It’s Halloween, and if you’re looking for a scary movie to watch to celebrate, we have just the treats for you. Paramount+ is home to arguably the best collection of horror movies in the streaming world right now, and we’ve curated a list of the scariest, creepiest and most unnerving ones of the bunch. They range from modern classics to underrated thrillers to films with endings so dark we can’t even begin to tease them.
So grab a blanket, turn off the lights and check out our list of the scariest movies on Paramount+ below.
‘Sleepy Hollow’ (1999)
Certainly the scariest movie Tim Burton ever made, “Sleepy Hollow” is also one of his best-crafted features as he conjures 1799 New England in immaculate, Gothic detail. This nasty piece of work adapts the legendary tale of Sleepy Hollow and the Headless Horseman, with a screenplay by “Se7en” scribe Andrew Kevin Walker, but Burton goes all-in on the R-rated fallout that ensues from a monster who chops people’s heads off. Johnny Depp plays constable Ichabod Crane, who gets wrapped up in the violence and political machinations of the small town as he’s trying to deduce whose behind all the beheadings. It’s the one and only time Burton worked with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubzeki and the results are phenomenal.
‘Vicious’ (2025)
Paramount+’s big new scary movie for Halloween is “Vicious,” the latest from writer/director Bryan Bertino, the filmmaker behind “The Strangers,” “The Monster” and “The Dark and the Wicked.” Bertino’s latest descent into darkness follows Polly (Dakota Fanning), a young woman who allows an elderly lady (Kathryn Hunter) into her home. The unnamed woman places a box in Polly’s home and gives her instructions – place one thing you want, one thing you need and one thing that you hate, inside of the box. Or she’ll die at the end of the night. Polly thinks that the woman is insane and kicks her out of her house but, wouldn’t you know it, spookiness ensues. From this simple, “Twilight Zone”-ish premise, calling to mind “Button, Button” from the show’s 1980’s revival (written by Richard Matheson), which was made into the feature “The Box” from Richard Kelly, comes a much more haunting and intense story. Bertino has proven himself as one of the most original and startling voices in horror cinema, long after his breakthrough film. “Vicious” is a prime example of that. It’s perfect for late night viewing. Just make sure all the doors are locked first.
‘Hostel’ (2005) and ‘Hostel: Part II’ (2007)
Eli Roth’s “Hostel” and “Hostel: Part II,” were unfortunately wrapped up in a wave of horror movies that were dubbed “torture porn” by critic David Edelstein. (Other notable examples were James Wan’s “Saw” film and its sequel and Australian filmmaker Greg McLean’s “Wolf Creek.”) It’s a shame, because looking back on these movies, most had their own personality and should be celebrated, both as scary movies humming with a you-are-there immediacy and for their trenchant critique of the ongoing, morally nebulous war on terror and the tactics that war inspired. And “Hostel” and its sequel are among the best of the bunch – scary, funny, extremely disturbing movies that have more in common with the work of Japanese maestro Takashi Miike, whose slyly subversive “Audition” Roth is clearly a fan of, than, say, some direct-to-video kidnapping thriller.
The first film follows a group of horny young men in European who check into a hostel and wind up as victims in a murder-for-hire scheme; the second movie, at the request of executive producer Quentin Tarantino, follows a similar formula but this time focuses on a group of young women. Not for the faint of heart, but definitely not something that should be dismissed outright. They are a perfect double-feature for your next scary movie night!
‘The Mist’ (2007)
With “It – Welcome to Derry” on HBO and “The Running Man” coming to theaters, everything is coming up Stephen King. So why not revisit one of the very best adaptations of his work? “The Mist,” based on King’s short story that was first published in 1980, was adapted by writer/director Frank Darabont, who had previously adapted King’s “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Green Mile.” But this is a very different type of story. While the earlier King works that Darabont adapted were dark, there were glimmers of hope contained within. This is not the case with “The Mist,” which concerns a mist that creeps into a small town from a secret military instillation.
Within the mist are creatures of unimaginable horror. We follow a group of townsfolk who fight to survive from within a cavernous grocery store. Will they make it out alive? And if they do, what will they face? “The Mist” is clearly a product of its time, both technically (with Darabont working down-and-dirty on a shoestring budget and supported by a television crew that he had worked with on an episode of “The Shield”) and thematically (with Darabont commenting on the endless, opaque war on terror), but it still has an undeniably elemental power. And the ending of the movie, a deviation from King’s story (which just peters out), is just gutting. What a movie.
‘The Ring’ (2002)
Gore Verbinski’s 2002 remake “The Ring” is still one of the scariest, most unsettling movies ever made. It starts with a VHS tape. If you watch it, you will die in seven days. This has been the case with everyone who’s seen it. Naomi Watts plays a journalist investigating the tape who suddenly faces a ticking clock when she catches her small child watching the tape. As she looks into the origins of the video, terrifying things start happening around her. This has some of the most unforgettable jump scares in film history.
‘Scream’ (1996)
While the “Scream” franchise has now run for seven movies, the first installment remains the spookiest of the bunch. Director Wes Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson teamed up for a meta spin on the slasher film, a story set in a sleepy town plagued by a masked killer. But the twist this time around is the teens who are hunted by the killer are all horror movie savvy – they’ve seen “Halloween” and “Friday the 13th.” They know how this movie ends. So the moves they make shake up the genre as a whole.
‘What Lies Beneath’ (2000)
What if your husband killed his first wife? That’s the question at the center of “What Lies Beneath,” Robert Zemeckis’ underrated 2000 thriller that marks a unique kind of role for Harrison Ford – a bad guy. Or is he? Michelle Pfeiffer is the wife of a successful scientist and professor whose first wife died under mysterious circumstances. As she begins to suspect he may have had something to do with her death, their sleepy suburban house seems to be haunted by something… or someone… from Ford’s past.
