Spooky scary Halloween movies: New horrors for your fright fest night in

It’s spooky scary out there on the streets where kids on sugar highs roam, looking for their next fix.

Australians have increasingly embraced the traditions of Halloween as a lighthearted romp, and an excuse to dress up, cackle and meet the neighbours. Sure, you can be a killjoy and rant about the “Americanisation” of our culture, or you could just go out and have some fun.

Besides, its history is steeped in darker mythology, pulling from the pagan rituals of Celtic holiday Samhain, then appropriated by the Christians as All Hallows’ Day, and a lot of modern-day Halloween practices in the US comes from traditions brought over to the New World by Irish and Scottish immigrants.

Halloween is said to be the day in which the veil between the living and the dead is the thinnest, and there’s nothing like indulging in supernatural frights with a horror movie. It’s a controlled and contained way to trigger that escalating anxiety and then, hopefully, release it a moment of catharsis.

You all know the classics – The Exorcist, The Omen, Rosemary’s Baby, Get Out – but horror has been on a real uptick for the past few years as one of the few genres that are reliable performers at the box office.

When something is working, commercially, it’s Hollywood’s way to keep churning them out, which is great news for those that like their viewing accompanied by goosebumps and thumping heartbeats.

If you’re looking for something new to get the pulses racing, here are the most prominent horror movies that have been released in the past year.

SINNERS

At first, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners seems to be about twin brothers (both played by Michael B. Jordan) trying to open a juke joint in the American South in the 1930s, but soon it turns to an epic and gory fight against invading vampires in an elegant parable about the scourge of racism and white supremacy.

Watch: HBO Max

NOSFERATU

American filmmaker Robert Eggers grew up fascinated by F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent film, Nosferatu. Eggers would go on to make other horrors but this is the one he always wanted to come back to, and, boy, did he. His interpretation of the Dracula story is stylish, othic, moody, maximalist and truly horrifying.

Watch: Netflix, Binge

BRING HER BACK

Adelaide brothers Danny and Michael Philippou made a splash in 2023 with Talk to Me, so all eyes were on their follow-up, Bring Her Back, to see if they can repeat their sadistic streak for making their audiences visibly squirm. With a creepy as hell performance from Sally Hawkins, Bring Her Back follows two step-siblings who are placed with a foster mother who is grieving the death of a daughter. Sinister rituals and possession ensue.

Watch: Prime

WEAPONS

From the same director as Barbarian, Zach Cregger, Weapons is one of the massive success stories of the year, a mid-budget horror movie that made more than $US250 million ($381m) at the box office, proof that appetite for the genre is strong. The premise is, to put it generously, unnerving, when a classroom full of children – bar one – run away at the exact same minute one evening. Weapons’ Amy Madigan was so effective in her villainy she is firmly in the Oscar conversation for Best Supporting Actress.

Watch: HBO Max

TOGETHER

Another Sundance sensation from an Australian filmmaker, Michael Shanks, Together is a visceral exploration of toxic relationships and co-dependency, asking the question, how would that literally manifest. Eeeep. Hint: The film ends with the Spice Girls hit, 2 Become 1. It stars real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie, which adds a whole different dimension to its queasiness.

Watch: Digital rental

THE CONJURING: LAST RITES

Nine movies in and The Conjuring franchise is still gleefully freaking audiences out, because no one wants to be haunted by a mirror – as if we don’t already get a fright walking past one first thing in the morning. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson reprise their roles as Lorraine and Ed Warren, the real-life paranormal experts investigating spooky goings-on, and this one, with that strange mirror, is much closer to home.

Watch: In cinemas

28 YEARS LATER

Slow and lumbering zombies are bad enough when they look the way they do, like disintegrating corpses, but they’re even more terrifying when they’re giant, super-fast and singularly focused on eating you. Danny Boyle returns to the post-apocalyptic nightmare he kicked off with 28 Days Later, and shifted the story to that of an isolated community on an island, and the young boy who ventures beyond its shores.

Watch: Digital rental

HERETIC

There are plenty of people whose memories of Hugh Grant are contained to his 1990s rom-com roles, and haven’t been paying attention to his onscreen turn to the dark side over the past few years. Well, Heretic well and truly burst that bubble. As the sinister Mr Reed who traps two young missionaries in his home, Grant really leans into being a sneering bad guy. Shudder the thought.

Watch: Prime

FINAL DESTINATION BLOODLINES

The Final Destination movies have always had a grabby idea – what if you were marked for death and a near-escape doesn’t actually save you, that the grim reaper will come for you no matter what and in a merciless way? Even freakier is that the way people die, usually in gory accidents, could happen to any of us – a lawnmower mishap is much more likely than being chased by a chainsaw-wielding psychopath. This revival goes after a whole lineage, everyone descended from one woman who should’ve died five decades ago.

Watch: HBO Max

SHELBY OAKS

Shelby Oaks is brand spanking new, having only landed in cinemas last week, just in time for Halloween. Directed by former film critic and YouTuber Chris Stuckman, it was partly funded by a Kickstarter campaign. It opens as a found footage film featuring a team of paranormal investigators before shifting the story 12 years later to follow the sister of a woman who disappeared while looking into an abandoned town.

Watch: In cinemas

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER

It’s what Scream would call a “requel”, a revival sequel that blends a new generation with an existing canon and legacy characters, and in this case, it’s Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr who returns after barely escaping the murderous fisherman almost three decades earlier. It’s a slasher so peril is the serve of the day, and it has an ending that is either, depending on your perspective, a bold up-yours to convention or a betrayal of the OG fans. You decide.

Watch: Digital rental

THE MONKEY

Osgood Perkins, son of Anthony Perkins aka Norman Bates in Psycho, really declared his family lineage last year with Longlegs, and then followed it up with The Monkey, which is based on a Stephen King short story. Theo James plays the dual role of twins who, when they were children, find a clanging monkey toy that sets off a series of supernatural catastrophes.

Watch: Prime

BLACK PHONE 2

The original film may have been a perfectly contained story about a serial killer who murders children, the sequel dives deeper into the lore by going into the past. Set at a camp (a familiar setting for a horror) the young heroes Finney and Gwen must again face off against the Grabber (Ethan Hawke) but this time in a strange dream realm. To be free of him for good, they must find some of his earliest victims.

Watch: In cinemas

DEATH OF A UNICORN

There’s metaphorical eat the rich, and then there’s literally eat the rich, if the diner is a monstrous unicorn that could probably give the Jurassic Park dinos a real rival. The film stars Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega as a father and daughter visiting the wildlife estate of an uber wealthy – and terrible – family when they accidentally hit a unicorn on the way there. The movie is messy but the cast, which also includes Richard E. Grant, Will Poulter, Tea Leoni and Sunita Mani, are excellent.

Watch: Digital rental

FEAR STREET: PROM QUEEN

The fourth chapter of the film series based on the RL Stine books that use to freak us out in primary school. The story about a serial killer taking down prom queen candidates at Shadyside High is every bit the pulpy, blood-soaked slashfest you’d expect given its origins, albeit with a few impressive names involved including Lili Taylor, Katherine Waterston, India Fowler and 1990s teen movie hunk Chris Klein.

Watch: Netflix

WOLF MAN

Australian filmmaker Leigh Whannell knows how to scare people, having been part of Saw, Insidious, Upgrade and The Invisible Man. It was the latter film, a twist on the classic monster flick, that then led to Wolf Man, a revival of another creature feature from the Universal vault. Heavy on body horror, it stars Christopher Abbott as a man contending with childhood traumas and legacy it leaves on his own fatherhood.

Watch: Netflix