12 New Horror Movies to Watch in October 2026 Across Streaming Platforms

Spooky season is here, and all major streaming services are boosting their horror offerings to appeal to viewers who want to get into the Halloween spirit early. October is the ideal time to make popcorn, curl up on the couch, and watch some movies designed to give you nightmares.

New streaming offerings include true classics and brand-new films spanning every subgenre, including zombies, slashers, body horror, and creepy romance. You can always press pause if a movie gets too scary and you need a break.

Bones and All (2022)

• Available on Pluto
• Run time: 2h 10m
• Director: Luca Guadagnino
• Cast: Taylor Russell, Timothée Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg

Bones and All puts a gory spin on young love by focusing on the budding romance between a pair of cannibals. Maren (Taylor Russell) has a history of biting people and sets out on a cross-country road trip to find her mother and get answers about her gruesome cravings. She meets and falls for Lee (Timothée Chalamet), another eater, and the two try to build a life together.

From our review:

Like Call Me by Your Name, Bones and All is a sensual movie, particularly visually — Guadagnino luxuriates in the kind of big-sky-country vistas that made Andrea Arnold’s similarly summer-break-themed American Honey so memorable, and he lights his leads warmly in the day and with skulking fervor at night. But it’s more remarkable for the way he and Kajganich navigate the push and pull between the story’s romantic elements and horror themes. There’s a big metaphor at play here about how parents, families, and friends enable aberrant behavior until it feels normal, and how being protected from the world can make it hard to properly enter it. And it plays in radically different ways at the same time: both through the lens of two young kids on a romantic road trip, and as two growing monsters seducing and killing other people for food.

Doctor Sleep (2019)

• Available on Paramount Plus
• Run time: 2h 32m
• Director: Mike Flanagan
• Cast: Ewan McGregor, Rebecca Ferguson, Kyliegh Curran

Set 31 years after The Shining, Doctor Sleep follows Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor) as he struggles to cope with memories of his father’s murderous rampage. The adaptation of Stephen King’s book leans into Danny’s psychic powers as he forges a connection with a girl possessing the shining and tries to protect her from a brutal vampire group.

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

• Available on Paramount Plus
• Run time: 1h 48m
• Director: Robert Rodriguez
• Cast: Harvey Keitel, George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino wrote the script for this cult classic, which begins as a crime drama before turning into grindhouse horror. Bank robbers Seth (George Clooney) and Richie Gecko (Quentin Tarantino) flee across the Mexican border to meet a contact at an all-night strip club. When the strippers turn out to be vampires, the men must fight to survive until dawn.

It Follows (2014)

• Available on Paramount Plus
• Run time: 1h 40m
• Director: David Robert Mitchell
• Cast: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Daniel Zovatto, Jake Weary

Another cult hit, It Follows made the most of a tiny budget. After college student Jay Height (Maika Monroe) has sex with her boyfriend Hugh (Jake Weary) for the first time, he reveals she will be pursued by a strange entity until she infects someone else through intercourse. Chased by a force only she can see, Jay seeks answers while trying to buy herself time.

Hokum (2026)

• Available on Hulu
• Run time: 1h 47m
• Director: Damian McCarthy
• Cast: Adam Scott, Florence Ordesh, Peter Coonan

American author Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) travels to the Irish hotel where his parents honeymooned to scatter their ashes. He discovers the honeymoon suite is locked and supposedly haunted by a witch while confronting strange locals and staff as he faces his own past and the secrets of the place.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

• Available on HBO
• Run time: 1h 31m
• Director: Wes Craven
• Cast: John Saxon, Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp

Designed to make you afraid of going to sleep, A Nightmare on Elm Street follows a group of teenagers pursued by the undead killer Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), who kills victims by entering their dreams. Considered one of the best horror films ever made, it inspired numerous sequels.

Psycho (1960)

• Available on Netflix
• Run time: 1h 49m
• Director: Alfred Hitchcock
• Cast: Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Janet Leigh

Even if you have not seen Psycho, you likely know the shower scene, which is one of the most famous moments in cinematic history. Master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock helped establish the slasher genre with a tale about embezzling secretary Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), who hides out in the remote Bates Motel and finds something sinister lurking there.

Scream (1996)

• Available on Pluto
• Run time: 1h 51m
• Director: Wes Craven
• Cast: David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox

A Nightmare on Elm Street director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson mock slasher genre tropes with Scream, where knowing horror trivia can be a matter of life or death. A group of high school students pursued by a costumed killer try to survive using movie logic. Pluto also streams the four Scream sequels for a series marathon.

Freaks (2019)

• Available on HBO
• Run time: 1h 45m
• Directors: Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky
• Cast: Emile Hirsch, Bruce Dern, Grace Park, Lexy Kolker

This genre-bending film follows Chloe (Lexy Kolker), a seven-year-old who has never left her dilapidated suburban home because her father Henry (Emile Hirsch) claims bad people lurk outside. The mystery of what is really happening unfurls slowly as Chloe and Henry grapple for control of their fraught lives.

The Sixth Sense (1999)

• Available on Netflix
• Run time: 1h 47m
• Director: M. Night Shyamalan
• Cast: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Haley Joel Osment

After one of his patients commits suicide, child psychiatrist Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) seeks redemption by helping Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), a boy with the ability to see ghosts. They work together to help the dead haunting Cole find peace. The Sixth Sense established M. Night Shyamalan’s penchant for twist endings, and it remains one of his best films.

 

Source: Polygon