The Best New Horror Movies of 2024 Available to Stream Right Now

Where to Stream:

Longlegs

Though horror hasn’t been booming at the box office with quite the same big-money consistency as previous years, there have still been plenty of new horror releases hitting theaters, VOD, and streaming throughout 2024. The year isn’t quite over (Heretic already has great buzz from festival showings!), but it’s also spooky season, which is a great time to catch up on the best new horror movies that are available to stream, some just recently for the first time. Here, then, are the 12 best new horror movies of 2024 so far that are also available for streaming.

Longlegs

Longlegs starts out with ’90s serial-killer-thriller vibes, with an FBI agent (Maika Monroe) trying to solve a series of mysterious killings; it’s even set at some point in the Clinton years. But Osgood Perkins’ summer hit goes further than obsessive agent hunting a creepy guy; with skewed compositions and a truly frightening performance from a hard-to-recognize Nicolas Cage, it becomes genuinely unnerving in a way that few horror movies are able to accomplish, as if tuning into some kind of evil frequency. Though the movie lacks the depth of serial-killer gold standard Zodiac, it’s really doing something else entirely: teasing out the horror from more procedurally-minded movies like The Silence of the Lambs. The flat-out creepiest movie of the year is currently only available for streaming rental, but if you missed it in theaters, it’s worth catching (and if you loved it in theaters, you can buy it on disc).
Where to Stream Longlegs
The First Omen

Who would have guessed that a decades-later legacy prequel to The Omen that actually turns out to be the best movie of the whole series in a walk? The first Omen is agreeably high-toned shlock; The First Omen, meanwhile, is a visceral and even emotionally affecting story of forced pregnancy from first-time feature director Arkasha Stevenson. It’s got gory kills on par with the most memorable sliding-glass-pane decapitation from the first film, sure; more importantly, rather than centering the experience of a middle-aged dude, Stevenson focuses on a young nun (Nell Tiger Free, who is terrific) about to take her vows who senses something amiss in her convent.
Stream the first omen on hulu
MaXXXine

The least critically-loved but highest-grossing installment in Ti West’s X trilogy pays homage to sleazy thrillers of the 1980s, following porn star Maxine Minx (Mia Goth) as she hustles for horror-movie stardom in 1985 Los Angeles. Scream queen Goth continues in top form, bringing some surprising subtlety and welcome opacity to the desperate-starlet role, and West has a blast staging the Universal Studio Tour of his dreams, with sexual assailants dressed as Buster Keaton, a De Palma-style staircase tumble, and a detour to the Psycho house (actually the Psycho II house). Some found it too movie-addled, too scattered, too uneven; we say, it doesn’t need to be as tightly controlled and brilliant as X to offer a great, intermittently gory, and thematically coherent time at the movies. It’s hitting HBO and Max on October 18th.
where to stream maxxxine
A Quiet Place: Day One

A Quiet Place movie set on the day the hearing-sensitive aliens invaded Earth may not have seemed as unlikely a success story as The First Omen, but put together they still make the case that this may be the year of surprisingly good horror prequel. Day One is elevated beyond the tense-but-unnecessary flashback in the last Quiet Place sequel by two major creative forces: Michael Sarnoski, writer-director of the Nicolas Cage showcase Pig, bringing his own character-focused sensibility to an alien-action-horror-disaster scenario; and Lupita Nyong’o, who is phenomenal as a woman whose outlook on the alien invasion is decidedly different than the majority of the fleeing New York City population. What she ultimately seeks from this experience shouldn’t be spoiled; it makes for a deeply satisfying emotional journey that, yes, still has plenty of suspense and scares.
Stream A quiet Place: Day One on Paramount+
Lisa Frankenstein

15 years ago, Diablo Cody wrote a teen-centric horror-comedy that flopped; it was years before Jennifer’s Body gained an appreciative cult audience. Might as well get a jump start on the next Cody-penned monster movie that people will be rediscovering for the next decade; Lisa Frankenstein, which came out around Valentine’s Day to indifference from general audiences and critics, is, if anything, a weirder movie than Jennifer’s Body, formulated around an undead boyfriend and the misfit girl who brings him back to life. Directed by first-time feature filmmaker Zelda Williams (daughter of Robin!), Lisa Frankenstein staggers a little, in a manner that only winds up fitting its clumsy sorta-hero – and more importantly, the costumes, production design, and cinematography are gothic-cartoon lush. Scream queen Kathryn Newton gives a wonderful performance as the girl who, like so many Frankenstein figures before her, flirts with becoming the real monster; Cody, as funny and sharp as ever, understands how the classic Universal monsters dovetail with the gnarly, messy experience of growing up. The movie is more funny and beautiful than truly scary, but it also has more genuine atmosphere than a lot of actual fright flicks.
Stream Lisa Frankenstein on PRIME VIDEO
In a Violent Nature

This one’s here repping the big year for IFC Films, long a distributor of horror, but really stepping up as a provider of offbeat multiplex fare lately. Their most distinctive offering this year is best described as a slow-cinema version of a Friday the 13th reboot, following a lumbering supernatural serial killer rather than the vacuous young people he’ll inevitably tear to pieces in gruesomely creative ways. (Seriously, there’s an elaborately shocking slasher kill in this that’s unlikely to be topped, even by Art the Clown himself.) It won’t be for all tastes, but it’s unlike any other horror movie this year.
Stream in a violent nature on shudder
Trap

In terms of pure craft, Trap probably deserves a higher spot on this list. It’s one of the best of M. Night Shyamalan’s later-period containment thrillers, and one of the best thrillers of the year. And that recurring description is the only reason it isn’t higher up: This is arguably a thriller more than a straight-up horror movie, following a serial killer (Josh Hartnett) as he tries to wriggle his way out of a trap set by the police to catch him while taking his daughter (Ariel Donoghue,) to a pop concert. The screws tighten in that classic Shyamalan fashion, which is to say the movie is both tense, using classic Hitchcockian technique (and plenty of Shyamalan’s own signatures) to get us identifying with a very bad man, and often weirdly hilarious. It’s currently available to rent at home, and will hit HBO and Max on October 25th.
WHERE TO STREAM trap
Immaculate

If you’re up for a similarly themed double feature, Immaculate is basically the same nun-senses-something-amiss plot as The First Omen, right down to what that terribly amiss thing turns out to be. But this version, while not quite as scary or exactingly well-crafted, is only 80 minute long and starring Sydney Sweeney, so if you’re either pressed for time or down bad for Sydney (who, delightfully, pursued this movie fervently and used her star power to finally get it made!), it could even work as an alternative to the legacy prequel.
Stream immaculate on hulu
It’s What’s Inside

Netflix paid a bunch of money to pick up this Sundance phenom, and after seeing it, you’ll understand why (even if you also might wish someone who liked showing movies in movie theaters had given it some big-screen time before sending it home). Admittedly, this is more of a sci-fi-tinged thriller than pure horror, but there’s enough of a body count to qualify it, and maybe that’s about all you should know about it going in? OK, we’ll offer a little more: A group of friends gather for a reunion the night before one will get married, and a fantastical technological innovation allows them to play around with their personas and roles within the group. It’s not as funny as the similarly themed Bodies Bodies Bodies (how could it be, without Rachel Sennott?) but it works better as a stylish, breakneck thriller, like Bodies meets the Futurama episode “The Prisoner of Benda.”
Stream It’s What’s Inside on netflix
Azrael

In this lean, under-80-minute horror thriller, Samara Weaving plays a young woman on the run from… someone! Or someones. Or somethings. As the movie opens, she seems to be pursued by some kind of cult, hoping to sacrifice her to a group of crispy-looking zombies, in some kind of a post-apocalyptic scenario. It’s all hard to tell, because Azrael takes place in a wordless world, making for an inventively dialogue-free horror picture. (Introductory onscreen text offers a few hints upfront.) The disorientation is part of the fun, and if this isn’t the best gimmick-horror B-movie you’ve ever seen, it’s still satisfyingly propulsive, gory, and fun, with a fine central performance from scream queen Weaving. It recently played theaters in national release, but it’ll be on premier horror service Shudder on October 25th.
Arcadian

Another small-scale post-apocalyptic horror picture from the good folks at IFC and Shudder, Arcadian is a good old-fashioned creature feature with that all-too-rare sight: creatures that are genuinely frightening and strange. Director Benjamin Brewer makes the smart decision to never quite show the creatures full-on, not to cover up a lack of imagination in their designs, but to make them impossible to get a bead on; these beasts seem truly otherworldly in a way that most other modern entries in this subgenre can’t quite pull off. Brewer previously worked with star Nicolas Cage (who has a more supporting role than a full-on star turn; the movie is more about his survivalist character’s sons) on the very entertaining B-movie The Trust. Both movies suggest he understands how to use Cage’s presence in genre forms unusually well.
Stream Arcadian on shudder
Late Night With The Devil

Late Night with the Devil is an absolute must-stream for horror fans. Written and directed by Colin and Cameron Cairnes, the innovative found footage horror film stars David Dastmalchian as a ’70s late-night talk show host competing with Johnny Carson for ratings. A questionable plan to gain viewers goes horribly awry as the show’s occult-themed Halloween episode unleashes evil into the nation’s living rooms. The inventive plot, superb pacing, and invigorating performance from Dastmalchian combine to make this enthralling masterpiece one of the best horror movies of 2024.—Josh Sorokach
STREAM late night with the devil on shudder
The Substance

Photo: Mubi

The Substance is not a subtle movie. But it is a loud, gross, and outrageous commentary on ageism and misogyny, wrapped up in a disgusting body horror package. It’s no wonder the movie has horror fans buzzing.

Written and directed by French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat, this horror film first premiered at Cannes Film Festival to rave reviews, where it also won the Palme d’Or for Best Screenplay. Demi Moore stars as a fictional, aging Hollywood star named Elisabeth Sparkle, who uses an experimental black market drug to create a younger, hotter clone of herself, played by Margaret Qualley. If you’re the least bit squeamish, you should know in advance that The Substance has arguably the wildest, grossest ending of any movie in 2024.—Anna Menta
Stream the substance on mubi

What did we miss? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.