Looking for a good scare, but not sure where to start? The good news is Amazon Prime boasts quite a few quality horror films, even if the suggested title algorithm doesn’t always bring the cream of the crop to the forefront. Looking for something classic? Go for Blood and Lace or Night of the Living Dead? Seen those already and looking for something new? No problem, Amazon’s video service regularly updates with new favorites like Hereditary, Suspiria, and A Quiet Place. Whether you’re looking for zombies, witches, horror-comedy, and pretty much anything else across the board, there’s a lot to chose from.
Nobody likes to get lost in the infinite streaming scroll so we’re making it easy to separate the best from the rest with our regularly updated list of the best horror movies streaming on Amazon Prime right now. Get your popcorn ready, bust out the slanket, and settle in for some spookytimes. We’ll be updating and expanding this list regularly, so be sure to come back for the latest recommendations and newly added titles.
Still looking for something spooky, but didn’t find what you want? Be sure to check out our updated list of the Best Horror Movies on Netflix Right Now. For more streaming recommendations, head over to the Best Movies on Amazon Prime Right Now, Best TV Shows on Amazon Prime Right Now. Best Movies on Netflix Right Now, Best TV Shows on Netflix Right Now, and Best Sci-Fi Movies on Netflix Right Now.
The Wailing
Writer/Director: Na Hong-jin
Cast: Kwak Do-won, Hwang Jung-min, Chun Woo-hee
Watching The Waling is a bit like catching sight of something humanity was never meant to see. It’s peeking behind a rickety curtain that was left intentionally askew and immediately wishing you never saw through the cracks because there’s definitely something sinister as hell back there. The South Korean crime thriller-meets-demonic nightmare centers on Kwak Do-Wan‘s everyman detective Jong-Goo, who is drawn into the nasty realm of demons and spirits when his job leads him to a string of horrifying murders. Each crime is committed by a dazed perpetrator fallen ill with a severe rash, and when he wakes up to find his daughter in the same condition, his life rapidly spins out of control as he desperately tries to uncover the source of the scourge. Director Hong-jin Na keeps the pace pounding and the surprises coming (including one of the best on-screen uses of lightning of all time) and he’s seemingly incapable of backing down from the grim or the grisly. I won’t lie, The Wailing is also pretty confusing on a first watch, especially to a Western viewer, but like a mirror of the film itself, investigating its meaning only seems to draw out further horrors. — Haleigh Foutch
The Monster Squad
Director: Fred Dekker
Writers: Fred Dekker and Shane Black
Cast: Tom Noonan, Andre Gower, Duncan Regehr, Ashley Bank, Ryan Lambert
Regularly written off as “The Goonies for horror fans”, The Monster Squad deserves so much more credit. It isn’t just one of the best coming of age films for the genre crowd, it’s one of the best coming of age adventure films, period. Helmed by Night of the Creeps director Fred Dekker from a script he co-wrote with Shane Black, Monster Squad follows a gang of horror-obsessed friends who find themselves thrust into spooky action when the iconic monsters — Frankenstein, Wolfman, Swamp Thing, The Mummy and a particularly nefarious Dracula — lay siege to their hometown. Made with an overt love for the legendary monsters, including some incredible reimagining of the iconic creatures by the team at the Stan Winston School, The Monster Squad is pure adolescent adventure from top to tail, with huge heart and a surprisingly sharp bite for a “kids movie”. — Haleigh Foutch
Rosemary’s Baby
Director/Writer: Roman Polanski
Cast: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon
Sometimes I feel a bit bad about not knowing any of my neighbors. But then I just push play on Rosemary’s Baby and suddenly, I’ve got absolutely no problem keeping to myself at my apartment complex! The 1968 horror classic stars Mia Farrow as Rosemary Woodhouse. The film opens with Rosemary moving into a new apartment with her husband, Guy (John Cassavetes) – something that should be a wonderful milestone for the young couple – but soon after settling in, Rosemary struggles through a challenging and deeply alarming pregnancy.
There is so much questionable behavior on display in this one that it’s bound to leave your stomach in knots and your head spinning. The presence of supernatural evil in Rosemary’s Baby is mighty unsettling, but it’s the wicked human behavior that’s downright horrifying, and is still something I can’t quite shake. Toxic ambition and extreme manipulation pervert some of the most comforting pillars in society – friendly neighbors, a happy marriage, religion, control over one’s body and then some, leaving poor Rosemary utterly helpless. The movie struck a major nerve when I first saw it years ago, and it only becomes more and more disturbing with repeat viewings, even 50 years after its initial release. – Perri Nemiroff
The Wicker Man
Director: Robin Hardy
Writer: Anthony Shaffer
Cast: Christopher Lee, Edward Woodward, Britt Eklund, Diane Cilento
The Nicolas Cage remake may have proven to be the internet’s enduring favorite thanks to some extremely meme-able scenes (not the bees, etc, etc,) but the 1975 original is a bonafide classic. The ultimate in Euro-cult horror thrills, The Wicker Man stars Edward Woodward as the Puritan Sergeant Howie, who is assigned to a remote village on a Scottish island where a young girl was reported missing. But the townsfolk claim they never knew her, and things only get weirder from there as Howie’s investigations lead him into a world of sun-soaked pagan rituals. There’s a bit of lunacy to The Wicker Man, an ever-present strangeness that tugs at some unknown anxiety, turning cheerful song and dance into a vaguely chilling display. And with the great Christopher Lee playing the town leader Lord Summerisle, there’s a present menace in every cordial, curious moment. It all culminates in one of the all-time great movie endings, a sick, giddy nightmare I still haven’t been able to shake decades after seeing the film for the first time. – Haleigh Foutch
The Cabin in the Woods
Director: Drew Goddard
Writers: Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Kristen Connolly, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins, and Bradley Whitford
The Cabin in the Woods is one of the most inventive and entertaining horror films ever made. The 2011 feature was basically Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon’s way of calling out the horror genre for being lazy, as they crafted a stereotypical story of a group of college kids who go to a remote cabin in the woods and are terrorized by supernatural forces. But there is much more than meets the eye here, as there also exists an underground bunker from which these terrors appear to be controlled. What do we consider entertainment and why? Why do horror tropes persist despite being tired and lazy? The Cabin in the Woods answers these questions full-on while also being incredibly entertaining, funny, and yes, genuinely scary. – Adam Chitwood
Crawl
Director: Alexandre Aja
Writers: Michael Rassmussen and Shawn Rassmussen
Cast: Kaya Scoldelario, Barry Pepper
If you are looking for a creature feature that 1) grabs you by the throat and never lets go, 2) lowkey features some of the best horror performances in recent memory, 3) whips ass, you’re gonna want to check out Crawl. Directed by High Tension and The Hills Have Eyes filmmaker Alexandre Aja, Crawl is a no-nonsense monster movie that traps a woman (Kaya Scodelario) and her estranged father (Barry Pepper) in the crawlspace of their Florida home with a bunch of mean-ass, man-eating alligators and wastes no time stagging one nail-biting sequence after the next. Running a lean 87 minutes, Crawl is refreshingly straightforward, fun as hell, and features some of the best-composed monster movie action in years. — Haleigh Foutch
The Vast of Night
Director: Andrew Patterson
Writers: James Montague and Craig W. Sanger
Cast: Sierra McCormick and Jake Horowitz
The indie sci-fi film The Vast of Night is hands down one of the best films of 2020, and a wonderful surprise. Set in 1950s New Mexico, the story basically follows a switchboard operator (Sierra McCormick) and a radio DJ (Jake Horowitz) investigating a strange sound coming through the radio during a big high school basketball game. That premise could go wrong any number of ways, but at every turn Vast of Night pleasantly surprises. It’s Spielbergian in that it clearly draws influence from films like E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but also has a voice and style all its own. The wildly compelling screenplay is full of delightfully crackerjack dialogue that evokes screwball comedies of the 40s and 50s, while Andrew Patterson’s direction favors long takes and unique shots that lay the intrigue on thick as the story plays out entirely in real-time. Add in a layer of Twilight Zone-esque terror, and The Vast of Night is a film you won’t soon forget, announcing its writers, director, and cast as new talents to watch. – Adam Chitwood
Vivarium
Director: Lorcan Finegan
Writer: Garret Shanley
Cast: Imogen Poots, Jesse Eisenberg, Jonathan Aris
If you like Twilight Zone inspired contained tales of horror and existential dread, boy does Amazon have the right horror movie streaming for you this month. Lorcan Finegan‘s Vivarium is dark as hell and a walloping bummer, but it’s a very good bad time. Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg star as a couple on the hunt for their first home and wind up trapped in a surreal suburban neighborhood from which there’s no escaping. No matter how many streets they drive through, how many fences they hop, they just can’t get out. Then the nightmare baby shows up. On the surface, Vivarium is an effective portrait of the horrors of getting trapped in a white-picket-fence life you never wanted, but the scarier, much more effective undercurrent comes from the way the film embraces the cruel indifference of nature’s life cycles and the helplessness of being stuck in them. — Haleigh Foutch
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
Director: Scott Glosserman
Writers: Scott Glosserman, David J. Stieve
Cast: Nathan Baesel, Angela Goethals, Robert Englund, Scott Wilson, Zelda Rubenstein
Still a criminally underseen comedy/meta-horror, Behind the Mask is a pseudo-mockumentary that posits a world in which iconic horror villains (I’m talking Freddy, Jason, et al.), were very real serial killers. At the center of all of it is Leslie Vernon, a gushing obsessive whose dream is to create a name for himself in the horror lexicon. Behind the Mask easily reveals its love for the horror genre, but there’s a sharp undercurrent of criticism that make this micro-budget horror incisive despite its minimal scope. Often funny and always impressive in its commitment to oddball world-building, it’s a film made for horror fans by horror fans, and if that’s not a ringing endorsement, I’m not sure what is. — Aubrey Page
The Lighthouse
Writer/Director: Robert Eggers
Cast: Robert Pattinson, Willem Dafoe
The Witch filmmaker Robert Eggers earned a whole heap of critical acclaim, instantly held the attention of cinephiles, and helped cement the A24 horror brand with his debut movie. So how could he top it with his second? With an absolutely bonkers, brutal and bizarrely hilarious mythological tale of two men driven to madness on a tiny little island with only each other and their farts to keep them company. This one’s a little more horror-adjacent than an outright scarefest, but there are certainly enough moments of bleak, brutal and existentially terrifying throughlines to earn a spot here.
A two-hander with sublime performances from Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe as its engine, The Lighthouse affirms Eggers as a singular voice and force of innovative formalist filmmaking that builds new nightmares from the technical tools of classical cinema. What a treat. Genuinely unique, surreal, and ballsy as hell from all involved, The Lighthouse is the pirate-talking, bean-snacking, gods and monsters isolationist nightmare of a movie nerd’s dreams. And once you’ve been thoroughly confounded, be sure to read Vinnie Mancuso’s excellent analysis of the wild ending. — Haleigh Foutch
Midsommar
Writer/Director: Ari Aster
Cast: Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, William Jackson Harper, Vilhelm Blomgren, Will Poulter
There are few up-and-coming filmmakers out there who have delivered the technical mastery and emotional savagery that Ari Aster one-two punched with his first two films. First with Hereditary (see below) and now with Midsommar, his sun-drenched folk horror ode to classics like The Wickerman that sends the audience to gorgeous a summer solstice hellscape of grief, anxiety and codependence. Florence Pugh gives a knockout performance as a young woman dealing with an insurmountable tragedy when she journeys abroad with her checked-out boyfriend (Jack Reynor) and his friends, and winds up smack in the middle of a terrifying pagan ritual. Gorgeously shot, scored, staged, etc., etc., Midsommar isn’t just a deviously elegant spin on a classic horror subgenre, it also packs a wicked sense of humor and pitch-black comedy. — Haleigh Foutch
Resolution
Available free with ads via IMDbTV
Directors: Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead
Writer: Justin Benson
Cast: Peter Cilella, Vinny Curran, Emily Montague, Zahn McClarnon
The feature debut from Spring and The Endless filmmaking duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, Resolution is a slowburn, surprisingly expansive existential thriller that builds a whole universe from the confines of a remote cabin. Petter Cilella and Vinny Curran co-star as two old friends who head for a getaway at said cabin — but what one doesn’t know is that the other plans to keep them there by whatever means necessary until he breaks his friend of his drug habit. That character drama provides the solid foundation from which Benson’s script builds a Lovecraftian terror when an unkown, unseen force starts sending them messages and toying with them, further trapping them in their dingy little pit of despair. It’s a slow burn that sticks the landing with an unforgettable conclusion, and it lowkey packs in enough mythology that Benson and Moorhead have built a whole cinematic world out of it. In fact, once you finish Resolution, you can head over to Netflix to watch the semi-sequel The Endless. — Haleigh Foutch
Overlord
Director: Julius Avery
Writers: Billy Ray and Mark L. Smith
Cast: Jovan Adepo, Wyatt Russell, Mathilde Ollivier, Pilou Asbæk, John Magaro, Ian De Caestecker, Jacob Anderson
If you dug the high-intensity immersive war drama of 1917, you’re gonna want to check out Overlord if for no other reason than the tremendous aerial opening sequence, which is an absolutely breathtaking, pulse-pounding intro. But you should definitely stick around after that too, because Julius Avery‘s Bad Robot sci-fi thriller drops US soldiers in a Nazi-occupied French village and goes full Twilight Zone when they discover the undead handiwork of one the SS’s mad scientists. It’s an exceptionally blended genre cocktail, delivering legit war drama thrills amidst a B-movie background of monsters, mayhem, and sci-fi insanity. In a more just world, we’d be eagerly awaiting the sequel to this underseen gem. — Haleigh Foutch
Climax
Writer/Director: Gaspar Noe
Cast: Sofia Boutella, Romain Guillermic, Souheila Yacoub, Kiddy Smile, Giselle Palmer, Thea Carla Schott
Gaspar Noe’s dance horror Climax is a drug-fueled trip straight to hell, packed with kinetic energy, unhinged performances, and dazzling technical showmanship. Climax follows a modern dance troupe in 1996, who hole up at a community center to rehearse and party through a winter night that transforms from a light-hearted dance-off to a hypnotic fight for survival after someone spikes the sangria with LSD. Noe starts off with a jubilant series of solo introductions for his dance troupe, before kicking things into high gear with a staggering group dance scene — impressive not only because of the physical feats on screen, but the way Noe captures them with his agile camera work and attention to detail. Then the night starts to boil as hallucinogens, paranoia, and lust overtake the evening, bringing everyone’s inner demons out to play.
Climax is indulgent, as are most of Noe’s best works, but it’s captivating and propulsive, daring you to look away from the growing chaos as the rules of polite society devolve. Sofia Boutella taps into her pro-dance past to deliver a harrowing, peak-physical performance, and despite the color-saturated kaleidoscope of bleak reveals, Climax is easily one of Noe’s most accessible films and one of the best horror movies of the year so far. — Haleigh Foutch
Anna and the Apocalypse
Director: John McPhail
Writers: Alan McDonald and Ryan McHenry
Cast: Ella Hunt, Malcolm Cumming, Christopher Leveaux, Sarah Swire, Ben Wiggins, Marli Siu, Mark Benton, Paul Kaye
Few films have to satisfy as many genres as Anna and the Apocalypse, but this Scottish gem ticks all the boxes handily while singing and dancing through the heartfelt chaos. Part Christmas movie, part high school musical, and part zom-com, Anna and the Apocalypse is surprisingly great at being all three, bouncing between holiday spirit, teenage hormones, and laugh-out-loud horror-comedy (or sometimes, heartbreaking zombie drama) with such tonal precision director John McPhail makes it look deceptively easy. Sure, this is probably the only musical where you’ll see a zombie in a snowman suit get decapitated by a see-saw or watch a gang of singing teenagers dispatch the undead with watermelons and a PlayStation controller, but it’s also just a damn good musical to boot with earworm songs, great ensemble numbers, and — arguably the toughest to pull off of all — great (and hilarious) new Christmas songs you’ll immediately add to your yearly playlist. – Haleigh Foutch
The Reef
Writer/Director: Andrew Traucki
Cast: Damian Walshe-Howling, Adrienne Pickering, Zoe Naylor, Gyton Grantley, Kiernan Darcy-Smith
The Reef is an impressive exercise in tension that does a lot with a little. The film follows four friends who set out to take in the sights of the Great Barrier Reef and find themselves stranded at sea when their boat capsizes. With the few supplies they salvage, they make the hard choice to swim out through shark-infested waters rather than wait around for the slim chance of rescue on their sinking ship. But once they’re in the water, a blood-thirsty great white catches their scent and hunts them down one-by-one.
Writer/director Andrew Traucki takes just enough time to lay some dramatic groundwork before he unleashes sickening tension with the crash and never lets up, staging a slow burn until the shark’s reveal, which is liable to take your breath away. The Reef was filmed with real sharks, and the first attack is a stunning, intensely anxious experience that will have you curling up your toes in fear. (No small thanks to the actors, who sell the terror with every guttural scream and ashen grimace.) There’s one egregiously foolish character and the ending is a bit abrupt and cruel, but overall, The Reef is a tense, technically accomplished survival thriller with one seriously scary shark. — Haleigh Foutch
Suspiria
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Writer: David Kajganich
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, Mia Goth, Chloë Grace Moretz
Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino brings all his sensuality and artistry to 2018’s Suspiria. More of a sibling film to Dario Argento‘s iconic horror classic than an outright remake, Suspiria depicts its powerful magical darkness through the context of generational strife and fascist powerplay, embedding the supernatural in the psychological to extraordinary results. Suspiria is a phantasmagoria of violence, magic, and movement that feels pulled from the old ways of some unknown ritual. Art, dance, horror, and the human spirit come out to play in Guadagnino’s coven, conjuring the uncanny and a feeling of true witchcraft that’s as stirring and profound as it is occasionally terrifying. Give yourself to the dance, indeed, because Guadagnino’s film gives you no other choice. — Haleigh Foutch
Night of the Living Dead
Director: George A. Romero
Writers: George A. Romero and John A. Russo
The zombies in George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead are called “ghouls” but nonetheless, this is the film that created the movie zombie as we know them: blank, thoughtless creatures who lumber around with vacant stares and barely retain any resembling sense of their humanity. For this reason, the thrill of the movie zombie has generally been in seeing how our heroes with brains dispatch them with great efficiency and cruelty. They’re no longer human, after all.
However, re-watch Romero’s film and try not to escape with having more sympathy for the “ghouls” than most of the humans. The living humans mostly only retain humanity’s weakest learned attributes: prejudice, xenophobia, and selfishness. The most selfless non-ghoul we follow (Duane Jones) is famously shot—after valiantly fighting against the ghouls—simply because his skin color triggers a suspicious reaction to the man on the other end of the rifle. But Romero plants many other distrust of authority motifs throughout Night of the Living Dead. In 1968, recent public opinion on the war of Vietnam and in the police tactics during the Civil Rights movement had shifted to no longer give blanket trust of best intentions to law enforcement, generals, and soldiers. They’re human after all, and many humans harbor ill intent to others. Just watch the burial of the once human ghouls who are dragged out by meat hooks and burned in a pile and try not to think of any xenophobic war or a horrific systemic view of the “other”. —Brian Formo
Unsane
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Writers: James Greer and Jonathan Bernstein
Cast: Claire Foy, Jay Pharoah, Joshua Leonard, Amy Irving, Juno Temple, Colin Woodell
Unsane is an up-close panic attack assault that uses the intimacy of an iPhone to tap into centuries of female oppression and transform it into the kind of psychological thriller that gets way too deep under your skin. Led by an unpredictable, exciting performance from The Crown breakout Claire Foy, Unsane follows a recently relocated survivor who starts to see her stalker everywhere she looks, and accidentally winds up committed to a mental institution against her will.
Steven Soderbergh and psychological horror are a natural fit, especially with the added element of experimentation that comes with shooting a whole damn film on a phone. The director mines the human history of female institutionalization and modern statistics of assault to underscore a very relatable and real terror of the way women’s’ bodies are controlled and exploited, but he makes it universal by also tapping into the primal fears of lost autonomy and doubting your own mind. Throw in a dose of commentary about the American mental health system and some truly bleak moments of violence and you’ve got the makings of an all-timer psychological horror. Unsane had a so-so reaction when it dropped in theaters in early 2018, but I have a feeling time is going to be very generous to this one. — Haleigh Foutch
Ginger Snaps
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Director: John Fawcett
Writer: Karen Walton
Cast: Katharine Isabelle, Emily Perkins, Kris Lemche, Mimi Rogers, Jesse Moss
John Fawcett‘s spin on the werewolf mythos should be considered among the ranks of the modern monster classics, and easily one of the best werewolf movies, but outside horror circles it’s too often forgotten. A coming-of-age tale via lycanthropy, Ginger Snaps tells an intimate story about two death-obsessed, co-dependent sisters who are slowly torn apart when the older girl starts to change after a werewolf attack. Ginger Snaps was one of the early adopters of the 21st-century trend to address female puberty by way of monstrous transformation (see also: Teeth, Wildling, Revenge, among many others), and it does so with great effect, but it’s also a downright well-made horror film. The effects are on point, the characters are relatable and sympathetic (even those like the high school mean girl, the local drug peddler, and the horny teenage boy are treated with a dose of empathy), and the actors all committed in their pulpy roles. Ginger Snaps puts a clever spin on a lot of themes — sexuality, sisterhood, loneliness, outsider pride and the desire to belong — and in doing so, it puts a fresh spin on one of horror’s most long-standing genres. —Haleigh Foutch
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