The 22 best supernatural movies on Amazon Prime
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Death represents the final chapter — except when it doesn't. As Taylor Swift once said, "What died didn't stay dead," and in the supernatural films on this list, the undead are everywhere. The ghosts on this list live in asylums, Ivy League institutions, and sunny, suburban homes, but they all have one thing in common: They're ready to create chaos. Here to haunt you from beyond the grave is EW's list of the 22 best supernatural movies streaming on Amazon Prime Video right now.
Black Box (2020)
The mind is a terrible thing to waste, and in the horror sci-fi film Black Box, mind games run rampant. Nolan Wright is a single father suffering from amnesia after surviving a car crash that killed his wife. Struggling to remember how to perform basic tasks both at work and in his personal life, Nolan reaches out to a neurologist who deems him a perfect candidate for her experimental black box treatment.
Repeated journeys into his mind force Nolan to battle the monsters in his memories, but the deeper he delves, the more he suspects that his past is not what it seems. A Blumhouse Television production full of twists, turns, and traumas that push Nolan to horrifying realizations, Black Box questions how much control we really have over our minds, and the lengths to which people will go to keep their loved ones alive. —Ilana Gordon
Where to watch Black Box: Amazon Prime Video
Director: Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour Jr.
Cast: Mamoudou Athie, Phylicia Rashad, Amanda Christine, Tosin Morohunfola, Charmaine Bingwa
Related content: The 19 best Blumhouse horror movies
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
In 1994, three student filmmakers hike into the wooded area surrounding Maryland's Black Hills to shoot a documentary about a witch and are never heard from again. A year after their disappearance, footage from their cameras is discovered, giving some insight into the events leading up to their disappearance. When The Blair Witch Project was released in 1999, the indie horror film helped redefine the genre, creating a market for found footage films and releasing an online advertising campaign so believable, some audience members thought the actors who starred in the movie were actually dead. The film's premise — while terrifying — is ultimately superfluous. In true Hitchcockian form, the scariest parts of The Blair Witch Project are the parts that go unseen and unexplained, inviting audiences to use their imaginations and fill in the blanks. The filmmakers understood that the unknown is always the scariest option — and their film proves them right. —I.G.
Where to watch The Blair Witch Project: Amazon Prime Video
EW grade: B (read the review)
Director: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez
Cast: Heather Donahue, Michael Williams, Joshua Leonard
Related content: The Blair Witch Project: 5 things you didn't know about the scariest low-budget horror movie ever
Candyman (2021)
Nobody knows how to subvert horror tropes and transform them into social commentary quite like Jordan Peele, who wrote the script for the urban legend slasher movie Candyman. A sequel to the 1992 film and the fourth installment in the Candyman franchise, Peele's take — directed by Nia DaCosta — centers the story in a rapidly gentrifying area of Chicago near the now-shuttered Cabrini Green projects.
The movie's monster is Candyman, a killer with a hook for a hand who has terrorized the area for decades and can be summoned by repeating his name five times in front of a mirror. When visual artist Anthony learns the story behind the legend from a longtime Cabrini resident, he becomes obsessed with the killer, endangering both his artwork and sanity. A cult classic adapted for modern audiences and peppered with the social and cultural criticism that distinguishes Peele's work, Candyman will grab you with one hand and hook you with the other. —I.G.
Where to watch Candyman: Amazon Prime Video
Director: Nia DaCosta
Cast: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Colman Domingo
Related content: Candyman sequel director releases animated short featuring iconic horror character
Carnival of Souls (1962)
One of the most influential horror movies ever produced was made by a small team of industrial filmmakers in Lawrence, Kansas and Salt Lake City for just $33,000 in 1962. Director Herk Harvey has said he wanted to make a drive-in movie as it might have been made by Ingmar Bergman, and Carnival of Souls is exactly that — it's obsessed with the looming specter of death and the way it ripples through every aspect a life, from our artistic passions to our relationships. It begins when a carful of friends drives off a bridge and into a river. Mary survives the crash, but can't remember how. She moves to Salt Lake City to be an organist at a church, but she's terrified by the music she produces, which is deemed sacrilegious by the pastor. She can't form new relationships, and finds herself haunted by visions of a strange man. EW's Owen Gleiberman says it "may be the ultimate horror film to watch late at night." —Randall Colburn
Where to watch Carnival of Souls: Amazon Prime Video
Director: Herk Harvey
Cast: Candace Hilligoss, Frances Feist, Sidney Berger
Related content: Carnival of Souls: The movie that inspired Insidious is the spookiest, weirdest, and maybe greatest horror film you've never seen
Children of the Corn (1984)
What would you do to ensure a successful corn harvest? For the children of the rural (and fictional) town of Gatlin, Neb., the answer is murder. A slasher film adapted from Stephen King's 1977 short story, Children of the Corn tells the story of a supernatural entity known as "He Who Walks Behind the Rows," whose malevolent presence motivates Gatlin youth to ritually murder all the local adults — plus a few others for good measure — to make sure that year's corn harvest is a bountiful one. The first in a franchise that includes 10 films — including a 2023 remake directed by Kurt Wimmer — Children of the Corn is violent, tense, and only a little corny. —I.G.
Where to watch Children of the Corn: Amazon Prime Video
Director: Fritz Kiersch
Cast: Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton, John Franklin, Courtney Gains, Robby Kiger, Anne Marie McEvoy, Julie Maddalena, R. G. Armstrong
Related content: The 24 best horror movies of the '80s
Evil Eye (2020)
Soulmates and reincarnation figure heavily into the supernatural vibes of Evil Eye, the third installment of the Welcome to the Blumhouse anthology of horror films on Amazon Prime Video. Sarita Choudhury stars as Usha, a woman who only wants the best for her daughter — a wealthy, handsome Indian suitor — but when Pallavi (Sunita Mani) begins dating Sandeep (Omar Maskati), attraction soon reveals itself to be an other-worldly obsession. What if someone's stalker was powered by the supernatural? That's the terrifying conceit at the core of Evil Eye, and worse, Usha sees Sandeep's true intentions, but no one, including her daughter, will believe her. Rule of thumb: If a guy like Sandeep seems too good to be true, he probably is. And when he's using out-of-this-world forces to fuel his obsessive, controlling behavior, a mother's love may be its only match. —Johnny Loftus
Where to watch Evil Eye: Amazon Prime Video
Director: Elan Dassani, Rajeev Dassani
Cast: Sarita Choudhury, Sunita Mani, Omar Maskati, Bernard White
Related content: The best Blumhouse horror movies
The Golem (2018)
Set in 17th century Lithuania, The Golem is an Israeli supernatural horror film based on a monster from Jewish folklore. Benjamin (Ishai Golan) and Hanna (Hani Furstenberg) are a young couple living in a small Jewish village, struggling to conceive seven years after the death of their son. When the Jews in their area are accused of cursing their fellow peasants with the Black Death, Hanna summons a Golem to protect the village from its enemies. But even though the Golem Hanna creates looks strangely like her dead son, she soon learns the creature has no allegiance to her — or the people she intends for it to protect. Directed by the Paz brothers (JeruZalem) and filmed outside of Kyiv, Ukraine, The Golem is the rare horror project that feels both historical and modern, juxtaposing unique details and themes from Jewish mythology atop familiar genre tropes, and ending up with a singular vision that speaks to grief, gender roles, and the thin line between victim and aggressor. —I.G.
Where to watch The Golem: Amazon Prime Video
Cast: Hani Furstenberg, Ishai Golan, Brynie Furstenberg, Adi Kvetner, Lenny Ravich, Lex Tritenko
Related content: JeruZalem: EW review
Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (2018)
YouTubers will do a lot of questionable things for views, but in Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum, one channel's livestream ends with more of its participants dead than alive. A South Korean found footage horror film set in the Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital, the movie follows a web series creator and the six people he recruits to explore the abandoned building. Drawn to room 402, the former intensive care unit, the group encounters supernatural entities they can't explain and danger they can't escape. Based on the real-life Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital — a South Korean asylum that was considered one of the country's most haunted buildings before it was demolished in 2018 — the film starts off slow, but will have you lunging for the lights by the time the ending arrives. —I.G.
Where to watch Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum: Amazon Prime Video
Director: Jung Bum-shik
Cast: Wi Ha-joon, Park Ji-hyun, Oh Ah-yeon, Moon Ye-won, Park Sung-hoon, Yoo Je-yoon, Lee Seung-wook, Park Ji-a
Related content: The best horror movies of the 2010s
Goodnight Mommy (2014)
There is no shortage of creepy twins in horror ("Come play with us, Danny!"), and the most terrifying example in recent memory is Austria's Goodnight Mommy, which premiered in 2014 at the Venice International Film Festival and was released theatrically a year later. A psychological horror story, Goodnight Mommy follows two 9-year-old twin boys who begin to question their mother's identity after she returns from intensive cosmetic surgery as a seemingly different person than the parent they once knew. The boys commit to ousting the imposter and finding the location of their real mother, but their investigation leads to truths too horrifying to process. In our 2015 review, we predicted an "inevitable remake" and in 2022, the film gods provided. The American rendition of the film is creepy, but purists agree it lacks the potency and poignancy of the original, both of which are attributed to the 2014's film's co-directors, Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala. Feel free to enjoy a double feature with both films, but definitely start with the Austrian version. —I.G.
Where to watch Goodnight Mommy: Amazon Prime Video
EW grade: A (read the review)
Director: Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala
Cast: Susanne Wuest, Elias Schwarz, Lukas Schwarz
Related content: The Big Little Lies twins say Goodnight Mommy to Naomi Watts in eerie new trailer for horror remake
Hell House LLC (2015)
What if you combined the verité grooves of documentary-style found footage, the inherent creepiness of a haunted house attraction, and the sense of uncertainty around a horrifying and mysterious incident of violence? Well, you'd have something like Hell House LLC. Amidst frantic local media coverage, interviews with inquisitive journalists, and even a cryptic YouTube video from a spectator, the death of 15 people in the basement of Hell House remains a mystery… that is until the lone survivor of the team behind the attraction comes forward with tapes documenting the terrors leading up to that fateful night. This 2015 indie horror hit has capitalized on its cult following with two ensuing sequels, but don't get ahead of yourself. There's enough going on in the first Hell House to occupy your supernatural curiosity, and that's before the rumors and suspicions of satanic cult activity come into play. —J.L.
Where to watch Hell House LLC: Amazon Prime Video
Director: Stephen Cognetti
Cast: Ryan Jennifer Jones, Danny Bellini, Gore Abrams, Jared Hacker, Adam Schneider, Alice Bahlke
Related content: The best horror movies of the 2010s
Hellraiser (1987)
With a new Hellraiser reboot available to stream on Hulu, this is your chance to glory over the gloom, gore, and arch world-building of the original 1987 British horror film. Written and directed by genre legend Clive Barker and based on his own novella The Hellbound Heart, this is our first introduction to the pierced, sadomasochistic dimensional beings known as the Cenobites, who are unleashed on Earth to conduct wholesale supernatural mayhem on pleasure-seeking humans. Who are the Cenobites? Lead by "Pinhead" and his legions, these Hell-dwellers can no longer distinguish between pleasure and pain, and serve as the antagonists in Hellraiser and its many sequels. In their ranking of all the Hellraiser films, an EW contributor writes that the original film "is as close to an absolutely perfect horror film as one could reasonably find." —J.L.
Where to watch Hellraiser: Amazon Prime Video
Director: Clive Barker
Cast: Andrew Robinson, Clare Higgins, Ashley Laurence
Related content: Clive Barker adaptations, ranked
Lamb (2021)
Dark doesn’t even begin to describe the plot of Lamb, a supernatural horror story set in rural Iceland. Maria (Noomi Rapace) and Ingvar (Hilmir Snær Guðnason) are a couple living with loss — until one of their sheep gives birth. They adopt the lamb, intending to raise it as their own child, but the arrival of Ingvar’s brother Pétur (Björn Hlynur Haraldsson) is quick to extinguish their familial bliss. Director Valdimar Jóhannsson skimps on dialogue, choosing instead to fan the flames of tension, filling in the silence with ambiance. With its small cast, and vast, natural background, Lamb feels both intimate and infinite, while, as EW's critic writes, “the movie's stark Nordic mood and obscure mystery are as coolly immersive as nearly anything on screen this year.” —I.G.
Where to watch Lamb: Amazon Prime Video
EW grade: B+ (read the review)
Director: Valdimar Jóhannsson
Cast: Noomi Rapace, Hilmir Snær Guðnason, Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson
Related content: Noomi Rapace on the 'disturbing and beautiful' Lamb and delivering baby sheep on set
Let the Right One In (2008)
Vampire movies don’t work without blood, but the Swedish vampire drama Let the Right One In offers up an equal helping of heart. Set in 1982, 12 year old Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) lives in a suburb of Stockholm and struggles to stand up to the bullies at school. But when Eli (Lina Leandersson), a pale, mysterious girl moves in next door, Oskar finally has a friend. Eli and Oskar connect on a level neither has experienced before — but Oskar doesn’t know Eli is a vampire. Let the Right One In, the critic writes, “is like a Scandinavian Twilight minus the teen-steam schmaltz, packing in great gooey scares while tracing the friendship between a picked-on 12 year old boy and a girl who hungers for the red stuff.” —I.G.
Where to watch Let the Right One In: Amazon Prime Video
EW grade: A (read the review)
Director: Tomas Alfredson
Cast: Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar, Ika Nord, Peter Carlberg
Related content: Demián Bichir explains how Let the Right One In character went from rock star chef to killing for his daughter
Malicious (2018)
You can't compile a list of must-see supernatural movies without including Malicious, a film containing all of the genre's favorite tropes and greatest hits: a newly married couple, a pregnant woman left alone in an unfamiliar, new home, a mysterious box, a creepy doll, and, of course, ghosts cosplaying as cheerleaders. The film follows Adam (Josh Stewart) and Lisa (Bojana Novakovic) as they move into a new home provided by the University where Adam has accepted a job as a professor. But after Lisa opens a mysterious gift from her sister, her pregnancy takes a turn for the sinister, and she becomes convinced her unborn child has been transmuted into something malicious. Also starring the always terrific Delroy Lindo as Dr. Clark, a parapsychologist intent on getting to the bottom of whatever is causing Adam and Lisa's supernatural issues, Malicious delivers a terrifying cinematic interpretation of its tagline, "Children are a gift from hell." —I.G.
Where to watch Malicious: Amazon Prime Video
Director: Michael Winnick
Cast: Bojana Novakovic, Josh Stewart, Melissa Bolona, Delroy Lindo
Related content: The best horror movies on Max right now
The Manor (2021)
Fans of FX's long-running series American Horror Story may recognize the gothic artistry of The Manor's Axelle Carolyn (who also helmed episodes of the horror franchise). Boasting similar vibes to AHS, The Manor stars Barbara Hershey as Judith, a former dancer in her youth, who becomes the newest resident of a creaky old nursing home after she suffers a stroke. The other residents of Golden Sun Manor seem to be dying at an alarming rate, and Judith soon discovers how supernatural forces keep other people alive even longer. The Manor is another addition to the Welcome to the Blumhouse series, and returns Hershey to horror after her terrific turn in the Insidious franchise. In The Manor, evil forces and her own fractured mind are working against Judith. "Even her devoted grandson Josh (Nicholas Alexander) thinks her fears are the result of dementia, not demons," writes Clark Collis for EW. —J.L.
Where to watch The Manor: Amazon Prime Video
Director: Axelle Carolyn
Cast: Barbara Hershey, Bruce Davison, Stacey Travis, Ciera Payton, Jill Larson, Mark Steger
Related content: Barbara Hershey is haunted by a sinister presence in new Blumhouse horror movie The Manor
Master (2022)
The rumor going around the halls of the fictional East Coast college, Ancaster, is that the elite, Ivy League institution has long been haunted by the ghost of a convicted witch. A supernatural, psychological thriller, Master stars Regina Hall as Gail, the first Black master — or head of the college. Gail's tenure at the school coincides with the arrival of freshman student named Jasmine (Zoe Renee, who appears in the Hunger Games film, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes), whose assigned room has its own beyond-the-grave history, and whose roommate is a separate horror story altogether. Representing writer-director Mariama Diallo's debut feature, Master is a smart, specific film set in a toxic environment that is poised to combust. EW's senior movies editor writes that the movie is a "never-less-than-memorable feature debut, both an indictment of racist institutions and a horror movie in the vein of Get Out and Candyman." —I.G.
Where to watch Master: Amazon Prime Video
EW grade: A- (read the review)
Director: Mariama Diallo
Cast: Regina Hall, Zoe Renee, Amber Gray, Molly Bernard, Nike Kadri
Related content: Regina Hall on fame, endurance, and coming into her own in the acclaimed new thriller Master
Nope (2022)
The latest of three features directed by Jordan Peele and released within a five-year period, Nope is a supernatural horror film set on a horse ranch outside Los Angeles. Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer play OJ and Em Haywood, siblings who inherit their family's business of wrangling horses for Hollywood projects after their father Otis is killed by debris falling from a UFO. Determined to cash in and save their ranch, the Haywood siblings decide to take a photo of the otherworldly object to sell as proof of its existence. Written and executed in Peele's signature style, which straddles the line between social satire and genre love letter, Nope lassos the viewers' suspended disbelief while also interrogating the place where entertainment and exploitation intersect. —I.G.
Where to watch Nope: Amazon Prime Video
EW grade: B+ (read the review)
Director: Jordan Peele
Cast: Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, Michael Wincott, Brandon Perea, Keith David
Related content: Nope stars horse around in new blooper reel
Smile (2022)
Frowning gives you lines, but grinning can be deadly. Enter Smile, a supernatural horror starring Sosie Bacon as a clinical psychiatrist named Rose Cotter who works in a public hospital and witnesses a patient's baffling suicide. Soon after, Rose finds herself haunted by a supernatural entity that takes control of people and forces them to complete horrifying acts while smiling like maniacs. Concerned she has been cursed, Rose attempts to track down the origin of this deadly pattern, hoping to free herself from its clutches, and avoid passing it on. Scaredy cats need not apply: Smile offers up "sadistic jump scares" and a story so freaky, EW's Leah Greenblatt warns "you might need a bucket of bleach (and several hours of TikTok kitten videos) to cleanse your brainpan afterward." —I.G.
Where to watch Smile: Amazon Prime Video
EW grade: B (read the review)
Director: Parker Finn
Cast: Sosie Bacon, Jessie T. Usher, Kyle Gallner, Kal Penn, Rob Morgan
Related content: Smile director wanted horror film to feel like 'sustained panic attack'
Suspiria (2018)
In a creative pivot, director Luca Guadagnino followed up his hit Call Me by Your Name with Suspiria, a period retelling of Dario Argento's 1977 horror classic that features the incomparable Tilda Swinton playing three different characters (one of whom is male), Dakota Johnson, and new-era scream queen Mia Goth. When a sheltered young woman named Susie (Johnson) travels to Germany and joins an exclusive dance company, she encounters a whole different kind of company in the coven of witches who run the place. EW's Chris Nashawaty highlights some of "the incredibly effective sequences in the film, including one showstopper in which Susie auditions for the lead part in a piece while, in a nearby studio, one of her fellow dancers is violently whipped around like a rag doll, her joints contorting like a possessed Swiss Army knife." —I.G.
Where to watch Suspiria: Amazon Prime Video
EW grade: N/A (read the review)
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, Mia Goth, Angela Winkler, Chloë Grace Moretz
Related content: Dakota Johnson explains why she needed therapy after Suspiria: 'I was not psychoanalyzed'
The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014)
Speaking of found footage, the technique still had legs in 2014 when filmmaker Adam Robitel utilized it to a terrifically unsettling effect in his directorial debut, The Taking of Deborah Logan. This time, film students set out to document one aging woman's bout with Alzheimer's, but instead discover something much more sinister lurking in her mental cavities. The fear and mystery of a chronically debilitating disease, the brutal legacy of infamous past slayings, and talk of rituals and reincarnation are all at work in this oft-overlooked gem of 2010s supernatural horror. While the film eventually established a steady following, that wasn't clear at first. "It was devastating," Robitel tells EW about its underwhelming release. "I had gone into serious debt making the movie so I was like, oh, I failed, I'm a failure. But, that weekend, on Netflix, a million people saw and shared it. It was so vindicating, without any sort of marketing might or anything, for people to have discovered it." —J.L.
Where to watch The Taking of Deborah Logan: Amazon Prime Video
Director: Adam Robitel
Cast: Jill Larson, Anne Ramsay, Michelle Ang, Ryan Cutrona
Related content: From The Taking of Deborah Logan to Escape Room 2: Director Adam Robitel's life in horror
The Wailing (2016)
We knew this list would be incomplete without Na Hong-jin's 2016 folk horror feat, but the problem is, there's nothing quite like it on Amazon (or elsewhere, for that matter). At a whopping 156 minutes, The Wailing is a horror film of epic proportions that still manages to never overstay its welcome, instead enticing us with a mysterious disease that causes residents of a small South Korean village to slaughter those they love most. As infections spread, violence — and paranoia — grows more rampant, but a policeman's investigation soon becomes personal when his only daughter begins to harbor symptoms. Unfolding with expert precision unlike any other opus in recent memory, The Wailing is a seismic balancing act of Eastern folklore, occult imagery, and unwavering dread wrapped into a single, somehow swallowable story, as "Na slathers his tale with generous supplies of atmosphere and awfulness," according to EW's critic. —J.L.
Where to watch The Wailing: Amazon Prime Video
EW grade: B+ (read the review)
Director: Na Hong-jin
Cast: Kwak Do-won, Hwang Jung-min, Woo-hee Chun, Jun Kunimura
Related content: The Wailing: Korean horror movie clip has bodies and boils
We Are Still Here (2015)
We Are Still Here is a 2015 period indie horror from writer-director Ted Geoghegan, and a film that proves that when it comes to the supernatural, the horrific, and things proverbially going bump in the night, there's no better setting than a proper haunted house. Here, genre legend Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator, Chopping Mall, You're Next) and Andrew Sensenig star as a couple inspired to move into a mysterious new home after the traumatic loss of their young son. But despite seeking a fresh start, all they get is meddling townspeople, longstanding secrets, and a home with its own blood to spill. Taking a cue (or two or three) from early-'80s chillers like The Fog and The House by the Cemetery, EW's Chris Nashawaty writes of We Are Still Here, "Ted Geoghegan's directorial debut has enough decent scares to push it past pastiche." —J.L.
Where to watch We Are Still Here: Amazon Prime Video
EW grade: N/A (read the review)
Director: Ted Geoghegan
Cast: Barbara Crampton, Andrew Sensenig, Larry Fessenden, Lisa Marie, Monte Markham
Related content: We Are Still Here: How they created the year's creepiest ghosts
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