Top horror movies on Netflix UK (2020)
Staff Reporter | On 28, Oct 2020
We round up the scariest, the silliest and all-round best horror movies available to stream on Netflix UK.
Hereditary
This haunting study of family grief and inherited fear is a heart-wrenching, heart-racing horror.
A Quiet Place
John Krasinski’s terrifyingly taut survival thriller is so good you’ll be shouting about it for weeks.
Crimson Peak
Everyone will find something to enjoy in this Gothic horror’s richly painted gorgeousness.
Sinister
Haunted house, check. Freaky children, check. Sinister is a classic American horror movie – and all the better for it.
Insidious
Insidious will make you howl with laughter as much as fear. Either way, it’s a hoot.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
Gary Oldman is enjoying himself enormously in Francis Ford Coppola’s take on Bram Stoker’s timeless horror tale.
The Conjuring
This familiar, old-fashioned horror still scares enough to keep your lights on late at night.
The Visit
M. Night Shyamalan’s simple but effective return to form is a hoot.
Black Death
Sean Bean is superb in this horror drama that more than lives up to the darkness of its title. He plays an envoy for a bishop in plague-stricken England in 1348, trying to track down a necromancer believed to be causing the disease. Accompanied by Eddie Redmayne as a naive monk, this mud-smeared medieval tale never irritates in its ambiguity. Quite the opposite.
Bait
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the supermarket, Bait happens. That sounds like a damning criticism but honestly, it’s hard to hate on a film made by someone who goes to the shops and thinks: “You know what this supermarket needs? A shark.”
Session 9
Christine
John Carpenter’s one-of-a-kind look at American teenage life: the repression, the rock n’ roll… and, of course, the supernatural auto-mobile.
Watch on Netflix UK
The Cured
This strong debut feature, starring Ellen Page, offers an interesting take on the zombie genre.
Gerald’s Game
A woman (Carla Gugino) accidentally kills her husband during a kinky game that leaves her handcuffed to the bed. Stephen King’s unfilmable novel is filmed with panache, confidence and gripping intensity by Oculus and The Haunting of Hill House director Mike Flanagan.
Creep
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” says Josef, after leaping out at Aaron in the middle of the woods. It’s the kind of prank that friends often play, an act that comfortably crosses the boundary between silly and sinister. But Aaron and Josef are not friends. In fact, they don’t even know each other. That’s the central conceit behind Creep, a no-budget horror movie that delivers more scares than films with 10 times more money. Essentially a two-hander, it follows Aaron (director Patrick Brice), a videographer who responds to a Craigslist ad to film a guy for a single day. Subtle and smart, Creep repeatedly crosses the boundary between silly and sinister. It means to scare you. And it’s not sorry.
Creep 2
The return of Peachfuzz makes up for a lack of scares with fascinating drama, as Mark Duplass and Patrick Brice cement him as one of the most interesting horror villains in recent memory.
Veronica
REC director Paco Plaza conjures up fresh terror in familiar tropes with this fast, slick ouija horror.
Under the Shadow
One of 2016’s best horror movies, this superb debut for Iranian-born director Babak Anvari about a mother and daughter fighting to cope with the fallout of the Iran-Iraq war is an instant modern classic.
The Cabin in the Woods
Drew Goddard’s witty horror flick is a superbly self-aware comedy that is better the less you know about it.
The Babysitter
When Cole stays up past his bedtime, he discovers his babysitter is part of a Satanic cult that will stop at nothing to keep him quiet. This light, fun horror-comedy is McG’s best film in over a decade.
Hush
Hot on the heels of Oculus, Mike Flanagan’s home invasion thriller sees a deaf writer in the woods try to protect herself from a masked killer. The fight for survival is gripping, Kate Siegel’s performance as a deaf and mute woman overcoming physical limitations is stirring, and the inventive sound design is hugely effective.
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
This animated outing from Aardman takes Wallace and Gromit from the small screen to the big without spilling a single bit of plasticine. Now running their own anti-pest business (anti-pesto), the duo find themselves facing a strange new beast, who is devouring the village’s carrots. With delightfully hammy turns from Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter, not to mention an endless array of genre nods, word play and slapstick, this is that rare thing: a perfect family film.
Extinction
Everything is not what it seems in Netflix’s surprising, thought-provoking sci-fi actioner, starring Michael Peña and Lizzy Caplan.
Before I Wake
Mike Flanagan’s wonderfully involving and melancholic horror is a cousin to JA Bayona’s heartbreaking A Monster Calls or Hereditary, which has similar themes of children and parents trying to understand each other’s feelings when dealing with an overwhelming sense of loss.
Annihilation
Natalie Portman leads Alex Garland’s sci-fi horror, which sees a group of scientists and soldiers enter Area X, – a sinister and mysterious phenomenon that is expanding across the American coastline and contains a world of mutated landscape and creatures. The result is a study of humanity’s fear of mortality and change, served up with dizzying, shimmering visuals.
1922
“I believe there’s another man inside every man – a stranger.” Netflix’s latest Stephen King adaptation is a first-rate scary story – claustrophobic, tense and creepy as all hell.
Apostle
The Raid director Gareth Evans combines the ultra-violence of his action thrillers with folk horror in this surprising, slow-burn horror movie about a priest determined to rescue his sister from a mysterious religious cult on a secluded island.
Hold the Dark
Jeremy Saulnier doesn’t hit the heights of Green Room with this psychological drama about a wolf expert venturing into the Alaskan wilderness to find a local boy and the animals that may have killed him, but there’s meat to chew over in this atmospheric, moody tale, with excellent turns from Jeffrey Wright, Alexander Skarsgard and Riley Keough.
Cargo
Martin Freeman is magnificent in this moving, low-key zombie drama about a dad trying to keep his daughter safe as they search for a safe haven before it’s too late.
Calibre
This nerve-shredding thriller, about two friends – Vaughn (Jack Lowden) and Marcus (Martin McCann) – on a weekend hunting trip in the Scottish Highlands, is a terrific calling card for writer-director Matt Palmer.
The Invitation
Karyn Kusama nails the slippery descent into something dark and disturbing in this psychological thriller that sees a man accept an invitation to a dinner party hosted by his ex-wife.
The Perfection
Despite some dubious twists and turns, this trashy genre flick is enjoyably unpredictable.
The Endless
Moorhead and Benson tap into the creepiness of the everyday in this cult horror slice of stunningly ambitious cinema.
CAM
After a lookalike steals her account, a cam girl with a growing fan base sets out to identify the culprit and reclaim her identity in this thought-provoking, forward-thinking horror.
Vampires vs the Bronx
Three gutsy kids from a rapidly gentrifying Bronx neighbourhood stumble upon a sinister plot to suck all the life from their beloved community in this entertaining vampire comedy.
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