R.L. Stine readers who used to sneak a flashlight under the covers might want a stronger stomach for this one. A skull-masked killer chases a bookstore clerk through a shopping mall, and director Leigh Janiak goes considerably further than those paperback covers ever could. The surprise is how much you root for exes Deena and Sam, whose breakup would be plenty messy even if Shadyside’s dead stayed buried. | © Chernin Entertainment
A Seoul gamer sleeps through the start of a zombie outbreak, which sounds almost enviable until you see how little food he has. Yoo Ah-in gives Joon-woo just enough ingenuity to keep himself alive and just enough lousy judgment to feel like somebody you know. Much of the suspense comes from watching him study the apartment block opposite. A neighbor within waving distance suddenly feels impossibly far away. | © Zip Cinema
“Why don’t they just leave?” has a painfully good answer here. Bol and Rial, a married couple seeking asylum after fleeing South Sudan, could jeopardize their claim if they abandon the English house they’ve been assigned. When Bol starts tearing into the walls to find whatever’s moving behind them, you can hold two fears in your head at once. What if he finds it? And what if the caseworker sees the damage? | © New Regency Pictures
Upstairs or cellar? George A. Romero gets more mileage out of that argument than most zombie movies get out of an entire city falling apart. Ben wants room to maneuver, Harry wants a door he can barricade, and both men have a point right up until pride enters the discussion. Meanwhile, the dead outside that Pennsylvania farmhouse have all night and considerably fewer disagreements. | © Image Ten
Keep an eye on Kelsey Asbille’s hands. As Iris, a woman injected with a paralytic during an encounter in the woods, she has to keep revising what counts as a victory. Early on, she might still outrun her attacker. Later, getting a stranger to notice the smallest movement would be an achievement. Asbille makes the effort behind each gesture visible, even as everyone around her keeps missing it. | © Raimi Productions
If you know Gareth Evans from The Raid, watch how long he lets Dan Stevens keep his hands in his pockets. Stevens plays Thomas Richardson, who slips into an island congregation to find his kidnapped sister. Staying quiet gives him time to notice how the place works, particularly who eats and who gets to preach. Once the island starts giving up its secrets, Evans’s enthusiasm for practical gore comes roaring back. | © XYZ Films
Two cellists meet in Shanghai, play beautifully together and have such immediate chemistry that you could happily watch Allison Williams and Logan Browning flirt for another hour. Then they board a bus. Anyone who’s ever felt sick on public transportation has an entry point into the ordeal that follows, although director Richard Shepard gleefully takes it past the point where asking the driver to pull over would help. | © Miramax
Goreng brings Don Quixote into a vertical prison where inmates can take one personal item. His cellmate chose a knife. That difference in preparation tells you plenty about the Spanish thriller’s hero, who still believes he can talk people into rationing the feast that descends through the building each day. It’s an admirable theory. Trying to explain it to the people upstairs while they’re chewing is another matter. | © Basque Films
A freelance videographer accepts a day’s work filming a dying man’s message for his unborn son. How exactly do you tell a client with that backstory that you’d prefer he put his clothes back on? Mark Duplass gives Josef a wounded little look whenever Aaron hesitates, and Patrick Brice lets the camera run through the awkward silence. You can practically hear Aaron talking himself out of leaving. | © Duplass Brothers Productions / Blumhouse Productions
Fluorescent shop lighting looks especially wrong in the middle of a Swedish forest. David Bruckner lets the convenience store where Luke watched a friend die bleed into the landscape of a memorial hike, so even the clearings offer him little relief. The other three hikers have their own opinions about what Luke did that night. For a surprisingly long stretch, you dread that conversation almost as much as meeting whatever’s in the trees. | © The Imaginarium
A glass of water deserves a supporting-actor credit here. Jessie can see it from the bed where her husband handcuffed her before his fatal heart attack, and Mike Flanagan makes you care about every inch between her fingers and that glass. Carla Gugino is terrific at the practical side of panic. Watch her eyes measure the distance even as the voices in Jessie’s head insist she’ll never reach it. | © Intrepid Pictures
Try watching Incantation with somebody else and see who’s willing to say the chant out loud. Taiwanese director Kevin Ko gives the request to a mother desperate to protect her daughter, and her appeal to the camera feels sincere enough that refusing seems a little mean. That tiny tug of obligation is where the film gets under your skin. You may catch yourself rehearsing the syllables even if you keep your mouth shut. | © Monkey Movies
Thomas Jane barely seems willing to open his mouth wide enough to let the words out. It’s a fine choice for Wilfred James, a Nebraska farmer who can explain at length why his wife’s land matters so much and somehow make murdering her sound like a decision she forced on him. This Stephen King adaptation saves its ugliest business for the quiet conversations in which Wilfred teaches his son to think like Dad. | © Campfire
Watch the popcorn in Drew Barrymore’s kitchen. Wes Craven gives it just enough attention that you can tell how long Casey has spent on the phone with a stranger, and how quickly a little flirting has become a situation she can’t hang up on. That patience is easy to overlook in a movie famous for its wisecracks. Craven knows exactly when the horror trivia should stop being fun, even for the people who know the answers. | © Dimension Films
Ralph Fiennes makes one of the gentlest figures in the Rage virus saga out of a doctor who spends his spare time arranging human bones. His curiosity about Samson, an infected man most people would run from on sight, gives Nia DaCosta’s sequel an unexpectedly tender streak. Then Jack O’Connell turns up as Sir Jimmy Crystal, and the sound of a perfectly healthy man addressing his followers becomes reason enough to run. | © Columbia Pictures
Picking a horror movie on Netflix gets tricky the second somebody says, “I want something really scary.” Does that mean a jump scare that sends popcorn under the couch, or a movie you’ll wish you hadn’t watched when you hear the upstairs neighbor walking around at 2 a.m.? Both count. We’ve picked 15 favorites, with a little help figuring out which one your movie-night crowd can handle.
