10 of the Best Horror Movies Released in the US Since 2000

The AV Club ranked recent fright flicks and tells you how to stream them
By Liz MacGahan,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 12, 2021 4:57 PM CDT
10 of the Best Horror Movies Released in the US Since 2000
Can you handle these truly terrifying movies?   (peakSTOCK/Getty Images)

You still have time. Start streaming tonight and with some hard work and discipline, you could get through the best horror movies since Jan. 1, 2000, by Halloween. The AV Club has figured out what’s worth watching and where to watch it, so fans of Halloween movies that aren’t Halloween can plan out the rest of their October viewing. They’ve been making this list for six years now, updating it with current streaming options. The lists authors give credit to other eras—1930s monster movies, 1980s slasher movies—but decided to stick closer to recent history. "It’s possible to imagine a future when the turn of the new millennium will be thought as a renaissance period for scary movies"—or maybe the movies are just scarier because we’re still immersed in the anxieties the movies are metaphors for.

The top 10 are:

  1. Audition. This 1999 Japanese movie, "a potent, discomfiting thesis about ostensibly benign forms of sexism," came out in the US in 2001, so it narrowly fits their criteria.
  2. It Follows. From 2014, this movie puts "a supernatural spin on that irrational feeling that someone is right behind you, getting closer with every step."
  3. The Babadook. It’s a haunted house movie with a heavy psychological weight. “This is a deeply unsettling film about what happens to horror movie victims when they don’t die, but can’t escape.”
  4. The House of the Devil. This 2009 creepfest feels like a throwback to 1983, the year it’s set. It was even released on VHS, long after everyone gave their VHS players to thrift stores.
  5. 28 Days Later. Danny Boyle introduced fast zombies, switching “the undead metaphor from shuffling, decaying remnants of society to a raw, untamed rage.”
  6. Drag Me to Hell. Sam Raimi, who brought the world Evil Dead and Bruce Campbell in 1981, returned to his horror roots in 2009. “He shamelessly uses every trick in the horror director’s book, including loud sound effects, kinetic camera work, jump scares, and a variety of gross-out sequences.”
  7. The Descent. This story about six women exploring a subterranean cave system “elegantly combines grief and claustrophobia with the fear of being eaten alive by preternatural monsters.”
  8. Cure. Of this, the AV Club says, “Few movies are so purely scary.”
  9. Let the Right One In. The original Swedish movie is a coming-of-age tale—with vampires.
  10. Inside. This French movie is nominally about a creepy woman who wants to steal a pregnant woman’s baby. "By the end of the movie, enough gore has accumulated to fill the elevator from The Shining."

See the full list to find out where to stream all of these. (More Halloween stories.)

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