard Briers outrunning a slow-moving zombie on a zimmer frame will have you in stitches.

Phenomena

A young girl, with an amazing ability to communicate with insects, is transferred to an exclusive Swiss boarding school, where her unusual capability might help solve a string of murders in Dario Argento’s 1985 classic.

The Toxic Avenger

A 90-lb nerd is transformed into a hideously deformed superhero after falling into a misplaced barrel of nuclear waste in this cult classic.

Road Kill

Released in the USA as Joyride, this low-budget horror sees Paul Walker and Steve Zahn on fine form as road trippers who anger a trucker over a radio – and end up the victims of one man’s cruel revenge.

Pontypool

Shock jock Grant has been banished to the early morning slot on a small town station. A boring day turns deadly when reports come in of strange violent acts. It turns out a virus is infecting the town but it spreads through language. Does Grant stay on the air or keep quiet? Bruce McDonald’s underseen 2008 film is a hugely entertaining gem.

It (2017)

Remaking It might seem like a bad idea, but this update of the iconic, clown-starring horror is a classy horror picture with likeable characters and a nightmarish sense of adventure.

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