2024 is already two-thirds over — ridiculous, right? — and it’s been a pretty good year at the movies. We’re eight months in, so it’s once again time to take a look at where we stand when it comes to new horror movies. The films below are presented alphabetically meaning they’re not yet ranked, but they’re all good to great. More will be released as the year goes on, and there are still some I need to catch up on, but for now at least, these are the best horror movies that 2024 has to offer.
Now keep reading for a look at the best horror movies of 2024, so far.
The Coffee Table (Spain)
A young couple welcomes their first child, but their biggest challenge comes over a decision to buy a coffee table. He wants this gaudy, glass-topped monstrosity, and she hates it, but his pride wins out and they bring it home. And then… an unspeakable tragedy. Some might argue that Caye Casas‘ 2022 feature (just released in the U.S. this year) isn’t exactly horror, but thinking that after actually watching it is utter nonsense. This thing is pure dread, distilled onto the screen and into our hearts in the form of anxiety, terror, and the slightest whiff of black comedy. It’s impossible to hold your breath for ninety minutes, but it feels like you’re doing exactly that while watching as the raw pain and tension creep throughout your body. This is amazing stuff, grim, shocking, stressful, and horrifying.
Cuckoo (Germany)
2024 has been another great year for horror, but there’s no denying that most of the films, even the great ones on this list, fall under familiar settings and narratives. Few filmmakers seem willing to take big creative swings outside the box, but that’s not something that writer/director Tilman Singer is concerned about. His second feature is a wildly original tale, and while his inspirations for Cuckoo are evident, from Argento to Verbinski, the execution and imagination are all Singer, making for a horror film that moves with grace and style from scares to laughs, and from thrills to real emotion — all while being just a little bit bonkers. Creature feature elements combine with mad science motifs for a story about the importance and power of family in our lives, for better and worse. Dan Stevens brings the “mad” while Hunter Schafer nails her role as the tenacious teen who knows something is rotten in Bavaria. This is horror that delivers visceral thrills, big laughs, and real emotion, and it’s one I look forward to sharing with the ones I love (who are just a little bit off). [My full review.]
Exhuma (South Korea)
A Korean-American family falls victim to a supernatural danger, so they hire a pair of shamans to resolve the issue. So far so good, but giving rest to an unruly ghost is just the beginning of the monstrous threats they’ll face. Exhuma is a big, thrilling, richly detailed piece of folk horror with atmosphere, scares, and personality to spare. Writer/director Jang Jae-hyun chases his two previous religious horror films with a meaty genre tale weaving historical atrocities and supernatural beliefs into fantastical entertainment. We get detailed rituals and a richly layered belief system alongside ghostly chills and monstrous decapitations, and the resulting concoction is a fun genre treat that keeps on giving right through its numerous endings. Horror fans in general should seek it out, but those of you who count yourself as fans of the likes of The Wailing (2017) and It Comes (2018), run don’t walk to Exhuma immediately. I think you’re really gonna dig what it’s throwin’ down. [My full review.]
The First Omen
A young woman on the verge of becoming a nun arrives at a small convent in Italy ready to commit to God and the church, but she soon discovers a secret that threatens all she holds true. A prequel to a nearly half a century old horror classic doesn’t arrive with high hopes attached, but Arkasha Stevenson‘s film squashes any doubts and delivers a big, thrilling piece of horror entertainment. It works its way through plenty of beats you’re expecting given the original film’s story, but the familiar is never dull thanks to sharp, attractive filmmaking and Nell Tiger Free‘s performance. Fun scares, gory sequences, and a pretty great ending — it both leads into 1976’s The Omen and opens the door to some thrilling new story threads — make for a film that’s far more entertaining, engrossing, and successful than you’d expect.
Immaculate
A young woman on the verge of becoming a nun arrives at a small convent in Italy ready to commit to God and the church, but she soon discovers a secret that threatens all she holds true. I know what you’re thinking — did Rob have a stroke? Rest assured, I did not, but we did get two religious horror films released back to back that kick off in remarkably similar ways. While The First Omen plays things pretty serious, Michael Mohan‘s film is straight horror that leans into its B-movie, exploitation inspirations. Wet nuns, dark church secrets, and an ending designed to make you stand up and cheer (while probably offending more than a few viewers along the way) share the screen with bloody set pieces and a fairly novel take on the otherwise familiar narrative. Sydney Sweeney headlines — she also produced and rescued the script from oblivion — and is clearly having a good time being bad-ass and helping make this bloody ride one of the best horror movies of 2024.
In a Violent Nature
A lumbering, masked killer hacking and slashing his way through a group of people on a remote getaway is something we’ve seen a thousand times before, but writer/director Chris Nash puts his own stamp on things with style, a unique POV, and some truly gnarly kills. The film follows the killer from just over his shoulder as he walks, and walks, and walks — stopping only to kill and then resume his journey. It becomes almost a mediation of sorts on the slasher as it touches on the genre’s tropes from a different perspective and offers up only snippets of conversation and chatter. I wouldn’t necessarily want more slashers like this (unfortunate, seeing as a sequel was just announced), but as a one-off this is a memorable and gory experience.
Infested (France)
Residents of a low-income apartment complex find something new to stress over when a horde of rapidly multiplying spiders makes the place their home. Sébastien Vanicek’s feature debut isn’t here to hold your hand and goose you along with laughs. Unlike this year’s other spider horror or the subgenre’s pinnacle, Frank Marshall’s Arachnophobia (1990), you won’t find the comfort of a “horror/comedy” label here. Instead, the film aims to hold you close as spiders of varying sizes — we’re talking spiders ranging in size from peas to watermelons, and they all move a hell of a lot faster than you — burst onto the screen, out of the shadows, and into your waking nightmares. Some genuinely terrifying set pieces are the building blocks here as a small band of survivors struggles to make it to the end credits, and don’t be surprised if you count yourself among them by the time it’s all over. [My full review.]
Oddity (Ireland)
The new chiller from writer/director Damian McCarthy is the first film in a long, long time to have me on edge and second guessing my decision to watch with the lights off. The oddity of the title refers most directly to the wooden, human-sized figure that spends the back half of the film sitting at the dining room table. Well, sitting, but occasionally seeming as if it’s changed position? As if it might very well be looking directly at various characters. As if it might have plans. It’s an undeniably unsettling prop that ultimately feels like something of a MacGuffin, because the film’s biggest scares — the sequences that still leave me unsettled — are built solely on Carolyn Bracken’s performance and McCarthy’s use of shadow, editing, and architecture. Watch with the lights off, if you dare. [My full review.]
Operation Undead (Thailand)
As with vampire flicks and found footage-style horrors, it can be something of an uphill battle making a zombie film that stands apart from the shambling crowd. That doesn’t stop filmmakers from trying, though, resulting in a glut of gut-munching movies that more often than not get lost in the bloody shuffle. Writer/director Kongkiat Khomsiri‘s film succeeds by delivering a terrific wartime drama and then doubling down with some thrilling, gory, and emotionally resonant zombie action. Like Bob Clark’s Deathdream (1974) before it, the film uses genre ideas and zombie tropes to explore themes about the vivid, heartbreaking trauma and tragedy of real-world war. He finds a touchstone of sorts in Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, from a hectic beach assault to a family at risk of losing all of its young men to the finality of war, and he has enough of a budget here to bring both action and quieter moments to vivid life before the undead arrive to shake things up with brutal and bloody kills. [My full review.]
Out Come the Wolves (Canada)
From a marauding bear in Backcountry (2014) to demonic forces in Pyewacket (2017), it’s clear that forests have somehow wronged director Adam MacDonald, and his films are his warning to others. That beef continues with his latest film, Out Come the Wolves, and in addition to continuing the idea that nature is no place for the unafraid, it has something else in common with his two previous movies too — it’s really fucking good. MacDonald doesn’t waste a second of the film’s sparse running time (87 minutes!) and ensures every frame is working to set the tone, explore his characters, and tell a story. There’s a immediate feel of isolation in overhead shots of the landscape, and as the interruption of an ATV echoes through the forest the engine’s roar takes on the eerie snarl of a beast in waiting. We know to expect the wolves, but it’s a telling bit of sound design that suggests they sometimes come in human clothing. [My full review.]
Project Silence (South Korea)
I’m admittedly in the minority on this one, but I’m standing by my take that this is a solid, high concept horror/thriller pairing a big disaster set-piece and a pack of dogs manhandled by the military with a specifically South Korean mix of drama and genre antics. A dense fog envelops a packed bridge, accidents ensue including the unintentional release of some science project canines scheduled for disposal, and we’re off to the races. The action sequences are big and well-crafted, and the CG used to bring the killer dogs to life is pretty slick. Add in a surprisingly high body count and a commentary slamming politicians, and you have a timely, entertaining ride (with an admittedly bad title).
Under Paris (France)
Xavier Gens’ latest makes its nods to the golden granddaddy of killer shark movies clear with a mayor who ignores the warnings about a killer shark in the Seine in favor of the acclaim, publicity, and tourist dollars of the big, pre-Olympics triathlon. It feels every bit, though, that Gens has taken even more inspiration from a Dick Maas double feature of Amsterdamned (1988) and Uncaged (2016) as it blends fast-moving thrills on the city’s waterways with a big CG-rendered beast tearing its way through the populace in increasingly entertaining fashion. To be clear, while Maas’ films lean into comedy at times, Gens and company play Under Paris completely straight, but while there are no obvious laughs or sight gags that doesn’t mean there’s not plenty of fun to be had. Everything about the film lifts it above the type of shark movies we’re used to in recent years as Gens is out here making a real movie. The cast is both talented and invested meaning even the sillier concepts and story turns are delivered convincingly. Cinematographer Nicolas Massart also does good work ensuring we feel the claustrophobic confines of both murky water and the city’s underground/underwater catacombs and tunnels. It all feels like a grounded, ticking time-bomb of a thriller that builds into a silly but still thrilling third act with an incredible body count. What’s not to love about that? [My full review.]
Honorable mentions: Abigail, Late Night With the Devil, Longlegs, No Way Up, Sting
More horror films from 2024 that I’ve seen: Frogman, Here for Blood, Imaginary, Lisa Frankenstein, Night Swim, Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever, The Soul Eater, Sunrise
