The best horror movies on Netflix that are packed with scares

A two-sentence summary of Creep does not make it sound original. It’s a found footage horror film in which a creepy guy advertises for a camera operator online. Events ensue.

However, it’s an incredibly memorable and taut micro-budget horror you won’t forget, largely thanks to the efforts of star and co-writer Mark Duplass. It’s an exercise in uncomfortable closeness with a single creepy character brought to unnerving life by an excellent performance. It fits more memorable moments into 77 minutes than many films manage in two hours or more.

It also beats the law of diminishing returns. Creep 2 is great as well.

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Gareth Evans was fresh from directing to of the best action movies of all time, The Raid and The Raid 2, when he took on Apostle. The movie is quite the departure for the director but still a brilliant, unnerving watch. Based on Dan Steven's character coming back home to find the occult has taken his town and, most importantly, his sister, this is turn of the century fable that's a pretty frightening watch.

Director Mike Flanagan's first Stephen King movie (he also made Doctor Sleep) is a brilliant slow burn of a movie, with the fantastic Carla Gugino taking centre stage. Given most of the movie takes place in one room (it's based on a sex game gone wrong, which sees Gugino handcuffed to a bed), it's a masterful film full of suspense and one of the most gruesome scenes that is not for the squeamish!

This is a brilliant new horror from Netflix, focusing on some refugees who are finally given a place to live after escaping the horrors of South Sudan and being stuck in the UK’s immigration system. Their new house is not as it seems, though. This is a great debut from writer-director Remi Weekes and stars Wunmi Mosaku, Sope Dirisu and Matt Smith.

This Italian movie plays on the concept of horror movie cliches to great effect. It's all based around a couple lost in the woods and, well, it all goes very wrong from there. This is a refreshing take on horror and we reckon it needs to be seen by more people.

One of the new horror movies on the list and one of the most fun. The whole Fear Street series plays with horror conventions in different eras, but it is the first that is the best for us. It's about a group of teenagers that seemingly get caught up in some witch-based antics.

We strongly recommend seeing the first A Quiet Place before watching Part II. But that original is not available on Netflix as we write this. The sequel continues where the first left off, and male lead Krasinski is replaced by Cillian Murphy. However, this film was directed by John Krasinski, just like the first movie. More of the same, but that means tasteful alien invasion thrills and bags of tension.

An American Horror Story staple Sarah Paulson stars in Run, a horror-themed thriller in which an obsessive mother cares for her disabled daughter. That sentence alone should be enough for you to start guessing where this one is headed. However, we still found the climax to the action chair-grippingly intense. Plus, at 90 minutes, Run certainly doesn’t dawdle about.

Billed as the 'scariest Netflix horror' of all time when it was first released, this is certainly a spine chiller. Director Paco Plaza (REC) adds in a whole host of scares to this movie, about a seance done be teenagers that seems to have brought a nasty spirit into the world.

Eli is about a boy who can't go outside because he's allergic to lots of things. When he arrives at a medical facility that's sealed off from the outside, he finally starts to feel normal again. Well, until things take a very odd and sinister turn. This movie is scary, tense and full of twists - perfect for Halloween.

Think Freaky Friday meets a horror movie and you have the idea behind Freaky. Kathryn Newton and Vince Vaughn body-swap. One is a student, one is a serial killer. And as such, we get to witness Vaughn acting like a high-schooler inhabiting the body of a middle-aged dude. Freaky is directed by Christopher Landon, the man behind the brilliant Happy Death Day. The two films feel like close relatives. And while Happy Death Day is perhaps our favourite, you won’t find it on Netflix’s shelves.

Talk to Me is an absolute scare fest and the newest horror on our best horror movies on Netflix list. It's a stylish and slick-looking film that focuses on a group of teens who find a ceramic hand that lets them talk to the the dead. As you can guess, things don't go well. You'll need a cushion for this one

Another Stephen King adaptation (of a short story), this is a brilliant tale of revenge on a man who conspired to kill his wife for financial gain. Thomas Jane and Molly Parker star - both brilliant actors who are fantastic in this film. This may be one of King's lesser known works but it's a good 'un.

It takes some doing to make the nastiest of all the The Evil Dead films in 2023, but Lee Cronin managed it with Evil Dead Rise. The gore, violence and sheer malevolence are truly chilling in this claustrophobic horror. Passages from the Necronomicon are read out loud, awakening evil spirits in a grimy tower block. Prepare your nerves for a shredding.

The Ravenous is not your average zombie movie. It's more considered, quieter, film which means the moments of violence have even more impact when they arrive. It is also more arty and odd than the horror norm, making it flat-out more interesting. A French-Canadian production, The Ravenous is in French and is set in rural Quebec. Time to try something a little different?

One of the newer Netflix horror films on this list, Incantation is a Chinese horror which plays on the premise that a woman is cursed and she must prevent the curse being passed to her child. There's a chill factor throughout the movie but it's the ending that really resonates and makes this one of the best of the recent spate of movies in the now well-worn found footage genre.

The title tells you the root of the horror in this one, a paranoid delusion of a loved one not being who they appear to be. But is it real? The cover seems to suggest this will be your classic trashy low-budget American horror, but it is actually an Irish film. It’s a little slower, a lot creepier, and much better acted than you’d guess. You are Not My Mother is a genuinely unsettling watch.

A film that largely flew under the radar despite an uncharacteristically cracking performance from Megan Fox, Till Death deserves the attention of many more eyeballs. Fox’s Emma finds herself shackled to a corpse in a house, out in the middle of the freezing middle-of-nowhere. It lands at a fraction under 90 minutes, and had our nerves well and truly shredded for a good proportion of its run time. While it leans towards the thriller end of the horror genre, some wince inducing gory moments should help satisfy the genre heads.

Cam is a really interesting take on the horror genre with a sex-positive movie that focuses on the obsession of wanting to be liked. Madeline Brewer is Alica, a cam girl who is trying to break into the top 50 of cam girls, with a show that’s not seedy but fun. She gets there but then something happens and the whole film flips on its side. It’s a great low-budget horror that offers more than meets the eye, thanks to the way it never looks down on the sex workers portrayed.

Under The Shadow isn't about blood and gore shocks but a film that has an utter feeling of fear and dread permeate throughout it. Based during the Iran/Iraq conflict, this is the tale of a mother and daughter hiding from the horrors of war in a house that seems to be haunted. At times beautifully shot, this is a wonderful movie about horror - real life and otherwise.