Horror Recommendation (Prefer Netflix Streaming)

Cafe Society
1

I’m looking for a horror movie or two to watch this afternoon, so ideally it should be available for streaming via Netflix.

I like the whole Found Footage genre (e.g., Paranormal Activity, The Blair Witch Project, etc.) * I also like “classic” ghost stories, like The Woman in Black; supernatural thrillers (e.g. The Exorcism of Emily Rose); and foreign horror (e.g., The Host, El Orfanato).

I don’t much care for the slasher genre, or for obscure gorefests.

Any recommendations?

*I’ve seen Megan is Missing. No thanks.

2

No Netflix here, so I don’t know if they’re streaming, but have you seen The Others? Or Orphan?

3

Both, yes. Thanks though!

4

Found footage? I’ve heard good things about The Poughkeepsie Tapes, but haven’t watched it yet.

5

Not available for streaming, but if you’re a fan of the found footage genre, check out REC when you can. One of the best examples I’ve ever seen.

I watched Grave Encounters the other week, and it’s in the ‘found footage’ genre. It’s by no stretch of the imagination a great film, but it was actually a bit better than I thought it was going to be. I was expecting to switch it off after a bit, but ended up watching the whole thing. Some truly awful effects, though.

For general creepiness, Session 9 is available via instant, and is well worth a watch.

6

Oo yes, seconding Session 9.

7

The Changeling starring George C. Scott.

8

Found footage/foreign : Atrocious

Foreign: R Point, Face, Antarctic Journal, Smile

Others that I liked in foreign but don’t really fit your other criteria: Saint Nick (kinda slashery), White (gotta be able to handle squeaky voiced teens), Mutants (zombieish but more suspense than brain eating), Yoga (slow paced and a whole lot of WTF?!)
Random other movies I liked that are streaming:

I Sell the Dead
Daybreakers
The Shrine

9

Paranormal Activity. I’ve seen it twice. And I’ve watched the ending about six times; made me yelp, squeal, jump and shudder each time.

10

Rec is good! very scary. I can’t recommend Grave Encounters though, it has the right idea but it is just terrible. SESSION 9, on the other hand, is one of my favorite horror movies ever, i can’t recommend it enough. But it’s not for everyone’s tastes, all i can suggest is to just try it.

11

Have you seen Troll Hunter? It’s actually really enjoyable and on Netflix streaming. I thought it was gonna be ho-hum but I’ve since watched it 5 or 6 times.

12

I suppose if you just have to have found footage and ghosts, you can check out Apartment 143, though I didn’t care for it much. Didn’t make much logical sense, long drawn-out exposition that you really don’t need, and some very odd directorial choices. I’d put it waaaay down in the queue, if at all.

I just remembered that there’s an independent movie called The Tunnel which I’ve heard positive reviews for, but haven’t seen yet myself. It was available online as a free download for a long time, but the site seems to be either down or removed now. Anyway, might be on Netflix.

Seconds for Trollhunter, that one’s awesome.

13

I’m glad you guys like Troll Hunter. I keep thinking I’ll watch it but end up thinking it’ll be really lame - like worse than SyFy lame (and I like SyFy movies!). I’ll have to give it a try!

I really need to watch Session 9 again. I’ve seen it before but hated it. I think I missed something.

14

No, Trollhunter has some pretty good sfx, and it’s definitely better than any Syfy movie. As for Session 9, if you hated it the first time im thinking that repeated viewings won’t change your mind. Maybe it will slightly lessen your hate :slight_smile:

15

Yeah, you know, I went back and forth on recommending Grave Encounters. Like I said, it’s far from a great movie; the only reason I mentioned it was that it was in the found footage genre the OP was looking for, I knew it was available via streaming, and while it is a bad movie, it wasn’t quite as BAD of a bad movie as I was expecting it to be. There’s a lot of horror films out there that are completely unwatchable; the fact that I made it all the way through Grave Encounters, I think, says something. Not much, but something. I guess I should have made that a bit more clear in my ‘recommendation’.

16

Eh. Grave Encounters wasn’t bad in the manner of cheesy, low-expectation SyFy channel fare. I gauge it to have been worthwhile to watch through Netflix, but having spent real money on the DVD would’ve irritated me. If anyone’s looking for a truly terrible rendition of a similar idea then check out Episode 50 — a pukeworthy found-footage ripoff of Matheson’s Hell House. Blech.

Browsing through my streaming history, here are some un-slashery horror flicks I’ve fairly recently either enjoyed or not been disappointed to watch:

Shiver: A Spanish film not quite up to the excellence of some of its peers, but nevertheless better than most of the competition. A bit of violence but not much.

Occupant: A guy’s stuck in the NYC apartment of his recently-deceased grandmother for two weeks or thereabouts. Insanity ensues. Suitably creepy but it tries too hard, really, and suffers for it.

Shutter: A Thai film set pretty firmly in the mold of Asian horror. Slow-boiling but very well put together.

The House of the Devil: Brilliant stylistic throwback to the Satanic Scare films of the 80s. Not really a parody so much as an homage, and very well worth watching. Just a bit of gore here and there.

A Tale of Two Sisters: Korean; botchedly remade in the US as The Uninvited. Predictable, maybe, but the creepiness level is strong here.

For somewhat gorier fare …

Saint Nick: A Dutch film that’s pretty much exactly what the title makes it sound like. Far better than it has any right to be.

Quarantine 2: Sequel to the American remake of REC. Yeah, it has a gimmick — Zombies on a Plane — but (again) it’s better than it has any right to be.

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil: Brilliant slasher reversal/parody. Highly amusing, though if you’re familiar with genuine WV accents this might make you cringe.

You might also check out the Masters of Horror series, which I think is still entirely available. Some of them are very good, and they’re only an hour long or so — I particularly liked The V Word.

17

Wow, totally hijacking here, but this was truly bizarre to read. I actually wrote a draft of this screenplay, years ago. I wasn’t the first writer, and I clearly wasn’t the final writer, since I’m not credited, but I’m still very curious to see if it maintains anything I wrote. I just dug my version of the script out; I’ll need to re-read it and then watch the film.

18

Love REC. There are some other great ones mentioned here as well. I’ll throw in Insidious, which is a possession film, but one of the scariest I’ve seen in recent times.

19

The original The Haunting

20

The Descent. Not a found footage film, but creepy, scary, and claustrophobic.