And where you can stream them.

The best horror movies of 2026 so far

And where you can stream them.

By Brianna Zigler,

and Randall Colburn

Randall Colburn

Randall Colburn is a writer and editor at **. His work has previously appeared on The A.V. Club, The Guardian, The Ringer, and many other publications.

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October 1, 2026 12:11 p.m. ET

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‘Resident Evil’; ‘Obsession’; ‘Send Help’. Credit:

Sony; Focus; 20th Century

2026 is far from over, but it’s already been another great year for horror movies.

This year introduced audiences to a new crop of young filmmakers whose record-breaking original horror films helped reinvigorate the box office — yet another argument for studios taking risks on unknown talent with novel ideas.

Not that movies based on existing IP are inherently bad. In fact, two of the year’s standout video game adaptations just happen to be horror movies. 2026 has also given us thrilling new films from established genre voices, including a highly anticipated return from Sam Raimi and the latest from recent horror favorite Damian McCarthy.

These and a few others make up our list of the best horror movies of 2026 — so far. While there are still several upcoming releases we’re eager to see — Robert Eggers’ *Werwulf *is particularly high on our list — the movies below represent the finest the genre has had to offer this year.

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

Ralph Fiennes in ‘28 Years Later: The Bone Temple’.

Columbia Pictures

*28 Years Later: The Bone Temple* picks up where Danny Boyle’s *28 Years Later* left off, with Spike (Alfie Williams) taken in by the Fingers — a ruthless gang led by “Sir Lord” Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell), an unstable psychopath who remakes his followers in his image. The Jimmys, as they’re known, wear platinum-blonde wigs and velour tracksuits evocative of disgraced British TV personality and prolific sexual abuser Jimmy Savile.

Director Nia DaCosta contrasts this brutal vision of human cruelty with a surprising glimmer of humanity. Ralph Fiennes delivers another career-best performance as Dr. Ian Kelson, whose attempts to understand and treat an Alpha Infected whom he names Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry) result in a stunningly poignant arc.

Jimmy Crystal and Kelson eventually collide, of course, culminating in a face-melting sequence set in the titular ossuary, where the Satanist and the savior battle over the soul of Spike — and the future of humanity, or what’s left of it. It would be absolutely tragic if Boyle never makes the third film in this trilogy. —*Britt Hayes*

Where to watch *28 Years Later: The Bone Temple*: Netflix

Chiwetel Ejiofor in ‘Backrooms’.

*Backrooms* isn’t just a freaky horror flick; it’s among the first major films to feel purely, unmistakably Gen Z. Director Kane Parsons, just 20 years old during filming, came of age watching YouTube compilations of abandoned malls, video game glitches, and the previous generation’s repackaged nostalgia. He uses the Backrooms — an internet phenomenon born on 4chan in 2019, where little more than empty rooms and sickly fluorescent lights became a source of existential dread — to interrogate how millennial narcissism, the internet age, and, perhaps most potently, generative AI distort humanity in the act of trying to recreate it.

Chiwetel Ejiofor delivers a queasy, compelling performance as a struggling furniture-store owner so desperate to preserve the past on his own terms that he finds a kind of twisted redemption in the halls of the Backrooms. You don’t have to squint too hard to see him as a cautionary tale for an age when people are falling in love with chatbots. —*Randall Colburn*

Where to watch *Backrooms*: HBO Max

Yamato Kochi in ‘Exit 8’.

If you saw *Backrooms* before *Exit 8,* you might understandably accuse the latter of borrowing its premise. But *Exit 8* actually premiered at festivals a year before the A24 film. The video game on which it’s based, *The Exit 8, *was also inspired by the Backrooms, which helps explain the similarities.

The plot follows a protagonist known only as The Lost Man (Kazunari Ninomiya), whose average commute to a job interview is disrupted by two things: 1) a phone call from his ex-girlfriend informing him that she’s pregnant, and 2) his imprisonment in an otherworldly subway passage that loops endlessly. There are specific rules for escaping through the so-called Exit 8 — and they’re easier said than followed.

Taut, mesmerizing, and infused with a palpable sense of existential dread by director Genki Kawamura, *Exit 8* is a stylish slice of atmospheric horror and yet another 2026 film that pulls off the difficult task of adapting a video game to the screen. Like *Resident Evil,* *Exit 8* successfully translates the feel of playing a game into something cinematic and surprisingly psychological, using its repetitive mechanics to explore a man grappling with the possibility of becoming a father. —*Brianna Zigler*

Where to watch* Exit 8*: AMC+

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Adam Scott in ‘Hokum’.

Filmmaker Damian McCarthy’s follow-up to the spooky sleeper hit *Oddity* (2024) stars Adam Scott as Ohm Bauman (what a name!), an author with the typical baggage of his horror-movie predecessors: he’s a (mostly) functional alcoholic with unresolved trauma who travels to a remote Irish inn, where he intends to scatter his parents’ ashes and figure out how to end his best-selling adventure trilogy.

The longer that Ohm stays at the inn, the more destabilized he becomes; when a friendly bartender goes missing, Ohm can’t be certain if he’s lost time to excessive drinking or if fabled supernatural forces have displaced him. As he investigates, he’s confronted by deeply unsettling imagery that draws him further into the bowels of the inn.

Like McCarthy’s previous films, *Hokum* is steeped in supernatural folklore and navigates similar themes of grief and guilt. But he’s honed his mastery of suspense — the building of tension to the cathartic release of the inevitable scare — into one of the sharpest tools in his box. —*B.H.*

Where to watch *Hokum*: Prime Video (to rent)

Stacy Clausen and Joe Bird in ‘Leviticus’.

Following the untimely death of his father, teenage Naim (Joe Bird) and his mother Arlene (Mia Wasikowska, who is not in nearly enough movies these days) move to a rural town where most of the populace subscribes to a particularly evangelical form of Christianity. Naim is befriended by Ryan (Stacy Clausen), and the two engage in a playful, furtive romance, until Naim sees Ryan kissing another boy, Hunter (Jeremy Blewitt).

Ryan and Hunter are subjected to a gay exorcism with the help of a “deliverance healer,” but the process has horrific consequences: The boys are stalked by an invisible entity that violently attacks them in scenes that are almost repulsive in their brutality.

Evocative of *It Follows*, Adrian Chiarella’s feature directorial debut is a fairly overt but effective allegory for conversion therapy, a hideous practice intended to force queer people to conform to heteronormative expectations. Deeply unsettling and persistently eerie, *Leviticus* keenly envisions the outcome of such a cruel practice, which sentences its victims to suffering that only they can see. —*B.H.*

Where to watch *Leviticus*: Prime Video (to rent)

Inde Navarrette and Michael Johnston in ‘Obsession’.

Bear (Michael Johnston) is a seemingly nice guy who’s been nursing a crush on his friend Nikki (Inde Navarrette) for years. He just can’t bring himself to tell her and risk her rejection. On a lark, Bear buys a One Wish Willow — a novelty toy that promises to fulfill one wish for the user — and one night, he carelessly wishes that Nikki would love him more than anything else in the world. Unfortunately, his wish comes true.

It becomes clear pretty quickly that Nikki has been stripped of her agency and is trapped — possessed, even — by a force that compels her to devote her life to Bear in increasingly disturbing ways. While the discourse around *Obsession* may seem exhausting, the ideas being debated are arguably provoked intentionally by filmmaker Curry Barker, and those ideas are what make the movie so effectively terrifying. Bear lacks the self-awareness and emotional maturity to understand that removing a woman’s ability to consent is an act of violence that is far more horrific than any of her resulting actions, which, by comparison, feel almost proportional. —*B.H.*

Where to watch *Obsession*: Peacock

Resident Evil

Austin Abrams in ‘Resident Evil’.

The film industry has been trying to make *Resident Evil* happen for more than 20 years, and all it took was the guy from *The Whitest Kids ‘U’ Know* and the boyfriend from *Euphoria* screaming and grumbling to himself in the snow for 90 minutes to finally create a solid — no, *excellent* — adaptation of the popular video game series.

Director Zach Cregger crafts a lean, meat-and-potatoes horror thrill ride that near-perfectly mimics the feel of playing a *Resident Evil *game while taking bits and pieces from the series to create a wholly original story about one dumb but good-hearted guy having a really, *really *bad night. When hospital courier Bryan (Austin Abrams) is tasked with taking a high-priority package to Raccoon City General, things quickly spiral from bad to worse, and Bryan realizes his “Postmates” trip is actually a fight for his life. With gnarly creatures, heart-stopping scares, and comedy seamlessly integrated into Abrams’ almost entirely solo performance, *Resident Evil *isn’t just the best *Resident Evil *movie; it’s arguably Cregger’s best film to date. —*B.Z.*

Where to watch *Resident Evil*: In theaters

Rachel McAdams in ‘Send Help’.

20th Century Studios

After two big-budget, IP-heavy movies (*Oz the Great and Powerful* and *Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness*), director Sam Raimi finally returned to full-bore horror with *Send Help.* Part dark comedy, part gruesome survival tale, the movie follows two radically different coworkers — arrogant boss Bradley (Dylan O’Brien) and overlooked underling Linda (Rachel McAdams) — after they’re stranded on a deserted island.**** You think you know what you’re getting yourself into with *Send Help*, as it starts out as a revenge fantasy. Linda’s kind of incredible at surviving, leaving an injured Bradley entirely dependent on her. However, as the movie unfolds, it becomes increasingly clear that nothing is as it seems, and no one can predict where the story is going next. Raimi gets in a few good jump scares, but what’s really thrilling here is the shifting relationship between Linda and Bradley. It’s a complex power struggle that, depending on where their loyalties lie, could genuinely be the difference between life and death. McAdams and O’Brien are an excellent duo, with the former especially turning in one of her best performances yet. —*Rachel LaBonte*

Where to watch *Send Help*: Hulu

Tinsman Road

Robbie Banfitch in ‘Tinsman Road’.

Writer-director Robbie Banfitch stars alongside his mother, Leslie Ann Banfitch, in this suburban New Jersey gothic, a deeply sinister first-person horror about a young man searching for answers — or anything, really — about his long-missing sister.

Banfitch, who previously melted minds with 2022’s divisive, sensory-overloading *The Outwaters*, once again demonstrates a willingness to test his audience’s patience. Here, though, he trades that film’s phantasmagoric assault for the slow-burn psychological dread of *The Blair Witch Project* and *Lake Mungo*. But the longer we remain behind Banfitch’s lens, the more it feels as if he’s showing us footage we really shouldn’t be seeing. By the end, watching it feels less like observing a man unravel than realizing you’re trapped with him as it’s happening. —*R.C.*

Where to watch *Tinsman Road*: Prime Video (to rent)

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Nina Kiri in ‘Undertone’.

Laughable podcast chitchat and baffling recording schedule aside, *Undertone* will get under the skin of those easily spooked by being home alone at night. The story follows podcaster Evy (Nina Kiri), a skeptic, who cohosts a paranormal podcast with her long-distance friend Justin (Adam DiMarco), a believer, while serving as the live-in caregiver for her dying mother. When Justin receives a series of increasingly disturbing recordings to use as the basis for a new episode, Evy starts to genuinely believe that listening to them has unleashed a powerful evil force inside her home.

Part of what makes *Undertone* such an effectively creepy watch is that the only two characters seen onscreen are Evy and her catatonic mother — rendering everyone else an offscreen voice — and the film takes place entirely in Evy’s home, so you really feel the tension and paranoia of this young woman being completely consumed by her fear. Though it exploits various genre tropes — haunted house, creepy children’s songs, “old people are scary” — it does so with a successful use of form. Director Ian Tuason puts a large emphasis on using negative space to generate dread while creating an immersive, sensory experience in which the innocuous sounds of a home become possible conduits for demonic forces. —*B.Z.*

Where to watch *Undertone*: HBO Max

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