Best Horror Movies, Films, and Streaming Features of 2021
Movie streaming has been a coup for the horror movie genre. Relatively low filming budgets and the movie industry’s need for non-stop content have seen an overwhelming number of horror films released in 2021.
Thankfully the quantity has also delivered an abundance of quality. 2021 saw some of horror’s biggest names, from franchises like Saw, Halloween, and The Purge, to creators such as James Wan, M. Night Shyamalan, and even R.L. Stine (for those of us who have loved horror since our childhoods).
When it comes to horror movies, there was something brutally spectacular for every horror fan this year. Please enjoy our Best Horror Movies, Films, and Streaming Features of 2021.
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1. A Quiet Place Part II
Once again, John Krasinski manages to render relatively straightforward tasks — nursing a baby, tuning a radio, walking through a train car — harrowing; dialogue, by necessity, is rarely wasted, and his actors feel far more sympathetically human and real than most meat-puppet horror chum.
Maybe that's why it all ends so abruptly, after a meticulous walk-up: When you've put in the work for this kind of world-building, it's not a one-and-done sequel; it's a franchise.
Read more here.
2. My Heart Can't Beat Unless You Tell It To
The decrepit and faded beige home of siblings Dwight (a gaunt and hollow-eyed Patrick Fugit), Jessie (Ingrid Sophie Schram, angular and brooding), and Thomas (the elfin Owen Campbell, of the equally bleak ‘Super Dark Times’) has become a pit of codependence.
Jonathan Cuartas tenderly catches the scenario at the end of the road, leaving only the question of who, if any, will be able to walk away. Not that their existence is tenable for anyone that crosses their paths, and Cuartas' script gives plenty of space for the core trio to explore their tragic roles in this disaster.
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3. Werewolves Within
A new horror-comedy classic whodunnit in the honored tradition of Clue, Werewolves Within finds the laughs in the jump scare, and brings back the uproarious joy of the "it's behind you!" creeping fright. Kudos to director Josh Ruben and casting directors Gayle Keller and Emer O'Callaghan for assembling an ensemble that would make Christopher Guest cock an eyebrow.
Read full review.
4. The Boy Behind the Door
Every decade has its prolific child actors. The ones that utterly blow us all away with their emotional capacity and deep relatability, the ones who are too funny for their own good. Jodie Foster. Macaulay Culkin. Anna Paquin. Jacob Tremblay. Now, thanks to Shudder’s The Boy Behind the Door, Lonnie Chavis joins those highly regarded ranks.
Writer/directors David Charbonier and Justin Powell’s film follows 12-year-olds Bobby (Chavis) and Kevin, two best friends who get abducted before a Little League bout. It opens on the pair begging for their lives as Kevin gets ripped from the car trunk where he and his friend have been held captive.
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5. Last Night In Soho
Last Night In Soho is an intoxicatingly distinctive, delirious creation that soars out of every pigeonhole you put it in. It's a hyperactive, free-flowing, intensely emotional, must-see movie.
It also marks a refreshing change for the director and co-writer of “Shaun of the Dead,” “Hot Fuzz,” and “Baby Driver.” Left behind is Edgar Wright’s trademark hyperactive editing and insistent post-modernism; in its place is flowing movement and intense emotion. It’s not just different from his previous films; it’s different from everyone else’s previous films.
Read more here.
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6. Till Death
In spite of its icy backdrop, the part home-invasion chiller, part murder-mystery Till Death could prove to be the actual summer movie you’ve been craving for a while: undemanding, a little silly, but a thoroughly engrossing and handsomely paced edge-of-your seat experience all the same.
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7. Willy's Wonderland
Nicolas Cage battling evil, murderous animatronics? It’s an earnest-yet-crudely executed low-budget horror flick about a drifter who gets trapped inside a haunted Chuck E. Cheese-style pizzeria and left to die at the claws of a robotic weasel and its malicious minions.
Willy's Wonderland is a no-frills splatterfest that finds chills and thrills thanks to bashing the hell out of weaponized pizza parlor characters.
Read full review.
8. Boys from County Hell
The villagers of Six Mile Hill tell tales of legendary Irish bloodsucker Abhartach — the ‘real’ Dracula — to frighten and swindle feckless tourists. But when pals Eugene (Jack Rowan) and William (Fra Fee) unwittingly unleash the ancient evil one fateful night, a bloody battle ensues for the village and its people’s survival.
Combining genuine emotional stakes, biting black humour and enough blood and dismembered limbs to satisfy even seasoned gorehounds, Chris Baugh’s terrific, unorthodox vampire flick has got it where it counts.
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9. PG: Psycho Goreman
Psycho Goreman is the Canadian splatter comedy of your dreams, or maybe nightmares. A delirious, disgusting and delightfully dark concoction, this low-budget movie is the latest throwback creation from Steven Kostanski (Manborg, The Void), whose artistic vision seems perma-stuck in the sugary-cereal haze of a Saturday morning circa 1989.
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10. Malignant
James Wan breaks all the horror rules with gusto. ‘The Conjuring’ director sucks viewers into his mad monster vortex of sketchy ideas and viscera. Malignant might not hold up to scrutiny but by the time all its mysteries are revealed, it’s clear that it was never supposed to. It’s an absurdly entertaining frightfest with a heavy emphasis on the absurd, and thank heaven — or hell — for it.
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11. Slaxx
If the idea of killer jeans makes you crack a grin, and even if you’ve been disappointed by horror movies with similarly silly central conceits, it’s worth your time to try on Slaxx. You might be surprised how enjoyable this bootcut bloodbath feels.
Director Elza Kephart (who co-wrote with Patricia Gomez) doesn’t hit below the belt with that particularly painful pinch, but her delightfully schlocky movie definitely ups the kill count contributable to denim—all stitched into a critique of the clothing industry, from the harvest to the high-end boutique.
Read full review.
12. Lucky
Lucky indulges in all of the horror movie tropes, but it does so with a purpose. When May, frantic, wakes up her husband Ted (Dhruv Uday Singh), Ted is more irritated by May's panic than concerned about the potential intruder. As he grabs a baseball bat to go fight off the unknown man, Ted tells her this happens every night. Every night, a man breaks into their house and tries to kill them. "This is just how things are," Ted says. May is shaken. She doesn't remember. But Ted is right. The next night, it happens again. And the next night. And the next night.
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13. Antlers
Antlers is a film about darkness. Human darkness. Supernatural darkness. Literal, low-lit filmmaking darkness. It is a slimy, icky, violent film that undeniably feels like it has emerged from the passions of its creators, particularly director Scott Cooper and producer Guillermo del Toro.
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14. The Forever Purge
With Native American activists (Zahn McClarnon), anti-Mexican cartel women vigilantes, and the eye-opening power of white guilt when indebted to someone for your life, The Forever Purge is erasing the line separating its high-concept fiction from the nation outside our window. This franchise has never looked quite so familiar.
Read more here.
15. Old
Old is unsettling and creepy, beautifully shot and weirdly visceral. You know - an M. Night Shyamalan film. It’s the sort of supernaturally-tinged story we’ve learned to expect from him, with the same brand of ludicrous/intriguing elevator pitch description. It is also precisely the sort of premise with which a filmmaker like Shyamalan can have some fun.
Read full review.
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16. Spiral: From the Book of Saw
It might be a controversial opinion among the fanboys and girls of the Eighties slasher franchises, but the Saw series is one of the most interesting mainstream horror franchises of all time. Spiral embodies the franchise James Wan and Leigh Whannell built, while being totally refurbished for a new generation.
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17. Fear Street Parts 1, 2 and 3
Fear Street is rich with character, world-building, Easter eggs, and scares. Netflix's new horror trilogy based on R.L. Stine's young-adult book series delivers. Horror fans will be grinning over a visual allusion, then be pulled to the edge of their seat by this slaughter-packed adventure, then catch themselves screaming at a harrowingly portrayed murder.
Find out more about Part 1.
18. Censor
This thrilling, dizzying debut from Welsh writer-director Prano Bailey-Bond is a nostalgic treat for anyone old enough to remember the infamous “video nasties” scare of the early 80s. Yet beneath the retro surface lies a more universal tale about the power of horror to confront our deepest fears – a timeless celebration of the liberating nature of the dark side.
Find out more.
19. Monster Hunter
There are monsters, there are explosions, and there is Ron Perlman with beautifully feathered hair. This is a film that is all about vicious spectacle. There is no need to ask questions or wonder about certain aspects of the plot: This is another dimension populated with monsters, that’s all you need to know. Monster Hunter asks you to let every fantastical second wash over you.
Read full review.
20. False Positive
One can’t help but think of “Rosemary’s Baby” when watching the wickedly effective and disturbing psychological horror film “False Positive,” with Ilana Glazer’s Lucy as a kind of cinematic descendant of Mia Farrow’s Rosemary from the 1968 classic. With each meticulously framed shot and an appropriately old-school horror movie score ramping up the tension, “False Positive” does a slow build to a deeply twisted and grotesque and memorable climax that makes Lucy’s nightmares seem like sweet dreams by comparison.
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21. Army of the Dead
Zack Snyder’s best movie since his debut, the zombie film “Dawn Of The Dead” (2004), Army Of The Dead is tremendously compelling and deftly navigates a lot of different tones, even if it quickly leaves more interesting ones behind.
Largely captivating and thrilling, for all is gore, darkly twisted comedy, and delicious tension— surely something satisfied audiences will walk away with—there’s also a minor but palatable sense of loss and melancholy. One that echoes the hardships of the pandemic age and ruthless American capitalism and gives the film some socio-political edge.
Read more here.
22. Halloween Kills
Director David Gordon Green delivers a smart, sturdy second chapter. Low consequence, perhaps, but still highly entertaining. Many horror movies become frustrating as characters make daft decisions, putting themselves in unnecessary danger. But Halloween Kills intriguingly suggests these characters are almost doing it on purpose, lining up to be cannon fodder as a way of processing their deepest fears.
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23. Candyman
What Candyman lacks in gore, it makes up for by depicting true trauma. Set in modern day Chicago, Candyman, the “remake” of the iconic 1992 film of the same name, turns out not to be a remake at all. Directed by Nia DaCosta, it’s more of an addition to the series’ original story, than it is a retelling of Bernard Rose’s cult classic. Candyman pays homage to the original, while still maintaining its uniqueness with a fresh and provocative plot.
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24. Coming Home in the Dark
Violence curdles in the air every time menacing drifter Mandrake opens his mouth. "I'm a magician," he smugly threatens his latest victims. "I make things disappear."
It's Daniel Gillies' performance that raises Coming Home in the Dark from fascinating to utterly chilling, complimenting Matt Henley's cold, angular cinematography and John Gibson's score, all reed instruments and long, clean draws over strings, like an icy wind blowing slow through dead grass and bones.
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25. The Spine of Night
The Spine of Night serves as an entertaining, action-heavy, gnarly throwback to the hyper-violent, high-fantasy rotoscoped animation of the 1980s. A character being stabbed in the chest looks absolutely gnarly, a club bludgeoning a character’s head hits with harder than any live-action punch ever could, and seeing a film so realistically capture the human body only to then smash it into pieces is absolutely thrilling, perfectly capturing the feeling of watching Fire and Ice, or Ralph Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings.
Read more here.
Want more horror movie reviews? The Sea Shell mobile app is available worldwide as a free download on the App Store and the Play Store. Download it today.