Top Horror Movies Streaming This Week

How appropriate is it that the top ten list from the week of Halloween should crown John Carpenter's magnificent masterpiece of small-town terror as number one? It is the most appropriate outcome for four weeks of scary season that saw the film continue to score highly with streaming fans.  We admit it, we had our fingers crossed that we would be able to write this exact paragraph. The horror fans have spoken.

John Carpenter wrote the script with his screenwriting partner and producer, Debra Hill, in a short amount of time that was either ten days or three weeks, and made a film so powerful that after 48 years it's still the favorite film to watch on Halloween. Made for $300,000, it grossed $65 million, and while Carpenter referred to it as “true crass exploitation,” he also made the film he would have wanted to see as a child. It's not only a classic, it's also a treasure.

Halloween (1978) is now streaming on AMC+ and Shudder.

There are actually eight other films that use the title Obsession, with Curry Barker's movie as the ninth and latest film. The film did become part of the zeitgeist of 2026 after its release, and it really spoke to something deep within audiences, especially those in Gen Z, who packed the theaters as word of mouth spread. Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson (Barker's co-creator of the YouTube channel that's a bad idea), Megan Lawless, and Andy Richter star in the creepy movie about lust, love, and wishes gone terribly wrong.

The film is currently the fifth highest-grossing horror film of all time, unadjusted for inflation, and it made $525 million at the box office as a relatively low-budget, non-union film.  While the film did do reshoots of some scenes, they were unable to reshoot in the house where the party scene was filmed because the original house was destroyed during the fires in Los Angeles in January 2025.

Obsession is now streaming on Peacock, but only until November 15.

For a film released in 2016, writer and director Jeremy Saulnier's Green Room has aged remarkably well and has become a hit this week with horror fans at home. While there is nothing supernatural in the film, it is a terrifying story of a punk band trapped in a literal green room after playing a show in front of a hostile audience of skinhead neo-Nazis. The film stars the late Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, Alia Shawkat, Joe Cole, Callum Turner, and Patrick Stewart, who recently passed away, as the ruthless skinhead leader Darcy.

During a Q&A at a 10th anniversary screening of the film in Los Angeles, which was meant to promote Saulnier's next film, Slayground,  which is a film that should be of great interest to fans of the genre, the director thanked the actor for saving the film. He told the audience that Patrick Stewart was the reason he was still making films. Green Room has a wonderful cast, including the writer and director Macon Blair (The Toxic Avenger (2025), but Stewart's utterly calm performance as the no-nonsense Nazi is one of the most frightening things in it. Stewart took a big chance, wandering far from the warm persona that he honed in Star Trek: The Next Generation. For the gorehounds, the film has one of the most disturbing acts of violence we've seen, with an appalling practical-effects wound that still gives us the chills.

Green Room is now streaming on Hoopla, Kanopy, Netflix, and Tubi.  The film will leave Netflix and Hoopla on November 28 and Tubi on November 29.

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The good thing about making a movie about a well-known creepypasta for four years is that you definitely know the concept very well and probably have lots of ideas about what you could do with a feature film. The bad thing is that fans of the YouTube series that you made about The Backrooms might have some high expectations of any film made from their favorite creepypasta. 21-year-old Kane Parsons dodged expectations with ease, making a feature film debut that became one of 2026's most profitable films and received critical acclaim.

Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, and Lukita Maxwell star in the film, which creates a gently unsettling world that seems to drive the people who remain inside too long insane. It is gently unsettling until the moment when it is not, and that's when the film grips the viewer in its fist, pushing all of the air out of their lungs.

Backrooms is now streaming on HBO Max.

Irish filmmaker Damien McCarthy made his first feature film at age 39: Caveat, don't give up on your dreams.  Hokum is his third film and his first with theatrical distribution in the United States through Neon and in the UK with Black Bear Pictures. It stars Adam Scott, Peter Coonan, David Wilmot, Florence Ordesh, and Michael Patric and was a respectable hit in theaters.

In it, an American writer, Ohm Bauman, visits the hotel in Ireland where his parents spent their honeymoon with his parents' ashes, as he struggles with writer's block. Ohm has no idea of the hotel's reputation as the center of a haunting. Ohm finds that even stranger and more frightening forces are at work as he tries to discover what is really happening in the hotel.

Hokum is now streaming on Hulu.

Speaking of connections, the director and co-writer of The Cycle, Jordan Downey, wrote the script with Kevin Stewart, who was also the cinematographer on the film. The two filmmakers met at Loyola Marymount University, and Downey became an intern at Midnight Pictures, which was Wes Craven's production company. Craven is not just one of horror's most beloved writer/directors; he also has two films on this week's top ten.

One of the most talked-about features of The Cycle is its use of lovingly produced practical effects. Critics praised the film for the attention and work that went into creating the creatures that emerge, as Deborah Ann Woll,  as Meg, gets closer to solving the mystery of her father's disappearance.  Jeffrey Donovan, Jordan Downey, Kevin Stewart, and Will Hochman co-star in the film, which has also been praised by Stephen King.

The Cycle is now streaming on Shudder.

There are quite a few connections between the films in the top ten during Halloween week. Another connection is the influence of slasher films on the writer and director of the film in seventh place this week, Jane Schoenbrun's Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. It is a surreal, romantic, and bloody answer to an entire subgenre of horror, and a satire of slasher films that totally understands the danger and sexual charge of the films.

Hannah Einbinder, Gillian Anderson, Dylan Baker, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Kevin McDonald,  Louise Weard, and Patrick Fischler star in the film that isn't afraid to be funny or sentimental about snacks. Jack Haven plays Little Death, the saddest slasher killer you've ever seen, whose pain radiates from behind the mask even during a brutal needle-drop scene involving a lot of carnage.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now streaming on Mubi.

Horror master Wes Craven's films are very well represented in the top ten this week, with his quintessential “don't go to sleep” terror tale, A Nightmare on Elm Street, busting its way onto the list for the first time in October. Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Johnny Depp, and Robert Englund as the iconic horror villain,  Freddy Krueger, star in the movie, which quickly became a horror fan favorite.

One of the most frightening parts of the film, aside from Freddy, is the plot point that the killer with knife fingers comes to you in your dreams, so the only way you can stay safe is to never sleep. It's a simple but horrific impossibility also used in Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Deep in their hearts, the characters know it's only a matter of time before they drift off. Craven made great use of the tendency to fall asleep without noticing it and made the dream state of the characters into another hellish world where Freddy is waiting.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) is now streaming on AMC.

The meta-slasher that electrified the horror genre in 1996 and the classic film closest to 2026 just keeps on racking up the views.  Actors David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Matthew Lillard, Rose McGowan, Skeet Ulrich, and Drew Barrymore played the characters in Scream that would lead to some of them continuing on in the series in the decades since.  Some, but not all, as even beloved characters in a slasher film series don't always make it to the next sequel.

Scream is the second film directed by horror maestro Wes Craven on the list and was also a big influence on the wave of slasher films that followed it. It is usually described as being meta, but it is also a satire meant to show the audience the reality of violence, as Craven said in an interview with FANGORIA written by Chris Garcia in 1997.  The film has the distinction of being the second movie directed by Craven to spawn a franchise. Craven did a cameo in Scream as Fred the janitor, dressed in that sweater as a homage to Freddy.

Scream (1996) is now streaming on HBO Max, Hoopla, Kanopy, and Paramount+.  The film is leaving Hoopla on November 27.

We are now in the month of November, and this is the month when the very last Friday the 13th of 2026 is on the calendar.  Many people have been watching Friday the 13th for the scary season, but it's hard to imagine that the trend won't continue into next week, when the horror holiday starts off the weekend.  Pluto TV has made sure to stock its roster with eight movies from the franchise: Friday the 13th (1980), Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), Part III (1982), The Final Chapter (1984), A New Beginning (1985), Jason Lives (1986), The New Blood (1988), Jason Takes Manhattan (1989), and the documentary His Name Was Jason (2003).

Friday the 13th is on no less than five streaming services this month, so you have plenty of options even if you don't do a binge-watch weekend. The film is also one of the classic films on this week's list, as one of the four influential films back in the top ten for the scary season. Not only has it inspired the newly released series Crystal Lake, but it is also part of the DNA of another film in the top ten, Jane Schoenbrun's Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

Friday the 13th (1984) is now streaming on AMC, Kanopy, Netflix, Paramount+,  Pluto TV, and YouTube.