12 New Horror Movies to Watch in October on Netflix, HBO, and Hulu

Spooky season is here, and all the major streaming services are boosting their horror offerings to appeal to viewers who want to start getting into the Halloween spirit early. As the temperatures drop and the nights get longer, October is the perfect time to make some popcorn, curl up on the couch, and watch some movies designed to give you nightmares.

New streaming offerings this month include true classics and brand-new films, spanning every subgenre including zombies, slashers, body horror, and even some creepy romance. Cue up something on this list, and you can always press pause if it gets so scary you need a break.

Bones and All (2022)

Available on Pluto
Run time: 2h 10m
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Cast: Taylor Russell, Timothée Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg

Bones and All puts an especially gory spin on young love by focusing on the budding romance between a pair of cannibals. Maren (Taylor Russell) has a history of biting people, and she sets out on a cross-country road trip in hopes of finding her mother and getting answers about her gruesome cravings. She meets and falls for Lee (Timothée Chalamet), another “eater,” and the two try to build a new life together.

From our review:

Like Call Me by Your Name, Bones and All is a sensual movie, particularly visually — Guadagnino luxuriates in the kind of big-sky-country vistas that made Andrea Arnold’s similarly summer-break-themed American Honey so memorable, and he lights his leads warmly in the day and with skulking fervor at night. But it’s more remarkable for the way he and Kajganich navigate the push and pull between the story’s romantic elements and horror themes. There’s a big metaphor at play here about how parents, families, and friends enable aberrant behavior until it feels normal, and how being protected from the world can make it hard to properly enter it. And it plays in radically different ways at the same time: both through the lens of two young kids on a romantic road trip, and as two growing monsters seducing and killing other people for food.

Doctor Sleep (2019)

Available on Paramount Plus
Run time: 2h 32m
Director: Mike Flanagan
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Rebecca Ferguson, Kyliegh Curran

Set 31 years after The Shining, Doctor Sleep follows Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor) as he struggles to cope with memories of his father’s murderous rampage. The adaptation of Stephen King’s book leans further into Danny’s psychic powers as he forges a connection with a girl with “the Shining” and tries to protect her from a brutal vampire

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

Image: Paramount Home Media Distribution

Available on Paramount Plus
Run time: 1h 48
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Cast: Harvey Keitel, George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino wrote the script for this cult classic, which begins as a crime drama before turning into grindhouse horror. Bank robbers Seth (George Clooney) and Richie Gecko (Tarantino) flee across the Mexican border where they plan to meet a contact at an all-night strip club. When the strippers turn out to be vampires, they have to fight to survive until dawn.

It Follows (2014)

Available on Paramount Plus
Run time: 1h 40m
Director: David Robert Mitchell
Cast: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Daniel Zovatto, Jake Weary

Another cult hit, It Follows made the most out of a tiny budget. After college student Jay Height (Maika Monroe) has sex with her boyfriend Hugh (Jake Weary) for the first time, he reveals she’ll be pursued by a strange entity until she can infect someone else through intercourse. Chased by a force only she can see, Jay seeks answers while trying to buy herself time.

Hokum (2026)

Available on Hulu
Run time: 1h 47m
Director: Damian McCarthy
Cast: Adam Scott, Florence Ordesh, Peter Coonan

American author Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) travels to the Irish hotel where his parents honeymooned to scatter their ashes. He discovers the honeymoon suite is locked and supposedly haunted by a witch as he confronts the strange locals and staff and has to face his own past and the place’s secrets.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Freddy Krueger in its iconic fedora, posing with his bladed fingers.

Available on HBO
Run time: 1h 31m
Director: Wes Craven
Cast: John Saxon, Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp

Designed to make you afraid of going to sleep, A Nightmare on Elm Street follows a group of teenagers pursued by the undead killer Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) who can kill by entering their dreams. Considered one of the best horror films ever made, it inspired numerous sequels.

Psycho (1960)

Janet Leigh screams during Psycho's iconic shower scene

Available on Netflix
Run time: 1h 49m
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Janet Leigh

Even if you haven’t seen Psycho, you probably know the shower scene, which is one of the most famous moments in cinematic history. Master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock helped establish the slasher genre with a tale of embezzling secretary Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) who hides out in the remote Bates Motel. But she finds something sinister lurking in the hotel.

Scream (1996)

Available on Pluto
Run time: 1h 51m
Director: Wes Craven
Cast: David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox

A Nightmare on Elm Street director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson mock slasher genre tropes with Scream, where knowing horror trivia can be a matter of life or death. A group of high school students pursued by a costumed killer try to survive using movie logic. Pluto is also streaming the four Scream sequels so you can put on a series marathon.

Freaks (2019)

Lexy Kolker as Chloe Lewis bleeds out of her eye and holds a giant stack of cash in the movie Freaks.

Available on HBO
Run time: 1h 45m
Directors: Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky
Cast: Emile Hirsch, Bruce Dern, Grace Park, Lexy Kolker

The genre-bending film follows Chloe (Lexy Kolker), a 7-year-old who’s never left her possibly haunted dilapidated suburban home because her father Henry (Emile Hirsch) says there are bad people lurking outside. The mystery of what’s really going on unfurls slowly as Chloe and Henry grapple for control of their fraught lives.

The Sixth Sense (1999)

Available on Netflix
Run time: 1h 47m
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Haley Joel Osment

After one of his patients kills himself, child psychiatrist Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) sees potential for redemption by helping Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), a boy with the ability to see ghosts. They work together to help the dead haunting Cole find peace. The Sixth Sense established M. Night Shyamalan’s penchant for twist endings, and it’s still one of his best.