Lex Briscuso
Contributing writer · TV & Movies
 · Horror
Currently watching: Green Room

Streaming on Prime Video

Red Rooms, which follows a grisly serial killer's superfan of sorts through his trial of the century and her subsequent quest to alter its course, is going to have less blood than you'd expect based on the subject matter. But this stylistic and harrowing film cleverly lets the audience's imagination do the heavy lifting. You're not going to guess where the quietly terrifying story is going to go, but by the end, you're going to be changed — and questioning everything about both the real and digital worlds around you.

Scare Scale: 👻👻👻 out of 5 for strategically used horrifying gore, techno-dread, and a nightmare fuel scenario at its core

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Streaming on HBO Max

A true classic, but a classic for a reason. This film centers on a trio of film students shooting a documentary about an evil witch of local legend — and their descent into darkness has yet to lose one bit of its effectiveness. The Blair Witch Project is a vat of sheer dread, one that boils you slowly, much like the adage of the unsuspecting frog, and leaves your metaphorical corpse for the wolves. If you've seen it before, focusing on the little details will reignite the scares that may have become familiar. If it's your first time (and lucky you), let yourself zero in on the film's biggest strength: its realism and how that naturally paves the way for some of the best scares in horror history.

Scare Scale: 👻👻👻👻 out of 5 for the most terrifying realism ever put to film

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Streaming on Netflix

I really loved the first Smile film, but Smile 2 ups the ante in a big and bold way, making it one of the best modern horror sequels. This movie, which reveals that the supernatural Smile curse made it all the way to an international pop superstar within just a few months, is full of really smart twists and turns, and its quick pacing, mimicking lead character Sky Riley's loss of control, helps to craft some of the better jump scares of the modern era. But what really makes this film a great Halloween weekend watch is the utterly grotesque imagery, sharp and biting and truly malevolent. Oh, and star Naomi Scott's performance — it's as desperate, petrified, insane, and brilliant as you've heard.

Scare Scale: 👻👻👻👻 out of 5 for an Oscar-worthy final girl, insane creature and effects design, and disorientation for days

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Streaming free on Pluto TV

Do bugs freak you out? The way they twitch and scurry? If so, you're going to want to make time for The Babadook. The titular monster is one of the scariest — and, these days, underrated — in modern horror films, and it's because of his uncanny physicality. Plus, this film does an excellent job of playing with dark space and shadows, giving the story's monster something of a terrifying portal of manifestation to petrify the movie's lead characters: a troubled mother and her young son, who struggle to connect with each other and their grief.

Scare Scale: 👻👻👻👻 out of 5 for generational creature design and an A+ use of space and character

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Streaming on Shudder

If an absolutely mental horror mindf—k is the way to chill you to the bone, definitely look no further than the found footage freakout The Outwaters. The indie gem follows a group of friends who hit the Mojave Desert to film a music video, but naturally, things do not go as planned. It's best to go into this one blind, and to be OK with staying a bit blind throughout, but if you let your senses work together, the disturbing and traumatic narrative will unfold before you like a twisted, terrifying flower. There's something out there, and you will witness it.

Scare Scale: 👻👻👻👻👻 out of 5 for the best and most horrifying cosmic horror experience of your life

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Streaming on Shudder

This film is a bit divisive, but there's a reason why Skinamarink was the talk of the town when it played the festival circuit a few years back. It brilliantly plays on the universal childhood fear of the dark and what lurks there, centering on two siblings under 7 to hammer the long takes of sinister nothingness home. But there is, in fact, something waiting in the shadows, something far worse than any child — or you — could ever imagine. Skinamarink made me feel like a child again, and the first time I watched it, involuntary tears of terror fell for the first time in my life. In this house, time is crushed and hope dies.

Scare Scale: 👻👻👻👻👻 out of 5 for wall-to-wall contemplative, inescapable terror and an ending that will never leave you

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Streaming on AMC+

I always say the scariest films are the ones that could really happen, and the 2013 screenlife masterpiece The Den proves just that. When a woman writing her thesis about a Chatroulette-esque site witnesses a brutal murder on the platform, her world turns upside down — and her journey to the depths of hell will leave you scarred for life. There is a level of cruel brutality seeping through every inch of this brilliant movie, and because of that constant, its proximity to reality makes this one of the scariest movies of all time for me. If it keeps you up all night this Halloween, it isn't my fault.

Scare Scale: 👻👻👻👻👻 out of 5 for torturous malevolence, vicious brutality, and the most depraved cat-and-mouse game ever played

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