With only a few more days to go until Halloween, Spooky Season is officially in full swing. Fortunately, Netflix has more than enough horror offerings for subscribers who want to fill their coming nights with popcorn and some cinematic thrills and chills. In fact, the streamer’s horror library includes a number of films that do not just aim to make you jump and cover your eyes, but also get under your skin and in your head.
With that in mind, here are the seven best psychological horror movies on Netflix right now.
“Crimson Peak” (2015)
2015’s “Crimson Peak” is one of the more underrated films that director Guillermo del Toro has ever made. Set in Victorian-era England, the film follows an aspiring author (Mia Wasikowska) who moves into a remote Gothic mansion with her new, charismatic husband (Tom Hiddleston) and his indecipherable sister (Jessica Chastain) only to find herself haunted by ghostly visions warning her of her own doom.
A visually spectacular, atmospheric Gothic romance seeped in paranoia and uncertainty, “Crimson Peak” traps you in the same questioning, frightened headspace as its protagonist.
“Nope” (2022)
An invigorating, beautifully realized reinvention of the UFO genre, 2022’s “Nope” is a neo-Western horror film punctuated by some of the most haunting and chilling big-screen images of the 2020s. Set in the deserts of California, the film follows a pair of horse-wrangler siblings (Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer) as they try to capture and sell photographic evidence of an unidentified flying object lurking behind the clouds above their home.
“Nope” sees writer-director Jordan Peele reach new heights as a technician, screenwriter and horror auteur. In it, he trades the visceral, in-your-face thrills of “Get Out” and “Us” for a brand of horror where the worst is often suggested and heard rather than outright shown. The result is the most elusive, rewatchable and unnerving film of his career to date.
“Psycho” (1960)
1960’s “Psycho” is the film that changed the horror genre forever. Director Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic, boundary-pushing black-and-white slasher thriller is best remembered for its endlessly influential, unforgettable shower scene. However, it is not discussed often enough why that scene works as well as it does within the context of the film. Besides its brilliance as a midpoint rug-pull, the scene works as the pay-off to the unrelenting, paranoia-inducing tension that Hitchcock spends the film’s first 40 minutes patiently building.
“Psycho” is a masterpiece of subjective filmmaking, one that immerses you so completely in the skewed perspectives of its protagonists that you end up feeling just as disoriented and frightened as them. It is a horror movie packed full of enduring, infectious psychological power.
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“Split” (2017)
2017’s “Split” is the film that truly kickstarted writer-director M. Night Shyamalan’s creative comeback. An entertaining and claustrophobic horror movie, this kidnapping thriller follows a trio of teenage girls as they are taken captive and imprisoned by a dangerous man (James McAvoy) suffering from dissociative identity disorder.
Anchored by a show-stopping, fearless lead turn from McAvoy and a complementary supporting performance from Anya Taylor-Joy that helps ground “Split” in a real, intense emotional space, “Split” doubles as a monster movie and an escape thriller. Put that another way: It is a film that makes you believe inescapable danger may truly be lurking around every corner.
“Gerald’s Game” (2017)
Speaking of contained, claustrophobic horror movies, director Mike Flanagan’s “Gerald’s Game” is an uncomfortable survival thriller that grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go. Overflowing with the kind of surreal, uncanny imagery that will seem very familiar to fans of Flanagan’s “Haunting” series, “Gerald’s Game” follows a woman (Carla Gugino) who is left handcuffed to a bed in a remote cabin after her husband (Bruce Greenwood) dies of a heart attack in the middle of an intimate moment.
Based on a 1992 novel by Stephen King, “Gerald’s Game” lets its heroine’s levels of desperation grow over the course of its 103 minutes until they have reached an almost unbearable point. The film’s third act stumbles a bit, but never enough to truly lessen the overall visceral, gripping quality of “Gerald’s Game.”
“Immaculate” (2024)
2024’s “Immaculate” is an underrated, atmospheric horror film from director Michael Mohan. Set within the brick and stone walls of a seemingly picturesque, old Italian convent, the film follows a young, idealistic American nun (Sydney Sweeney) whose transfer to Italy takes an unexpected turn when she becomes inexplicably pregnant. Things only get stranger from there as the Italian convent’s sinister secrets slowly rise to the surface.
An effective, cheeky riff on “Rosemary’s Baby” that features an impressively unrestrained star performance from Sweeney, “Immaculate” does not hold back. It is an assaultive, eerie piece of work — one that is able to pull off its climactic moments of gonzo, blood-splattered violence solely because of how well it makes you feel the rage and desperation beneath them.
“It’s What’s Inside” (2024)
“It’s What’s Inside” is the most playful film on this list. It is also the most ingenious. Written and directed by Greg Jardin, this underrated Netflix horror thriller centers on a group of old college friends whose reunion eight years after their last gathering goes off the rails when one of them brings a machine that allows them to randomly swap bodies with each other.
Using clever visual tricks to communicate its shifting perspectives, “It’s What’s Inside” follows its characters as their body-swapping game spirals increasingly and violently out of control. A Swiss-watch mystery crossed with a sci-fi horror comedy, “It’s What’s Inside” pulls you into the same disorienting, chaotic swirl as its characters, which only makes the film’s game-changing final twists all the more satisfying and effective.
