Home is where the heart is — unless said home is overrun with ghosts, beset by monsters, or careening through space. Haunted houses come in all shapes and sizes. There are classic haunts in horror movies like Paranormal Activity and The Shining, and then there are films and series that redefine what a “haunted house” can be. Think sci-fi flicks like Ridley Scott’s Alien, which places its heroes under extraterrestrial duress in a seemingly inescapable spacecraft, or supernatural slow-burns like Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, which drags a happy young couple into a creepy house and even creepier family dynamics. Then there’s director Louis Leterrier’s new Netflix thriller The Last House, which follows a family of four who are trapped inside their home without explanation.
Read on for more about The Last House and a variety of other haunted house movies and series streaming now.
The titular house in this sci-fi thriller serves as both prison and sanctuary for the family at the center of the film. When Jason (Wagner Moura), Ann (Greta Lee), and their two kids are physically sealed inside their suburban home by a mysterious force, they do everything in their power to keep everyone safe and sane as their resources run thin. But that’s easier said than done when they realize that whatever nightmarish thing is keeping them inside is lurking just beyond their walls. Riley Chung (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes), Emma Ho (The Baker), Noah Alexander Sosnowski (Section 8), and Gabriel Barbosa (May December) also star.
Based on V.C. Andrews’s controversial 1979 novel, this psychological thriller follows a group of siblings — 14-year-old Chris (Mason Dye), 12-year-old Cathy (Kiernan Shipka), and 5-year-old twins Carrie (Ava Marie Telek) and Cory (Maxwell Kovach) — who are locked away and left to their own devices. When their father, Christopher (Chad Willett), dies in a car accident, their mother, Corrine (Heather Graham), turns to her estranged, wealthy parents for help. But Corrine’s taciturn father, Malcolm (Beau Daniels), never approved of her marriage and doesn’t know about the children. So her mother, the cold-hearted Olivia (Ellen Burstyn), takes their grandchildren to the mansion’s attic, where they reside unsupervised and dream of a life beyond the creaking walls.
Creepy mansions abound in Mike Flanagan’s work, and The Haunting of Hill House is no different. When the Crains move into the dilapidated Hill House, parents Hugh (Henry Thomas) and Olivia (Carla Gugino) are determined to restore the once-stately home to its former glory. But the longer they stay, the more their sanity deteriorates, and a tragic event forces the young family to flee in the middle of the night. Years later, the now-grown Crain siblings — Steven (Michiel Huisman), Shirley (Elizabeth Reaser), Theo (Kate Siegel), Luke (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), and Nell (Victoria Pedretti) — cope with their trauma in various ways. Can they leave their haunted history behind? Or will their memories (and the literal ghosts of their pasts) consume them?
This animated comedy centers on, yes, a haunted hotel. Welcome to the Undervale, whose spooky residents range from your everyday ghost to Abaddon (voiced by Jimmi Simpson), an ancient demon trapped in the body of a 1700s colonial child. The series kicks off when single mom Katherine Freeling (Eliza Coupe) takes over the struggling Undervale business after her older brother, Nathan (Will Forte), dies. But fear not, the relentlessly positive Nathan is still around — just in ghost form. They’re joined by Katherine’s kids, socially awkward teen Ben (Skyler Gisondo) and black magic–obsessed preteen Esther (Natalie Palamides), who take their new home’s otherworldly quirks in stride. In fact, a few of these ghouls might have some interesting ideas about how to keep their home afloat.
Oscar-nominated Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners) co-stars in this tale about a pair of married refugees, Bol (Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù) and Rial (Mosaku), who move from South Sudan to the UK. The couple clashes over how much of their culture to hold on to as they’re met with racism from their neighbors and their caseworker, Mark (Matt Smith). They’re also grieving their daughter, Nyagak (Malaika Wakoli-Abigaba), who died on their path to asylum. As they settle into their derelict new home, they begin to experience supernatural events: They keep seeing unsettling visions — and there’s something in the walls. Rial becomes convinced that an apeth (aka a “night witch”) has followed them and demands that they repay a mysterious debt. If they do this, maybe the apeth will bring Nyagak back.
Osgood Perkins (Longlegs) wrote and directed this atmospheric, slow-burn Gothic horror film about a nurse, Lily (Ruth Wilson), who moves into a secluded house to look after a retired horror novelist, Iris (Paula Prentiss). As she cares for Iris — who suffers from dementia and only refers to her new nurse as “Polly” — Lily begins to experience strange happenings around the home: supposed hallucinations, creeping mold on the walls, and visions of a ghostly young woman wearing a white gown. As the eerie occurrences pile up, Lily can’t help but wonder just how fictional the author’s work was. Is the house haunted? Or are some secrets so ghastly that they carve themselves into the very foundation of a home?
Ask a Jordan Peele fan which scene from Nope stands out, and many will cite (no spoilers) a scene in which blood rains down on a lone house from above. This sci-fi horror movie follows siblings OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer), who take over their family’s horse ranch when their father (Keith David) dies under strange circumstances. OJ works to keep the remote ranch afloat with help from theme park owner Ricky “Jupe” Park (Steven Yeun), but Emerald sees a golden opportunity to make some real money with the unidentified flying object that’s wreaking havoc in the valley. She recruits an electronics store employee (Brandon Perea) and a famed cinematographer (Michael Wincott) to capture footage near their beleaguered home — and chaos ensues.
In creator and showrunner Haley Z. Boston’s dread-inducing horror series, Rachel (Camila Morrone) and her fiancé, Nicky (Adam DiMarco), travel to Nicky’s family’s lavish home for their intimate wedding celebration. But it’s bad vibes from the get-go: The foreboding house is set deep in the snowy woods, the locals are strangely hostile, and Nicky’s relatives are creepily eccentric. Rachel’s unease grows as Nicky’s mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and sister (Gus Birney) bulldoze the wedding plans to suit their selfish desires. On top of everything else, Rachel soon realizes that something in her own estranged family’s mysterious past could spell impending doom. This leads her to an all-important question: How serious are the consequences of marrying the wrong person?
When their plane crash-lands in the Canadian wilderness, the members of a high school soccer team are forced to partake in increasingly drastic tactics to stay alive. This includes living in an abandoned cabin in the woods, where something seems to be lurking. Years later, the rescued survivors struggle to cope with what they did — and fear that the world will discover their dark secrets. This thriller drama series plays out across two timelines that follow the teen and adult versions of the characters as they grapple with their choices, memories, and each other. Melanie Lynskey (Castle Rock), Sophie Nélisse (Close), Tawny Cypress (Unforgettable), Jasmin Savoy Brown (Scream), Juliette Lewis (Cape Fear), Sophie Thatcher (Heretic), Christina Ricci (Wednesday), and Samantha Hanratty (Moms’ Night Out) star.
Based on Jumanji author Chris Van Allsburg’s 2002 book Zathura, this sci-fi adventure, directed by Jon Favreau, follows brothers Walter (Josh Hutcherson) and Danny (Jonah Bobo), who have trouble finding common ground. When the pair plays a retro sci-fi boardgame they find in the basement, they discover that every move they make results in real-world consequences: A meteor shower rains down; their older sister, Lisa (Kristen Stewart), is placed in cryogenic sleep; and their house is transported into space. As their home is invaded by aliens, faulty robots, and a supremely confused but helpful astronaut (Dax Shepard), the boys realize that they have to complete the game at any cost in order to return to Earth.
