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The 13 best horror movies on Netflix for Halloween 2021

“The dude was wearing a Halloween skull mask! How is that not fun?”

by Robin Bea
Updated: 
Originally Published: 
13. Hell Fest

Hell Fest takes the idea of the Halloween horror movie literally. Set at a Halloween carnival, it’s a straight-ahead slasher with an original setting.

12. Unfriended

Unfriended’s major conceit — that everything takes place in a video call — is certainly gimmicky, but that doesn’t stop it from being genuinely creepy (and even more relatable now than when it was released in 2014).

11. Hush

From the director of Midnight Mass, Hush centers on a deaf writer who’s being stalked by a masked killer in her own home. It’s a tense thriller elevated by a great lead performance from Kate Siegel.

10. Sweetheart

With just one (human) character for most of its runtime, the shipwreck survival tale Sweetheart rests on an incredible performance by Kiersey Clemons. It’s a fun, effective creature feature with a lot going on under the surface.

9. The Ritual

The Ritual — about a hiking trip gone horribly wrong — slowly builds tension with its creepy sound and sparse shots of the Swedish countryside leading to the reveal of its incredible monster.

8. Cam

Cam follows a cam girl who has her account taken over by an imposter and finds no one willing to lift a finger to help her. It’s both a gripping doppelganger horror film and an empathetic portrait of the precarity of sex workers.

7. We Summon the Darkness

Three young women come face to face with killers during an after party for a metal show. We Summon the Darkness is a fun, twisty slasher with a killer sense of humor.

6. Girl on the Third Floor

What starts as a haunted house movie complete with blood-oozing walls morphs into a more interesting psychological thriller. Its main character being wrestler CM Punk is just icing on the cake.

5. Fear Street

Netflix’s revival of R.L. Stine’s classic Fear Street books tracks the bloody history of two towns from 1666 to 1994. The story of Fear Street is spread across three films, each of which is an absolute blast.

4. There’s Someone Inside Your House

Arrives October 6

When a murderer wearing masks of their victims’ faces sets out to expose high schoolers’ dark secrets before killing them, it falls to the surviving students to put a stop to it.

3. Night Teeth

Arrives October 20

A night on the town in LA turns into a nightmare for a driver whose latest party-going passengers have more of a taste for blood than booze.

2. Hypnotic

Arrives October 27

Netflix is keeping this psychological horror movie mostly under wraps for now. Hypnotic centers on a woman whose hypnotherapy sessions reveal truths more horrifying than she was ready for.

1. No One Gets Out Alive

A recent immigrant to the U.S. takes a room in a boarding house only to find her spooky roommates aren’t worth the cheap rent. No One Gets Out Alive is the kind of creep-fest that’ll make you afraid of your own apartment.