With Halloween approaching, I have compiled a list of all the horror movies I watched this past year, old and new, good and bad, and everything in between. I began separating them from my other lists because I watch so many horror movies, especially in October. The films are sorted into tiers based on quality and listed alphabetically within each tier. As streaming rights are always changing, check JustWatch.com to see where they are currently available to watch.

Tier 1: Cinematic Masterpieces

Hokum (2026) directed by Damian McCarthy
Another great Irish folk horror movie from Damian McCarthy. This one is about an American author (Adam Scott) visiting a hotel in the countryside of Ireland, where his parents had vacationed once, to scatter their ashes. But one of the rooms is locked up because it is supposedly haunted by a witch. There is also a murder mystery, and the film is bookended with a story within a story (the book he is writing, about a conquistador). McCarthy’s style of horror really gets to me. It is slow burn with a gradual build-up of tension and dread, before getting to the visceral horror. To me that is so much more effective, as it heightens the impact of the horror. Like Paul Tremblay’s novels, there is some ambiguity whether there was actually any supernatural element or not. McCarthy has gotten incrementally better with each movie, from Caveat to Oddity and now Hokum, his best. At this rate, I can’t wait to see what he does next.

The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (2015) directed by Robert Eggers
I saw this once before when it first came out, but it had been a while, and since becoming a larger fan of Eggers, I wanted to revisit his first film. The Witch is a folk horror masterpiece, much scarier than mainstream horror movies with jump-scares and visceral gore. The type of horror in this film is more subtle and cerebral, which I prefer. As with all of Eggers’ films, there is great effort and care put into historical accuracy. The story follows a family of New England Puritans in the 1630s as they struggle to survive alone on their homestead farm, which may be haunted by a witch in the woods. It felt so realistic, like this is what life was actually like for the early American colonists. Such realism and verisimilitude makes the horror elements all the more chilling. Just as his film The Northman assumed the supernatural beliefs of the Vikings to be true, this film assumes the supernatural beliefs of the Puritans to be true. If you asked actual Puritans in the 1630s to make the scariest movie they could imagine (and if you explained to them what a movie was), The VVitch is precisely what they would create.

Tier 2: Great Films

Host (2020) directed by Rob Savage
A unique and creative premise for a found footage horror movie, filmed entirely through a Zoom meeting. A group of friends gets together online during the Covid pandemic to have a virtual séance, but they unwittingly summon a demonic entity, and things go very wrong. At a lean 56 minutes, it was the perfect length for this type of movie, not getting drawn out and overstaying its welcome. As I’ve said before, I’d like to see more movies around the 45-60 minute length, especially for horror.

Keeper (2025) directed by Osgood Perkins
Not your typical “cabin in the woods” horror movie. The cabin is luxurious. And the horror is mind-bending.

Milk & Serial (2024) directed by Curry Barker
I hadn’t heard of this young up-and-coming director until the release of his new movie Obsession (see below). This was his first film, which he self-financed (for $800) and released for free on his YouTube channel. I admire Barker’s indie DIY spirit. Milk & Serial is a found footage horror movie about a group of YouTubers who film prank videos on each other, but one of the pranksters (played by Curry Barker himself) is secretly a deranged serial killer. It is not just “good for a low budget $800 movie”—it is legitimately good. In fact, I am shocked the budget was that low. Aside from the runtime (1 hour and 2 minutes), it could have been released in theaters. If Barker could do this much with so little, imagine what he could do with a real budget.

Obsession (2025) directed by Curry Barker
This had a much higher budget ($1 million), but was still relatively low for 2026. It reminded me of It Follows, in that it is a fresh and original horror movie centered around young people. Obsession has a great premise: A guy is too shy to tell a female co-worker he likes her, so he uses an item from a New Age crystal shop to make a wish: that she love him more than anyone in the world. His wish comes true, but with horrifying consequences, as she becomes maniacally obsessed with him. The ending is especially dark and twisted.

I also watched Barker’s short films on YouTube and his even shorter comedy sketches, which were all great. The short horror films are:
Warnings – A mind-bending horror short about a guy who gets mysterious notes left for him.
Enigma – Due to some kind of natural disaster involving earthquakes, the world is going to end soon, and a young man struggles with what to do for his final days.
The Chair – A guy picks up a free vintage chair on the side of the road that turns out to be haunted.

The future of cinema is alive with Gen-Z YouTuber-turned-directors like Curry Barker and Kane Pixels.

Oculus (2013) directed by Mike Flanagan
I’m a big fan of Mike Flanagan’s work but had never seen this movie of his: about a haunted mirror, taking place across two timelines, following a brother and sister when they were children and adults. It’s legitimately scary without relying on cheap tricks like jump scares (which are startling, not scary) and gore (which is disturbing, not scary). Flanagan’s type of horror is the “eerie”, defined by philosopher Mark Fisher as “when there is something present where there should be nothing, or if there is nothing present when there should be something.” Eerie is the horror of things that should not be—that defy the laws of time and space. Seeing something that upends everything you thought you knew about reality is terrifying, especially if that thing is evil. It can defy physics while you cannot—and use that edge to harm you. There is nothing more frightening than that.

Possession (1981) directed by Andrzej Zulawski
A bizarre and disturbing movie about a couple breaking up, that then devolves into cosmic horror. It’s like a cross between David Lynch and David Cronenberg.

Rabbit Trap (2025) directed by Bryn Chainey
A creepy atmospheric folk horror tale set in the countryside of Wales, where a couple of musicians encounter a faerie (not the friendly kind). This is one of the most accurate portrayals of the fae from traditional folklore. They are not like Tinkerbell, but potentially dangerous trickster figures. Add this to the growing list of the great modern folk horror revival, including A Dark Song, Midsommar, All You Need is Death, Without Name, and all of Damian McCarthy’s films.

The Substance (2024) directed by Coralie Fargeat
This is kind of like a new twist on Oscar Wilde’s classic, The Picture of Dorian Gray. An aging female actress (Demi Moore) gets a sci-fi procedure to swap into a younger body (Margaret Qualley) every 7 days. But when her younger half spends more time conscious than she’s supposed to, it deteriorates the older half, making her even older and uglier, leading to extreme body horror by the end. In addition to being an interesting story, it was expertly directed by Fargeat with great style, music, set design, and cinematography.

Tier 3: Just Good

1408 (2007) directed by Mikael Håfström
Based on a short story by Stephen King, this is about an author who stays at supposedly haunted locations and writes about his experiences. He himself is a skeptic who does not believe in the paranormal and never experienced anything supernatural at any of the haunted places—until he stays in the infamous room 1408 on the 13th floor of a hotel in New York City.¹

Ash (2025) directed by Flying Lotus
A space horror movie featuring fantastic visuals but a muddled story.

The Black Phone (2021) directed by Scott Derrickson
A horror movie based on a Joe Hill short story that I read years ago but had forgotten. It has the vibes of his father’s work (Stephen King). A boy is kidnapped by a serial killer and locked in a basement with a black phone that gives him supernatural messages to help escape. It’s well-made, but it’s not the type of horror I like.

Fallen (1998) directed by Gregory Hoblit
Fallen falls in one of my favorite subgenres—horror noir—and it has a great performance from Denzel Washington, but there were issues that held this back from being great. The whole concept of a demon passing from person to person just by touch, like a game of tag, seemed too gimmicky and silly. The story felt like a rip-off of Se7en, which is superior in every way. I can’t believe Fallen came out AFTER Se7en. Fallen feels very mid-90s, while Se7en feels like it could have been made yesterday.

The Hole in the Ground (2019) directed by Lee Cronin
A folk horror movie set in the wooded countryside of Ireland, about a mother who suspects her young son has been replaced by an evil doppelganger. It’s well-made and creepy, but personally I don’t like horror movies about evil children. With so many legitimately scary things in the world, why take something so pure and innocent as children and make it horrific?

Jennifer’s Body (2009) directed by Karyn Kusama
A teen horror movie about a demonic Megan Fox who uses her sex appeal to attract victims, featuring witty dialogue by Diablo Cody.

Masking Threshold (2021) directed by Johannes Grenzfurthner
A unique horror film about one man’s descent into madness while attempting to fix his hearing problem through self-experimentation. But we don’t ever see the man’s face. Instead, the film is shot from his perspective, with extreme close-ups of things in his claustrophobic workroom, while his voiceover narration goes on deranged philosophical rants akin to Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground.

Ravenous (1999) directed by Antonia Bird
I’d been wanting to see this movie for years, but it was difficult to find streaming. It’s a period-piece horror/western about soldiers from the Mexican–American War encountering the Wendigo, a cannibalistic entity from Native American folklore, featured in Algernon Blackwood’s great short story “The Wendigo.”

Tier 4: Flawed But Entertaining

Enys Men (2022) directed by Mark Jenkin
Folk horror is one of my favorite sub-genres, so I was eager to see this film, but for the first half, it didn’t seem like horror at all. It reminded me of The Lighthouse, as it is about a woman alone on an island, with the extreme isolation leading to insanity. But with only one person, there was no one else to bounce dialogue off of, so this was almost like a silent film. While there were some eerie atmospheric moments, it was ultimately too slow and boring for my taste.

Hell of a Summer (2023) directed by Billy Bryk & Finn Wolfhard
A teenage slasher comedy featuring a whodunnit masked killer in the vein of Scream, but set at a summer camp like Friday the 13th. It’s nothing new, but was entertaining for what it was.

The Houses October Built (2014) directed by Bobby Roe
A found footage movie about a group of friends who take an RV across the country going to extreme haunted house attractions for Halloween—but some of the haunts are real. It was similar to Haunt and Hell House LLC, both of which were better movies.

I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) directed by Jim Gillespie
I remember this movie coming out right after Scream, written by the same screenwriter, but I never saw it until now. It’s nowhere near as good as Scream, lacking the originality, creativity, and satire of that film. But it’s still a decent horror/slasher/mystery with some late 90s nostalgia (such as a super bulky ThinkPad laptop).

Kombucha (2025) directed by Jake Myers
A guy gets a job at a mysterious company where everyone drinks kombucha that makes them hyper-productive—but with horrific side effects. It had an intriguing concept, but sub-par acting and directing.

Strange Harvest (2024) directed by Stuart Ortiz
A faux-documentary featuring talking head interviews and found footage from a serial killer case with occult elements. Low budget with poor acting, but still interesting.

Trapped Ashes (2006) directed by Sean S. Cunningham, Joe Dante, John Gaeta, Monte Hellman, Ken Russell
An anthology horror movie containing four unique films with a broader story tying them together. They were mostly gross-out body horror, which isn’t my favorite subgenre, but the most interesting short film was “Stanley’s Girlfriend”, featuring a character loosely based on a young Kubrick.

V/H/S/Beyond (2024) directed by various
Most editions in this horror anthology were tier 4 (flawed but entertaining), except for one which was borderline-great: “Live and Let Dive”, about a skydiving UFO encounter. “Fur Babies” wins for being the most disturbing.

Tier 5: Disappointing (Don’t Bother)

Kraken (2026) directed by Pål Øie
This is a Norwegian horror film in the vein of Jaws, but involving a kraken that lurks in the deep seas below the picturesque fjords of Norway. This was only available with dubbed English dialogue, but the voice actors sounded terrible. Plus the story was too slow and boring. It wasn’t until an hour in that they finally revealed the kraken. They took the Jaws adage of not showing the monster too far. They needed to introduce the horror earlier—or at least improve the writing and acting.

Shelby Oaks (2024) directed by Chris Stuckmann
This had an interesting premise—a YouTuber paranormal investigator disappears while filming a ghosthunt video, and her sister goes searching for her—but the execution failed on every level: the writing, acting, music, editing, and pacing were all terrible. There was way too much over-reliance on loud screeching violins to try to scare you. And they didn’t do enough with the original “Paranormal Paranoids” YouTubers. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but there should have been more found footage (of their YouTube videos). Instead it becomes a typical cliché supernatural horror movie. Despite the success of Talk to Me, Backrooms, and Obsession, not all YouTuber-turned-movie-directors are good.

White Noise (2005) directed by Geoffrey Sax
I love the “haunted technology” horror subgenre, as seen in films such as The Ring, Pulse, One Missed Call, and Shutter. This film had an intriguing concept of ghosts communicating to people via electronic voice phenomena (EVP) through the static of radios and televisions. But the great concept was wasted, as the plot was dumb, and the way the EVP worked made no sense. Japan seems to be much better at making “haunted technology” movies.

Previous Horror Movie Lists:

1. As a side note: While watching 1408, I was struck by how different the lighting in this and other movies from that era look compared to most movies today—especially Netflix content. I was struggling to put my finger on what it was, until realizing it was likely shooting on film vs. digital cameras. I know Christopher Nolan is a big supporter of film, but I never paid much attention to the debate over digital before. Now I am realizing it does make a big difference. Film looks so much better than digital. ↩︎