31 Underrated Horror Movies That Will Give You Nightmares This October

    One movie a day to keep the scares in play.

    Abid Anwar
    by Abid Anwar

    BuzzFeed Staff

    1. "The Slumber Party Massacre" (1982)

    Santa Fe Productions/New World Pictures

    Plot: Someone with a power drill shows up uninvited to Trish's (Michele Michaels) high-school pajama party.

    Director: Amy Holden Jones

    Streaming: Available to rent on Amazon Prime for $3.99, Google Play for $2.99 or YouTube for $2.99.

    2. "Ravenous" (1999)

    Heyday Films/20th Century Fox

    Plot: Upon receiving reports of missing persons at Fort Spencer, a remote Army outpost on the Western frontier, Capt. John Boyd (Guy Pearce) investigates. After arriving at his new post, Boyd and his regiment aid a wounded frontiersman, F.W. Colghoun (Robert Carlyle), who recounts a horrifying tale of a wagon train murdered by its supposed guide -- a vicious U.S. Army colonel gone rogue. Fearing the worst, the regiment heads out into the wilderness to verify Colghoun's gruesome claims.

    Director: Antonia Bird

    Streaming: Available to rent on Amazon Prime for $3.99, Google Play for $2.99 or YouTube for $2.99.

    3. "New Nightmare" (1994)

    New Line Cinema

    Plot: In this meta horror film, a demonic entity uses the fictional character of Freddy Krueger to enter the real world and torment “Elm Street” heroine Heather Langenkamp and her family.

    Director: Wes Craven

    Streaming: Available to rent on Amazon Prime for $2.99, Google Play for $2.99 or YouTube for $2.99.

    4. "Ganja & Hess" (1973)

    Kelly-Jordan Enterprises

    Plot: After being stabbed with an ancient, germ-infested knife, a doctor's assistant finds himself with an insatiable desire for blood.

    Director: Bill Gunn

    Streaming: Kanopy, Amazon Prime with trial to Brown Sugar

    5. "Alice, Sweet Alice" (1976)

    Allied Artists

    Plot: In 1960s New Jersey, a withdrawn adolescent girl is suspected of her younger sister's brutal murder during her first communion, as well as a series of stabbings that follow.

    Director: Alfred Sole

    Streaming: Amazing Prime for $0.99

    6. "The Curse of the Cat People" (1944)

    RKO Radio Pictures

    Plot: The young, friendless daughter of Oliver and Alice Reed befriends her father's dead first wife and an aging, reclusive actress.

    Director: Gunther von Fritsch, Robert Wise

    Streaming: Available to rent on Amazon Prime for $2.99, Google Play for $2.99 or YouTube for $2.99.

    7. "Body Snatchers" (1993)

    Warner Bros.

    Plot: A teenage girl and her father discover alien clones are replacing humans on a remote U.S. military base in Alabama.

    Director: Able Ferrara

    Streaming: Available to rent on Amazon Prime for $2.99, Google Play for $2.99 or YouTube for $2.99.

    8. "Bug" (2006)

    DMK Mediafonds International/ Inferno Distribution LLC/ L.I.F.T. Productions

    Plot: A war veteran holes up with a lonely woman in a spooky Oklahoma motel room. The line between reality and delusion is blurred as they discover a bug infestation.

    Director: William Friedkin

    Streaming: Available to rent on Amazon Prime for $1.99, Google Play for $1.99 or YouTube for $1.99.

    9. "Shock Waves" (1997)

    Laurence Friedricks Enterprises/ Zopix

    Plot: Visitors to a remote island discover that a reclusive Nazi commandant has been breeding a group of Zombie soldiers.

    Director: Ken Wiederhorn

    Streaming: Amazon Prime for $3.99

    10. "Blood Diner" (1987)

    Lightning Pictures

    Plot: Two cannibalistic brothers kill various young women to use their flesh in their new special dish at their rundown restaurant, while seeking blood sacrifices to awaken a dormant Egyptian goddess.

    Director: Jackie Kong

    11. "The Hidden" (1987)

    New Line Cinema

    Plot: An FBI agent (Kyle MacLachlan) and a homicide detective (Michael Nouri) hunt the current human host of an orally exchanged alien life-form.

    Director: Jack Sholder

    Streaming: Available to rent on Amazon Prime for $2.99, Google Play for $2.99 or YouTube for $2.99.

    12. "Sorority House Massacre" (1986)

    Concorde Pictures

    Plot: An innocent sorority sister becomes the target of an escaped mental patient wreaking havoc on a college campus.

    Director: Carol Frank

    Streaming: Amazon $2.99

    13. "Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf" (1985)

    Hemdale Film Corporation/ Granite Productions

    Plot: A young man whose sister was murdered by werewolves helps an investigator track down a gang of the monsters through the United States and Europe.

    Director: Philippe Mora

    Streaming: iTunes

    14. "Phenomena" (1985)

    DAC Film/Titanus

    Plot: A young girl, with an amazing ability to communicate with insects, is transferred to an exclusive Swiss boarding school, where her unusual capability might help solve a string of murders.

    Director: Dario Argento

    Streaming: Amazon Prime for $0.99 or iTunes for $3.99

    15. "The Leopard Man" (1943)

    RKO Radio Pictures Inc.

    Plot: A seemingly tame leopard used for a publicity stunt escapes and kills a young girl, spreading panic throughout a sleepy New Mexico town.

    Director: Jacques Tourneur

    Streaming: Amazon Prime for $2.99

    16. "Hands of the Ripper" (1971)

    Hammer Film Productions

    Plot: As a young child Jack the Ripper's daughter witnesses him kill her mother. As a young woman she carries on the murderous reign of her father. A psychiatrist tries to cure her with tragic consequences.

    Director: Peter Sasdy

    Streaming: Amazon Prime for $2.99

    17. "Phase IV" (1974)

    Paramount Pictures

    Plot: Desert ants suddenly form a collective intelligence and begin to wage war on the desert inhabitants

    Director: Saul Bass

    Streaming: Available to rent on Amazon Prime for $2.99, Google Play for $2.99 or YouTube for $2.99.

    18. "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2" (1986)

    The Cannon Group, Inc.

    Plot: A radio host is victimized by the cannibal family as a former Texas Marshall hunts them.

    Director: Tobe Hooper

    Streaming:

    19. "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1928)

    James Sibley Watson

    Plot: A man, upon entering his fiancées's family mansion, discovers a savage family curse and fears that his future brother-in-law has entombed his bride-to-be prematurely.

    Director: James Sibley Watson

    Streaming: Viki (Free)

    20. "Mirror, Mirror" (1990)

    Orphan Eyes

    Plot: An antique mirror gives a student (Rainbow Harvest) the black-magic power to punish classmates who torment her.

    Director: Marina Sargenti

    Streaming: Amazon Prime for $2.99

    21. "Society" (1989)

    Wild Street Pictures

    Plot: An ordinary teenage boy discovers his family is part of a gruesome orgy cult for the social elite.

    Director: Brian Yuzna

    Streaming: YouTube and Google Play for $1.99

    22. "Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight" (1995)

    Universal Pictures

    Plot: A man on the run is hunted by a demon known as the Collector.

    Director: Ernest K. Dickerson

    Streaming: Available to rent on Amazon Prime for $2.99, Google Play for $2.99 or YouTube for $2.99.

    23. "Ghosts Of Mars" (2001)

    Storm King Production

    Plot: In 2176, a Martian police unit is sent to pick up a highly dangerous criminal at a remote mining post. Upon arrival, the cops find that the post has become a charnel house.

    Director: John Carpenter

    Streaming: Available to rent on Amazon Prime for $2.99, Google Play for $2.99 or YouTube for $2.99.

    24. "Def by Temptation" (1990)

    Bonded Filmworks/ Orpheus Pictures

    Plot: An evil succubus is preying on libidinous black men in New York City, and all that stands in her way is a minister-in-training, an aspiring actor, and a cop who specializes in cases involving the supernatural.

    Director: James Bond III

    Streaming: YouTube and Google Play for $2.99

    25. "Dark Angel: The Ascent" (1994)

    Full Moon Entertainment

    Plot: A bored female demon ventures to the surface world to punish the wicked before they enter her hellish domain.

    Director: Linda Hassani

    Streaming: Amazon Prime for $2.99

    26. "Long Weekend" (1978)

    Dugong Films/ Australian Film Commission/ Victorian Film Corporatio

    Plot: When a suburban couple go camping for the weekend at a remote beach, they discover that nature isn't in an accommodating mood.

    Director: Colin Eggleston

    Streaming: Streaming: YouTube and Google Play for $1.99

    27. "Mad Love" (1935)

    Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

    Plot: In France, a surgeon's obsession with an actress from England leads him to replace her pianist husband's hands that got mangled in an accident with the hands of a late knife murderer which still have the urge to throw knives.

    Director: Karl Freund

    Streaming: Streaming: YouTube and Google Play for $2.99

    28. "American Mary" (2001)

    American Mary Productions/ Evolution Pictures/Universal Pictures

    Plot: The allure of easy money sends Mary Mason, a medical student, into the world of underground surgeries which ends up leaving more marks on her than her clients.

    Director: Jen Soska & Sylvia Soska

    Streaming: Amazon Prime for $1.99, YouTube and Google Play for $3.99

    29. "Night Of Creeps" (1986)

    TriStar Pictures

    Plot: Alien brain parasites, entering humans through the mouth, turn their host into a killing zombie. Some teenagers start to fight against them.

    Director: Fred Dekker

    Streaming: Google Play and YouTube for $2.99

    30. "May" (2002)

    2 Loop Films

    Plot: A lonely young woman traumatized by a difficult childhood and her increasingly desperate attempts to connect with the people around her is sent into a murderous tailspin.

    Director: Lucky McKee

    31. "The Brood" (1979)

    Canadian Film Development Corporation/New World Pictures

    Plot: A man tries to uncover an unconventional psychologist's therapy techniques on his institutionalized wife, amidst a series of brutal murders.

    Director: David Cronenberg

    Streaming: Amazon Prime for $3.99