The 7 Best Horror Movies Currently Streaming On Peacock
Movie genres may ebb and flow out of popularity, but horror remains a permanent fixture in the annals of pop culture.
Like romantic comedies or family-friendly Disney films, every generation expresses enthusiasm towards horror films, bonding over the continuous jump scares, disturbing narratives, and relatable protagonists featured in such iconic films as Dracula and Frankenstein in the 1930s to Get Out and Hereditary in more recent decades.
Luckily, viewers will find plenty of worthwhile streaming options when looking at the numerous horror films featured on Peacock, including the platform’s most buzzworthy new arrival: 2024’s Nosferatu. From unsettling slasher films to bewildering ghost stories, here are some of the greatest horror films currently streaming on Peacock.
Terrifier (2016)
Nowadays, most people tend to look more fondly on the recent entries in the Terrifier series than they do the franchise’s original installment. Growing from a low-budget indie horror film into one of the most successful slasher franchises of the past decade, Damien Leone’s Terrifier has managed to become the modern equivalent to Scream, Halloween, or A Nightmare on Elm Street, complete with an easily recognizable central villain in the form of Art the Clown. Though its later installments might be stronger, there’s still something about seeing the Terrifier series in its infancy with its opening 2016 chapter, showcasing Leone’s maturation from an aspiring indie hopeful into the gory successor to John Carpenter, Wes Craven, or Tobe Hooper we know and love today.
The House of the Devil (2009)
Like Terrifier’s Damien Leone, director Ti West has gone on to redefine the slasher genre in more recent years, spearheading A24’s creative tour de force with X, its prequel Pearl, and its later sequel MaXXXine. Before he was busy reinventing the slasher format, however, West gave audiences a similarly spectacular supernatural horror film with 2009’s The House of the Devil. Playing off the “Satanic fears” that permeated throughout 1980s American mass culture, The House of the Devil offers a chill-inducing horror film that feels like an epic combination of Rosemary’s Baby, The Amityville Horror, and Halloween, wrapped tightly together into one unholy package.
Let the Right One In (2008)
Apologies to any Twilight fans reading this, but Let the Right One In is almost certainly the best romantic horror film featuring fiction’s infamous bloodsuckers in a central role. Set against the wintery backdrop of 1980s Stockholm, Let the Right One In balances out its spine-tingling horror with plenty of cathartic drama, focusing intently on the relationship formed between an alienated 12-year-old boy and an equally lonely vampiric girl. Tense, thought-provoking, and heartily ambitious when subverting traditional vampire film stereotypes, Let the Right One In seems to owe as much to Moonrise Kingdom as it does to Dracula, cementing it as a gothic horror film viewers won’t soon forget.
The Black Phone (2021)
Just as Universal remained synonymous with horror in the 1930s, audiences have quickly come to see Blumhouse Productions as a premium purveyor of contemporary horror. Just as they’d managed to terrify audiences with Paranormal Activity, Insidious, and The Invisible Man, Blumhouse once again spooked audiences to their core with their 2021 supernatural horror film, The Black Phone. Based on Joe Hill’s haunting short story, The Black Phone’s claustrophobic narrative establishes Hill as a more than worthy successor to his father Stephen King’s mantle as “The King of Horror,” brilliantly weaving together ESP, sadistic serial killers, and the restless ghosts of deceased children seeking revenge for their tragically early deaths.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
It speaks volumes that The Texas Chain Saw Massacre remains such a defining slasher in the genre’s history, turning modern audiences’ stomachs with the same ease as it had in the autumn of 1974. Squeezing every penny out of his meager budget, director Tobe Hooper conjures up a grittier atmosphere straight out of a ‘70s grindhouse horror film with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, allowing audiences to experience the nauseating settings of the movie firsthand for themselves. Between its captivating realism, haunting psychological scares, and enigmatic antagonists (none more so than the notorious Leatherface), it’s a classic slasher perfectly deserving of its praise and attention over five decades later.
Speak No Evil (2024)
As previously discussed, Blumhouse has made a name for itself as a dependably entertaining studio that specializes in modern horror. Following in the footsteps of Blumhouse’s breakout projects like Split and Get Out, Speak No Evil delivers a heart-pounding thriller reminiscent of a vintage Alfred Hitchcock film. Presenting a suspenseful plot punctuated by dizzying plot twists throughout, Speak No Evil makes for another memorable outing for Blumhouse’s growing canon of horror films, appealing to dedicated genre fans and average viewers alike.
Nosferatu (2024)
It’s a bold move to remake a horror movie as universally recognizable as 1922’s Nosferatu. But then again, director Robert Eggers has proven himself a characteristically ambitious filmmaker. Tackling his source material with artful dedication, Eggers manages to revitalize the vampiric narrative for a new generation with 2024’s Nosferatu, asserting his own fascinating vision for Bram Stoker’s Dracula-inspired narrative. Bolstered by mesmerizing performances from Bill Skarsgård and Lily-Rose Depp, it’s quite possibly the ultimate adaptation of Stoker’s novel to date, unfolding like a feverish nightmare you’re unable to fully awake from.
