Looking to fire up some scares on your favorite streaming service? The Streamable is here to show you where to watch the 50 best horror movies as decided by the voters of IMDb.
While you’ll see plenty of demons, vampires, and weird bloodsucking creatures on this list, it also includes some fun horror comedies like “Shaun of the Dead,” “What We Do In The Shadows,” and “Tucker and Dale vs Evil.”
If you’re a bit squeamish, you might prefer more mild thrillers like “Psycho,” “Get Out,” or “Sleepy Hollow.”
When you’re ready, pull up the covers, grab your remote, and get ready to scream.
The IMDb Top 50 Horror Movies (as of Feb. 13, 2023)
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Alien
May 25, 1979The commercial spaceship Nostromo is heading back to Earth when they’re tasked with intercepting a distress signal from a distant planet. The crew discovers a chamber full of seemingly benign eggs. When one hatches unexpectedly, the crew is unaware of the impending nightmare set to descend upon them. Directed by Ridley Scott, this film is the first in the series to feature its most-known protagonist, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver).
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Psycho
June 22, 1960When larcenous real estate clerk Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) goes on the lam with a wad of cash and hopes of starting a new life, she ends up at the notorious Bates Motel, where manager Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) cares for his housebound mother.
The impact of this Alfred Hitchcock classic cannot be understated. Psycho was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actress (Leigh) and Best Director (Hitchcock). In 1992, the film was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the United States Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
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The Shining
May 23, 1980Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) accepts a caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel, where he, along with his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and their son Danny, must live isolated from the rest of the world for the winter. But they aren’t prepared for the madness that lurks within.
Stanley Kubrick’s classic spin on a Stephen King story has been hugely influential since its release, though King has been consistently critical of the adaptation.
Poor Shelley Duvall had a horrific experience during filming. According to the “Guinness Book of Records,” Kubrick demanded to reshoot the scene where she goes down the stairs with the baseball bat 127 times. She became so stressed during filming that her hair began falling out.
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The Thing
June 25, 1982Members of an American scientific research outpost in Antarctica find themselves battling a parasitic alien organism capable of perfectly imitating its victims. They soon discover that this task will be harder than they thought, as they don’t know which members of the team have already been assimilated and their paranoia threatens to tear them apart.
This 1982 John Carpenter classic features a charming Kurt Russell and some truly freaky special effects. The blood test sequence is one of the tensest scenes in movie history.
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Tumbbad
October 12, 2018India, 1918. On the outskirts of Tumbbad, a cursed village where it always rains, Vinayak, along with his mother and his brother, care of a mysterious old woman who keeps the secret of an ancestral treasure that Vinayak gets obsessed with.
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The Exorcist
December 26, 1973When a charming 12-year-old girl takes on the characteristics and voices of others, doctors say there is nothing they can do. As people begin to die, the girl’s mother realizes her daughter has been possessed by the devil—and that her daughter’s only possible hope lies with two priests and the ancient rite of demonic exorcism.
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Diabolique
January 29, 1955The cruel and abusive headmaster of a boarding school, Michel Delassalle, is murdered by an unlikely duo — his meek wife and the mistress he brazenly flaunts. The women become increasingly unhinged by a series of odd occurrences after Delassalle’s corpse mysteriously disappears.
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Rosemary's Baby
June 12, 1968A young couple, Rosemary and Guy, moves into an infamous New York apartment building, known by frightening legends and mysterious events, with the purpose of starting a family.
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What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
October 12, 1962A former child star torments her paraplegic sister in their decaying Hollywood mansion.
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The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
February 27, 1920Francis, a young man, recalls in his memory the horrible experiences he and his fiancée Jane recently went through. Francis and his friend Alan visit The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an exhibit where the mysterious doctor shows the somnambulist Cesare, and awakens him for some moments from his death-like sleep.
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The Blue Elephant
July 28, 2014Dr. Yehia, a psychotherapist at Al Abbasia hospital, works in the department of the criminally insane. He finds that one of his patients is his old friend Sherif Al-Kordy. When he tries to help him, he gets himself in serious trouble.
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Shaun of the Dead
April 9, 2004Shaun lives a supremely uneventful life, which revolves around his girlfriend, his mother, and, above all, his local pub. This gentle routine is threatened when the dead return to life and make strenuous attempts to snack on ordinary Londoners.
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Let the Right One In
October 24, 2008Set in 1982 in the suburb of Blackeberg, Stockholm, 12-year-old Oskar is a lonely outsider, bullied at school by his classmates; at home, Oskar dreams of revenge against a trio of bullies. He befriends his 12-year-old, next-door neighbor Eli, who only appears at night in the snow-covered playground outside their building.
This film was later remade in English as “Let Me In.”
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Nosferatu
February 16, 1922In this highly influential silent horror film, the mysterious Count Orlok (Max Schreck) summons Thomas Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim) to his remote Transylvanian castle in the mountains. The eerie Orlok seeks to buy a house near Hutter and his wife, Ellen (Greta Schroeder). After Orlok reveals his vampire nature, Hutter struggles to escape the castle, knowing that Ellen is in grave danger. Meanwhile Orlok’s servant, Knock (Alexander Granach), prepares for his master to arrive at his new home.
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King Kong
March 15, 1933Adventurous filmmaker Carl Denham sets out to produce a motion picture unlike anything the world has seen before. Alongside his leading lady Ann Darrow and his first mate Jack Driscoll, they arrive on an island and discover a legendary creature said to be neither beast nor man. Denham captures the monster to be displayed on Broadway as King Kong, the eighth wonder of the world.
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Predator
June 12, 1987A team of elite commandos on a secret mission in a Central American jungle come to find themselves hunted by an extraterrestrial warrior.
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I Saw the Devil
August 12, 2010Kyung-chul is a dangerous psychopath who kills for pleasure. Soo-hyeon, a top-secret agent, decides to track down the murderer himself. He promises himself that he will do everything in his power to take vengeance against the killer, even if it means that he must become a monster himself.
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Night of the Living Dead
October 4, 1968A group of strangers trapped in a farmhouse find themselves fending off a horde of recently dead, flesh-eating ghouls.
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Dawn of the Dead
September 2, 1978During an ever-growing epidemic of zombies that have risen from the dead, two Philadelphia SWAT team members, a traffic reporter, and his television-executive girlfriend seek refuge in a secluded shopping mall.
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Freaks
February 12, 1932A circus’ beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.
The film features actors with disabilities, which shocked audiences upon its release. During a 1932 preview, some audience members ran out of the theater. Others reportedly became ill or fainted. One woman who attended the screening threatened to sue MGM, claiming the film had caused her to suffer a miscarriage.
Because of its controversial content, “Freaks” was banned in the United Kingdom for over 30 years, and was labeled as “brutal and grotesque” in Canada. In 1994, it was selected for preservation by the United States National Film Registry.
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Frankenstein
November 21, 1931Tampering with life and death, Henry Frankenstein pieces together salvaged body parts to bring a human monster to life; the mad scientist’s dreams are shattered by his creation’s violent rage as the monster awakens to a world in which he is unwelcome.
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Bride of Frankenstein
April 20, 1935Dr. Frankenstein and his monster both turn out to be alive, not killed as previously believed. Dr. Frankenstein wants to get out of the evil experiment business, but when a mad scientist, Dr. Pretorius, kidnaps his wife, Dr. Frankenstein agrees to help him create a new creature.
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The Innocents
December 15, 1961A young governess for two children becomes convinced that the house and grounds are haunted by ghosts and that the children are being possessed.
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Get Out
February 24, 2017Chris and his girlfriend Rose go upstate to visit her parents for the weekend. At first, Chris reads the family’s overly accommodating behavior as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter’s interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he never could have imagined.
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Halloween
October 24, 1978Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween Night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.
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Evil Dead II
March 13, 1987Ash Williams and his girlfriend Linda find a log cabin in the woods with a voice recording from an archeologist who had recorded himself reciting ancient chants from “The Book of the Dead.” As they play the recording an evil power is unleashed taking over Linda’s body.
If you enjoy this Bruce Campbell character (and you should), make sure you see its sequel, “Army of Darkness,” and the recent TV spinoff “Ash vs Evil Dead.”
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Invasion of the Body Snatchers
February 5, 1956A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates.
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American Psycho
April 13, 2000A wealthy New York investment banking executive hides his alternate psychopathic ego from his co-workers and friends as he escalates deeper into his illogical, gratuitous fantasies.
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Train to Busan
July 20, 2016Martial law is declared when a mysterious viral outbreak pushes Korea into a state of emergency. Those on an express train to Busan, a city that has successfully fended off the viral outbreak, must fight for their own survival…
This highly entertaining zombie adventure features Gong Yoo as a father trying to connect with his estranged daughter. He’d later appear in the breakthrough Netflix series “Squid Game” (2021).
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Searching
August 24, 2018After David Kim’s 16-year-old daughter goes missing, a local investigation is opened and a detective is assigned to the case. But 37 hours later and without a single lead, David decides to search the one place no one has looked yet, where all secrets are kept today: his daughter’s laptop.
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Zombieland
October 7, 2009“Columbus” has made a habit of running from what scares him. “Tallahassee” doesn’t have fears. If he did, he’d kick their ever-living ass. In a world overrun by zombies, these two are perfectly evolved survivors. But now, they’re about to stare down the most terrifying prospect of all: each other.
This horror-comedy features a great cast with Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin. It also features one of the most famous cameos of all time. (We won’t spoil it.) So grab a Twinkie and get ready to splatter the undead!
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Saw
October 1, 2004Two men wake up to find themselves shackled in a grimy, abandoned bathroom. As they struggle to comprehend their predicament, they discover a disturbing tape left behind by the sadistic mastermind known as Jigsaw. With a chilling voice and cryptic instructions, Jigsaw informs them that they must partake in a gruesome game in order to secure their freedom.
If you enjoy this gory adventure, check out its many, many sequels.
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The Skin I Live In
August 17, 2011A brilliant plastic surgeon creates a synthetic skin that withstands any kind of damage. His guinea pig: a mysterious and volatile woman who holds the key to his obsession.
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What We Do in the Shadows
June 19, 2014Vampire housemates try to cope with the complexities of modern life and show a newly turned hipster some of the perks of being undead.
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The Fly
August 15, 1986When Seth Brundle makes a huge scientific and technological breakthrough in teleportation, he decides to test it on himself. Unbeknownst to him, a common housefly manages to get inside the device and the two become one.
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The Others
August 2, 2001Grace is a religious woman who lives in an old house kept dark because her two children, Anne and Nicholas, have a rare sensitivity to light. When the family begins to suspect the house is haunted, Grace fights to protect her children at any cost in the face of strange events and disturbing visions.
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The Birds
March 28, 1963Thousands of birds flock into a seaside town and terrorize the residents in a series of deadly attacks.
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Eyes Without a Face
January 11, 1960Dr. Génessier is riddled with guilt after an accident that he caused disfigures the face of his daughter, the once beautiful Christiane, who outsiders believe is dead. Dr. Génessier, along with accomplice and laboratory assistant Louise, kidnaps young women and brings them to the Génessier mansion. After rendering his victims unconscious, Dr. Génessier removes their faces and attempts to graft them on to Christiane’s.
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Repulsion
June 1, 1965Beautiful young manicurist Carole suffers from androphobia (the pathological fear of interaction with men). When her sister and roommate, Helen, leaves their London flat to go on an Italian holiday with her married boyfriend, Carole withdraws into her apartment. She begins to experience frightful hallucinations, her fear gradually mutating into madness.
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The Invisible Man
November 3, 1933Working in Dr. Cranley’s laboratory, scientist Jack Griffin was always given the latitude to conduct some of his own experiments. His sudden departure, however, has Cranley’s daughter Flora worried about him. Griffin has taken a room at the nearby Lion’s Head Inn, hoping to reverse an experiment he conducted on himself that made him invisible. But the experimental drug has also warped his mind, making him aggressive and dangerous. He’s prepared to do whatever it takes to restore his appearance.
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One Cut of the Dead
November 4, 2017Real zombies arrive and terrorize the crew of a zombie film being shot in an abandoned warehouse, said to be the site of military experiments on humans.
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Peeping Tom
May 16, 1960Loner Mark Lewis works at a film studio during the day and, at night, takes racy photographs of women. Also he’s making a documentary on fear, which involves recording the reactions of victims as he murders them. He befriends Helen, the daughter of the family living in the apartment below his, and he tells her vaguely about the movie he is making.
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Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust
August 25, 2000D has been hired to track down Meier Link, a notoriously powerful vampire who has abducted a woman, Charlotte Elbourne. D’s orders are strict - find Charlotte, at any cost. For the first time, D faces serious competition. The Markus Brothers, a family of Vampire Hunters, were hired for the same bounty. D Must intercept Meier and conquer hostile forces on all sides in a deadly race against time.
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A Quiet Place
April 3, 2018A family is forced to live in silence while hiding from creatures that hunt by sound. The family uses sign language to communicate, but can they stay quiet long enough to outlast the beasts waiting to devour them whole?
John Krasinski directs and stars in this modern horror classic alongside his wife, Emily Blunt.
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The Conjuring
July 18, 2013Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren work to help a family terrorized by a dark presence in their farmhouse. Forced to confront a powerful entity, the Warrens find themselves caught in the most terrifying case of their lives.
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28 Days Later
October 31, 2002Twenty-eight days after a killer virus was accidentally unleashed from a British research facility, a small group of London survivors are caught in a desperate struggle to protect themselves from the infected. Carried by animals and humans, the virus turns those it infects into homicidal maniacs — and it’s absolutely impossible to contain.
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Interview with the Vampire
November 11, 1994A vampire relates his epic life story of love, betrayal, loneliness, and dark hunger to an over-curious reporter.
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The Crow
May 11, 1994Exactly one year after young rock guitarist Eric Draven and his fiancée are brutally killed by a ruthless gang of criminals, Draven—watched over by a hypnotic crow—returns from the grave to exact revenge.
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An American Werewolf in London
August 21, 1981American tourists David and Jack are savaged by an unidentified vicious animal whilst hiking on the Yorkshire Moors. Retiring to the home of a beautiful nurse to recuperate, David soon experiences disturbing changes to his mind and body.
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Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
January 22, 2010Two hillbillies are suspected of being killers by a group of paranoid college kids camping near the duo’s West Virginian cabin. As the body count climbs, so does the fear and confusion as the college kids try to seek revenge against the pair.
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Since our first review of the IMDb list, some movies have fallen out of the Top 50, but they’re still worth watching. Here are some other highly rated thrills to stream today.
More IMDb Favorite Horror Movies
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The Lighthouse
October 18, 2019Two lighthouse keepers (Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson) try to maintain their sanity while living on a remote and mysterious New England island in the 1890s.
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Grindhouse
April 6, 2007Grindhouse combines Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror, a horror comedy about a group of survivors who battle zombie-like creatures, and Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof, an action thriller about a murderous stuntman who kills young women with modified vehicles. It is presented as a double feature with fictitious exploitation trailers before each segment.
This film was split apart and is easier to find as “Death Proof” and “Planet Terror.”
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Army of Darkness
October 31, 1992Ash, a handsome, shotgun-toting, chainsaw-armed department store clerk, is time warped backwards into England’s Dark Ages, where he romances a beauty and faces legions of the undead.
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Jacob's Ladder
November 2, 1990After returning home from the Vietnam War, veteran Jacob Singer struggles to maintain his sanity. Plagued by hallucinations and flashbacks, Singer rapidly falls apart as the world and people around him morph and twist into disturbing images. His girlfriend, Jezzie, and ex-wife, Sarah, try to help, but to little avail. Even Singer’s chiropractor friend, Louis, fails to reach him as he descends into madness.
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A Nightmare on Elm Street
October 31, 1984Teenagers in a small town are dropping like flies, apparently in the grip of mass hysteria causing their suicides. A cop’s daughter, Nancy Thompson, traces the cause to child molester Fred Krueger, who was burned alive by angry parents many years before. Krueger has now come back in the dreams of his killers’ children, claiming their lives as his revenge. Nancy and her boyfriend, Glen, must devise a plan to lure the monster out of the realm of nightmares and into the real world…
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The Evil Dead
September 10, 1981In 1979, a group of college students find a Sumerian Book of the Dead in an old wilderness cabin they’ve rented for a weekend getaway.
This exceptionally low-budget thriller was essentially remade with a bigger budget as “Evil Dead II” - #26 on this list.
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The Omen
June 25, 1976Immediately after their miscarriage, the US diplomat Robert Thorn adopts the newborn Damien without the knowledge of his wife. Yet what he doesn’t know is that their new son is the son of the devil.
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The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
October 1, 1974A group of five young friends face a nightmare of torment at the hands of a depraved Texas clan.
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[REC]
November 23, 2007A television reporter and cameraman follow emergency workers into a dark apartment building and are quickly locked inside with something terrifying.
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The Orphanage
May 20, 2007A woman brings her family back to her childhood home, which used to be an orphanage, intent on reopening it. Before long, her son starts to communicate with a new invisible friend.
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Pi
July 10, 1998A mathematical genius discovers a link between numbers and reality, and thus believes he can predict the future.
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Bram Stoker's Dracula
November 13, 1992In the 19th century, Dracula travels to London and meets Mina, a young woman who appears as the reincarnation of his lost love.
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Eraserhead
February 3, 1978Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child.
This film was David Lynch’s debut. Stanley Kubrick reportedly screened “Eraserhead” for the cast and crew of “The Shining” to “put them in the mood” before filming. Swiss artist H. R. Giger cited the movie as “one of the greatest films [he had] ever seen.”
In 2004, “Eraserhead” was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress.
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Carrie
November 3, 1976An awkward, telekinetic teenage girl’s lonely life is dominated by relentless bullying at school and an oppressive religious fanatic mother at home. When her tormentors pull a humiliating prank at the senior prom, she unleashes a horrifying chaos on everyone, leaving nothing but destruction in her wake.
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The Rocky Horror Picture Show
August 14, 1975Sweethearts Brad and Janet, stuck with a flat tire during a storm, discover the eerie mansion of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a transvestite scientist. As their innocence is lost, Brad and Janet meet a houseful of wild characters, including a rocking biker and a creepy butler. Through elaborate dances and rock songs, Frank-N-Furter unveils his latest creation: a muscular man named ‘Rocky’. Harriet then spawns in and says hello and the credits roll!
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A Quiet Place Part II
May 21, 2021Following the events at home, the Abbott family now face the terrors of the outside world. Forced to venture into the unknown, they realize that the creatures that hunt by sound are not the only threats that lurk beyond the sand path.
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Hereditary
June 7, 2018Following the death of Ellen Leigh, the matriarch of their family, her daughter Annie and the rest of the family start to uncover disturbing secrets about their heritage. Their daily lives are not only impacted, but they also become entangled in a chilling fate from which they cannot escape, driving them to the brink of madness.
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Doctor Sleep
October 30, 2019Still scarred by the trauma he endured as a child at the Overlook Hotel, Dan Torrance faces the ghosts of the past when he meets Abra, a courageous teen who desperately needs his help — and who possesses a powerful extrasensory ability called the “shine”.
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Split
January 19, 2017Though Kevin has evidenced 23 personalities to his trusted psychiatrist, Dr. Fletcher, there remains one still submerged who is set to materialize and dominate all the others. Compelled to abduct three teenage girls led by the willful, observant Casey, Kevin reaches a war for survival among all of those contained within him — as well as everyone around him — as the walls between his compartments shatter apart.
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The Conjuring 2
June 8, 2016Lorraine and Ed Warren travel to north London to help a single mother raising four children alone in a house plagued by malicious spirits.
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It
September 6, 2017In a small town in Maine, seven children known as The Losers Club come face to face with life problems, bullies and a monster that takes the shape of a clown called Pennywise.
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Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
December 20, 2007The infamous story of Benjamin Barker, a.k.a Sweeney Todd (Johnny Depp), who sets up a barber shop down in London which is the basis for a sinister partnership with his fellow tenant, Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter).
This Tim Burton film is based on the hit Broadway musical by Stephen Sondheim. The cast also features Alan Rickman and Sacha Baron Cohen.
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Dawn of the Dead
March 19, 2004A group of survivors take refuge in a shopping mall after the world is taken over by aggressive, flesh-eating zombies. This modern horror favorite features a fantastic opening sequence. Director Zack Snyder provides the visual flash, while writer James Gunn brings humor and heart to the bloodbath.
The cast is top-notch, with Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber, Michael Kelly, Mekhi Phifer, and a pre-“Modern Family” Ty Burrell.
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Sleepy Hollow
November 19, 1999Ichabod Crane, an eccentric investigator, is determined to stop the murderous Headless Horseman.
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