Although it’s primarily known as the streaming home of Star Trek and Yellowstone, Paramount+ has a pretty impressive movie collection, too. And there’s no shortage of streaming options for horror-loving cinephiles.
Now that Paramount+ has gobbled up Showtime, there are even more titles to choose from. Below, you’ll find the best horror movies currently streaming on Paramount+ With Showtime. For the time being, that includes a few titles from A24, which recently signed a deal to migrate over to Max this year.
Scream
Paramount+ currently has the whole Scream franchise—except for Scream 4, which is streaming on Max. Scream, Scream 2, Scream 3, Scream (a.k.a. Scream V), and Scream VI are all available to take you on a postmodern slasher journey. Wes Craven reinvigorated the horror genre with 1996’s Scream, and the recent sequels do a good job of carrying the torch with an assist from Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega. Unfortunately, it looks like Scream VII won’t be happening anytime soon.
Smile
Smile was the surprise horror hit of 2022 (there’s a sequel on the way), a supernatural tale of terror that effectively blends classic jumpscares with moments of dread and features a pretty bold climax. Parker Finn’s feature directorial debut follows Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon), who finds herself tormented by a mysterious evil force after witnessing a horrific event involving a patient.
Event Horizon
Before he became the architect of the Resident Evil franchise, Paul W.S. Anderson made one of the better entries in the late ‘90s run of sci-fi movies. Set in 2047, Event Horizon stars career freakazoid Sam Neill, Laurence Fishburne, and Jason Isaacs, and centers on a crew of astronauts whose investigation into the sudden reappearance of a spacecraft uncovers horrors beyond imagination. There’s a reason this one is a cult classic.
A Quiet Place
A world in which everyone has to shut the hell up or get killed by insectoid aliens doesn’t sound too dystopian to me, but I’m also not Emily Blunt in A Quiet Place: caring for two children and grieving a horrible loss while pregnant and figuring out how to soundproof the family bunker for delivery day. Directed by John Krasinski (who co-stars as the family patriarch and delivers a hilarious moment involving a whiteboard), A Quiet Place is a fun, riveting horror thriller. And if you’re curious, you can watch A Quiet Place Part II, which is also streaming.
Bodies Bodies Bodies
One of our favorites from 2022, Bodies Bodies Bodies is a total blast with a great ensemble and a killer ending. A group of friends—played by Amandla Stenberg, Rachel Sennott, Myha’la Herrold, Chase Sui Wonders, and Pete Davidson—get stuck in a mansion during a hurricane and decide to play the eponymous party game, in which one friend goes around “killing” the others until their identity is revealed. Things quickly devolve when a friend turns up dead, and everyone becomes a suspect, including the newest additions to the group (Maria Bakalova and Lee Pace, who gives an A+ performance as a walking red flag).
Cloverfield
The months leading up to the release of Cloverfield in 2008 were pretty exciting thanks to a low-key viral marketing campaign and a mysterious teaser. Produced by J.J. Abrams, the found-footage horror flick is set in New York and follows a group of friends—a young Lizzy Caplan among them—as they contend with the arrival of a giant alien creature terrorizing the city. Cloverfield was the directorial debut of one Matt Reeves, who went on to direct Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and its follow-up, as well as The Batman.
It Follows
With a somewhat unexpected sequel on the way, now is a great time to give It Follows a spin. The 2014 horror film concerns a supernatural presence, transmitted via sexual intercourse, that relentlessly stalks its victims until, exhausted and no longer able to run, it kills them. Directed by David Robert Mitchell (Under the Silver Lake), the well-executed scares and timeless production design have made It Follows a modern horror classic.
Men
Alex Garland has made some truly great contributions to genre film, including Ex Machina, Annihilation, and (as screenwriter) 28 Days Later. 2022’s Men is his most divisive movie, an avante garde folk horror thriller in which a woman (Jessie Buckley) rents a home in the rural countryside to cope with a recent tragedy, only to find herself tormented by the town’s men—all of whom are played by Rory Kinnear. It’s a compelling concept that alienated some viewers, especially those who’d come to expect something a little different from Garland. The absolutely batshit-bonkers ending probably didn’t help, but I adore it.
The Host
Long before he swept the Oscars with social thriller Parasite, South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho made a wildly entertaining monster movie. Released in 2006, The Host is set in Seoul, where the American military’s dumping of chemicals into the river has given rise to a massive kaiju. The film is the second collaboration between Director Bong and actor Song Kang-ho, who also stars in Memories of Murder and Parasite.
X and Pearl
Ti West struck gold when he cast Mia Goth in dual roles in X, in which she plays adult film performer Maxine, one of a small group of amateurs trying to shoot a porno on a religious elderly couple’s Texas farm. Goth also plays Pearl, the elderly wife who becomes obsessed with the film crew—and Maxine, in particular.
West followed X up with the campy prequel Pearl, which explores the eponymous character’s past as a deeply repressed aspiring starlet. The trilogy is set to conclude soon with MaXXXine, a sequel set in the ‘80s.
The Exorcist
One of the scariest films of all time hardly needs an introduction. Released in 1973, The Exorcist stars Ellen Burstyn as a single mother struggling with the strange affliction plaguing her daughter, Regan (Linda Blair). Desperate for help, she enlists a Catholic priest, who calls for an exorcist, played by the great Max von Sydow. Directed by William Friedkin, The Exorcist features some of the most iconic imagery in horror. If you haven’t seen it before, you’re likely to have a few a-ha moments when you recognize the scenes that influenced numerous horror movies over the following decades.
What Lies Beneath
Robert Zemeckis released two films in the year 2000: Cast Away and What Lies Beneath. While the Tom Hanks drama is the one people remember most, What Lies Beneath deserves some appreciation, too. Harrison Ford stars in this riveting horror thriller as Dr. Norman Spencer, a man whose secret extramarital affair literally returns to haunt him—and his wife Claire, played by Michelle Pfeiffer. Clark Gregg, best known to audiences as Agent Coulson in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, wrote the screenplay for What Lies Beneath, which features one of the greatest jump-scares in horror history.
(featured image: Paramount Pictures / A24)
