For a Friday with friends, you need a film that doesn't require perfect silence to work. Something engaging enough that it holds attention even in a room with people in it.
The 2020s have already produced films that will be studied for decades - lean, precise, unafraid to take audiences seriously.
Horror works best when it earns the dread before deploying it. The best films in the genre build something you care about, then threaten it.
On a dark and somber night, a secret cabal of monster hunters emerge from the shadows and gather at the foreboding Bloodstone Temple following the death of their leader. In a strange and macabre memorial to the leader's life, the attendees are thrust into a mysterious and deadly competition for a powerful relic-a hunt that will ultimately bring them face to face with a dangerous monster.
Following the latest Ghostface killings, the four survivors leave Woodsboro behind and start a fresh chapter.
Years into their relationship, Tim and Millie find themselves at a crossroads as they move to the country, abandoning all that is familiar in their lives except each other. With tensions already flaring, a nightmarish encounter with a mysterious, unnatural force threatens to corrupt their lives, their love, and their flesh.
After a family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River. Still haunted by Betelgeuse, Lydia's life is turned upside down when her teenage daughter, Astrid, accidentally opens the portal to the Afterlife.
Nothing is what it seems when a twisted one-night stand spirals into a serial killer's vicious murder spree.
These films work because they respect their audience. They don't rush to the scare. They build it, layer it, let it sit â and then they deploy it perfectly.
A reunion between two estranged sisters gets cut short by the rise of flesh-possessing demons, thrusting them into a primal battle for survival as they face the most nightmarish version of family imaginable.
In a dystopian 1970s America, fifty teenage boys take part in a deadly annual walking contest, forced to maintain a minimum pace or be executed, until only one survivor remains.
A teenage girl living with schizophrenia begins to suspect her neighbor has kidnapped a child. Her parents try desperately to help her live a normal life, without exposing their own tragic secrets, and the only person who believes her is Caleb - a boy she isn't even sure exists.
Father Gabriele Amorth, Chief Exorcist of the Vatican, investigates a young boy's terrifying possession and ends up uncovering a centuries-old conspiracy the Vatican has desperately tried to keep hidden.
Four children become friends during the summer holidays, and out of sight of the adults they discover they have hidden powers. While exploring their newfound abilities in the nearby forests and playgrounds, their innocent play takes a dark turn and strange things begin to happen.
Tension is a byproduct of investment. You're only on the edge of your seat if the film has made you care first. These do.
These films work not in spite of their darkness but because of what they do with it. Fear, in the right hands, is one of cinema's most honest tools.