13 HIDDEN HORROR GEMS YOU HAVEN'T STREAMED YET (BUT SHOULD)

There’s something comforting about a good scary movie—the kind that makes your heart race but keeps you safely on the couch, snacks within reach, pretending you’re not checking that the door is locked a million times. But let’s be honest: most Halloween watchlists have become as predictable as a jump scare in a Blumhouse trailer.

If you’ve already cycled through the usual suspects—The Conjuring, Scream, Hocus Pocus and whatever haunted doll is trending this year—it’s time to dig a little deeper. Horror, after all, is thriving right now. There’s never been a better time to be a fan and explore the corners of the genre where the weird, the funny, and the beautifully disturbing live.

From haunted academia to feminist bloodbaths, these 13 underrated films aren’t just good— they’re bold, surprising, and gloriously camp. Think of this as your offbeat syllabus for spooky season: less “final girl screaming in the woods,” more “final girl with a thesis, an attitude, and a mission.”

Modern Takes on Classic Tropes.

The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster (2023)

Streaming on: Hulu, Disney+, AMC+

Bomani J. Story’s debut is equal parts rage and resurrection. Vicaria, a teenage genius who believes death is a disease she can cure, channels her grief into a science experiment to bring her brother back after police violence steals him. The result? Blood, heartbreak, and a thesis on what happens when Black girls stop praying and start playing God. It’s gothic myth translated into modern Black girlhood—and it absolutely goes for the jugular.

His House (2020)

Streaming on: Netflix

Refugee horror meets domestic tragedy in this stunning debut from Remi Weekes. A South Sudanese couple flees war only to find something worse waiting in their new English home— bureaucracy. And also demons. It’s gut-wrenching and terrifying in equal measure, the rare ghost story that earns its tears.

The Man in My Basement (2025)

Streaming on: Hulu, Disney+

Walter Mosley’s eerie psychothriller becomes a claustrophobic two-hander: Corey Hawkins as a man about to lose his Sag Harbor family home, and Willem Dafoe as the unsettling stranger who offers a lot of cash to be locked in the basement—for reasons that get weirder by the day. It’s a moral arm-wrestle about guilt, power, history, and the kind of dread that comes with a bad decision you can’t undo.

Master (2022)

Streaming on: Amazon Prime

Regina Hall deserves every award ever for this one. As the newly appointed “Master” at a New England college, she’s fighting both ghosts and microaggressions—sometimes in the same hallway. Mariama Diallo’s debut is haunted academia at its finest: moody, elegant, and just self-aware enough to make you laugh mid-scream.

Talk to Me (2023)

Streaming on: HBO Max

An embalmed hand, a group of Australian teens, and one very bad TikTok challenge. Talk to Me is what happens when the séance goes viral. It’s slick, unhinged, and weirdly emotional—like Euphoria if Rue was possessed. Come for the scares, stay for the crushing grief metaphors.

Political and Deeply Unsettling

Bad Hair (2020)

Streaming on: Hulu, Disney+

Imagine if your weave had opinions—and a taste for blood. Justin Simien’s campy, synth-soaked horror satire about beauty, ambition, and cultural assimilation is gloriously over the top. It’s part corporate nightmare, part hair-care PSA, and all fun.

Candyman (2021)

Streaming on: Peacock

Nia DaCosta gives the Candyman myth a new coat of high-gloss terror—and a dissertation on gentrification while she’s at it. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays an artist who accidentally turns trauma into performance art (literally). It’s beautiful, brutal, and proves that sometimes art really does bite back.

Eye for an Eye (2025)

Streaming on: Apple TV

Whitney Peak stars in this lush Southern Gothic fever dream where grief curdles into something supernatural. After her parents’ death, Anna moves to Florida to live with her grandmother in a house thick with lace curtains, old secrets, and humid dread and starts seeing things no one else can. The line between inheritance and haunting blurs until you’re not sure what’s real, only that something in the dark wants revenge.

I Saw the TV Glow (2024)

Streaming on: HBO Max

Jane Schoenbrun’s haunting love letter to weird kids and late-night TV feels like remembering a dream you can’t explain. It’s queer, nostalgic, and unsettling in that way only things you half-remember can be. More mood than monster, it’s perfect for when you want your horror introspective—and a little bisexual.

Chaotic Fun (for the Trick-or-Treat Crowd)

The Blackening (2023)

Streaming on: Netflix

A Juneteenth getaway gone wrong, a killer with trivia questions, and a group of friends who are far too genre-literate to die first. The Blackening skewers horror tropes with the precision of a kitchen knife and delivers one of the funniest scripts in years. You’ll laugh, you’ll scream, you’ll quote it.

Run Sweetheart Run (2022)

Streaming on: Amazon Prime

The worst first date of all time becomes a full-blown feminist chase film. Ella Balinska spends one hellish night outrunning a very stylish demon in Los Angeles, and somehow looks incredible doing it. It’s messy, loud, and cathartic—the cinematic equivalent of screaming in the club bathroom with your girls.

They Cloned Tyrone (2023)

Streaming on: Netflix

Conspiracy, comedy, and cultural critique wrapped in Afrofuturist paranoia. John Boyega, Teyonah Parris, and Jamie Foxx have unreal chemistry as three unlikely heroes uncover a cloning plot that hits way too close to home. It’s hilarious, haunting, and somehow makes fried chicken terrifying.

Vampires vs. the Bronx (2020)

Streaming on: Netflix

Gentrification, but make it supernatural. When developers (re: vampires) start taking over the Bronx, a group of local kids fights back. It’s charming, clever, and refreshingly joyful—like The Goonies if they carried holy water.

So this October, skip the sequels, prequels and spinoffs. Pour a pumpkin spiced drink, grab a blanket, and queue up something that actually surprises you.

Stream wisely... And maybe keep a light on.