The best horror films on Sky and Now TV 2022

Nightmare on Elm Street director Wes Craven uses this teen horror movie to riff on the genre rules he himself helped write: in Scream, the masked killer sticks slavishly to the stalk-and-slash guidelines set by older scary movies.

What could have been a trashy parody works brilliantly on two levels: it’s both a creepy, tense slasher flick and an entertaining postmodern commentary on the horror genre, bolstered by a strong cast (the most famous member of which is bumped off in the first ten minutes), a bevy of killer twists and loads of quotable lines. It was followed by a raft of lesser sequels, a TV series and a full-on nostalgia-fuelled reboot (also streaming on Now if you’re keen), but for our money the original remains by far the best.

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Based on a real-life case investigated by husband-and-wife ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren, The Conjuring tells the story of a New England family troubled by a malevolent spirit – and comes with all the standard jump scares, whispering voices, flying furniture and general screaming that you’d expect from a modern-day horror movie.

Despite taking some liberties with the source material – the genuine Warrens weren’t as easy on the eye as stars Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, for one thing – it’s an entertaining, well-paced ride on the ghost train. It’s far from the most interesting horror movie in this list, but for those times you just want a good yarn to wrap yourself up in, it’s a solid watch.

Watch The Conjuring on Now

Made with a budget that would barely get you a used Ford Focus and fully embracing the “found footage” trend that already felt outdated by its release, Paranormal Activity still has the potential to creep out all but the hardiest viewer. Its unsettling, homemade charm helped it to become a worldwide hit, championed by none other than Steven Spielberg, and eventually spawning a series of (mostly underwhelming) sequels.

The story centres on a young couple, one of whom claims to have been haunted by a strange presence since childhood. A psychic warns the pair not to try communicating with said presence, advice which is promptly ignored. Cue: creepy occurrences start being captured in grainy camcorder footage, gradually ramping up to the point where viewers might find themselves watching from behind the sofa.

Watch Paranormal Activity on Now

In a near-future USA, crime has been all but eliminated, the economy is flourishing and everybody lives together in productive harmony. For 364 days of the year, at least. During the annual “purge”, crime becomes legal for one night.

The purge is society’s safety valve: an opportunity to release a year’s worth of pent-up aggression in an orgy of violence before returning to your law-abiding normal life. But when one wealthy family finds their security shutters inadequate and a murderous gang at their door, they’re forced to question their former beliefs.

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Neil Jordan’s lavish 1994 gothic horror made a star out of 12-year-old Kirsten Dunst and further established Brad Pitt as a bona fide Hollywood A-lister but it’s Tom Cruise, playing against type as decadent, ruthless vampire Lestat, who steals the show.

Based on the novel by Anne Rice, it’s fair to say that Interview with the Vampire did much to build up the “sexy, angst-ridden vampire” trope that has since become a staple of film and TV – for better or worse, there’d be no Twilight or True Blood without it. But this isn’t just some romanticised goth-friendly depiction of the conflicted, beautiful children of the night – it’s also a creepy film with some outright shocking scenes.

Watch Interview with the Vampire on Now

The bum-clenchingly tense thriller about a world invaded by aliens with super sensitive hearing gets a sequel, and while many might dismiss it as unnecessary (and purely a consequence of the unexpected success of the first film), this is an enjoyable popcorn movie that delivers breathless scares while developing the original characters further.

We see a lot more of the  this time around (it being a sequel, there’s little point in keeping the creatures a mystery this time around) but it hasn’t gone full action-thriller; director John Krasinski has again made a family drama that just happens to take place in the wake of a global disaster. Emily Blunt is in great form, but it’s the young actors and newcomer Cillian Murphy who shine here.

Watch A Quiet Place Part II on Now

This horror comedy hits the ground running with a self-aware opening credits sequence that lays out the ground rules for staying alive in a post-apocalyptic zombie-infested America. Jesse Eisenberg’s cowardly Columbus survives by following these principles to the letter, while his companion Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) is an impetuous killing machine on a quest for the last remaining Twinkie. Sharp, witty and blessed with one of the most memorable cameo appearances ever, this is a zombie movie with lots of brains.

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Final Destination comes with a killer (no pun intended) premise: if you find a way to cheat death and avoid your predestined fate, it’s little more than a bump in the road – the grim reaper will always get to you in the end. It’s a rule a bunch of high school kids are horrified to discover when they find themselves the sole survivors of an horrific airplane disaster.

This setup leads to some of the most imaginative ‘accidental’ death scenes in the teen horror genre. With the killer being the universe itself rather than some cleaver-wielding masked maniac, there are countless interesting ways for these kids to die – and discovering how these fresh-faced ingenues will come to their sticky ends is this film’s real hook.

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A beautifully shot and wonderfully creepy modern horror about a quiet rural schoolboy and his family life, Antlers is both a scary movie and a thought-provoking one – just like all the best horror films. The boy’s teacher (Keri Russell) suspects he’s being neglected at home, but the truth is much, much worse, and when mutilated bodies begin to turn up in the woods the entire town becomes caught up in the panic.

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If you go down in the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise. No, not a bunch of teddy bears munching on crisps and scotch eggs, but an intense mix of ominous fog, amateur surgeons, and strange botanical rituals.

In the Earth sees a scientist and a park ranger venture deep into the wilderness in search of a missing colleague. Instead they find forest-dwelling Zach, played brilliantly by The League of Gentleman’s Reece Shearsmith – a master of combining the horrifying and the hilarious, and he doesn’t disappoint here. 

Despite shooting during a pandemic with an almost non-existent budget, director Ben Wheatley’s National Trust Chainsaw Massacre is a masterful combination of folk-horror, sci-fi and psychedelia that’s reminiscent of everything from 2001: A Space Odyssey to The Evil Dead. You’ll never look at your house plants the same way again.

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John Carpenter not only directed and co-wrote this rollicking supernatural slasher movie – he even composed and performed the evocative synth score. When a thick bank of fog rolls off the ocean, it’s not just low visibility that the residents of California coastal town Antonio Bay need to worry about. There’s also a band of hook-wielding revenant sailors residing in the pea-souper, and they have bloody vengeance on their minds.

Like so many horror films of its time, it’s since been rebooted (and badly rebooted at that), but the original remains an enjoyable watch – even if it never reaches the heights of Carpenter’s other early horror efforts The Thing and Halloween.

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The antagonist from the original movie – an ageing, blind ex-Navy SEAL who hunts down a trio of teenage burglars that invade his home – becomes the anti-hero of this sequel. He’s now living peacefully in a new house with his adopted daughter, but when she’s snatched by a vicious gang of meth dealers, he turns back into a vengeful killer whose sight problems are more than compensated for by his preternatural hearing and age-defying strength. If it sounds less original than the first film, it is – but if you’re in the market for a bit of mindless, ultra- violent action-thriller-horror it ticks all those boxes nicely.

Watch Don’t Breathe 2 on Now

This film has been unfairly slighted, probably due to not living up to the iconic sci-fi novel upon which it’s based – but we reckon it’s still well worth a watch. It sees Will Smith playing the last man alive in a post-apocalyptic New York, and is imbued with the tense atmosphere and survival themes characteristic of zombie movies (even though the undead here are perhaps more vampire than ghoul). It stands out because it’s interesting, sad and hauntingly beautiful to see a lone survivor struggling both to outlive the horde as well as his own past.

Watch I Am Legend on Now TV

This gore-glutted deep space shocker could easily be entitled Dead Space: The Movie if not for the fact that it came out 10 years before the horror-gaming classic. The plot bears a strong resemblance, with Sam Neill’s motley crew of space jockeys investigating a seemingly deserted craft on the outer reaches of the solar system and finding all manner of hellish horrors aboard.

So, just another unoriginal B-movie clinging on to Alien‘s coat-tails? Not exactly. The terrors on board the starship Event Horizon are grotesque enough to lift it above the many inferior rivals, making it a horror film set in space rather than a sci-fi film with a horror theme.

So don’t watch it on your own. Or just before boarding a deserted spaceship.

Watch Event Horizon on Now TV