31 Underrated Horror Movies That Will Give You Nightmares This October
One movie a day to keep the scares in play.
1. "The Slumber Party Massacre" (1982)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Plot: In 1960s New Jersey, a withdrawn adolescent girl is suspected of her younger sister's brutal murder during her first communion, as well as a series of stabbings that follow.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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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