Hidden Horror Gems You Can Watch Right Now On Amazon Prime

Every genre has its share of sleepers, and horror movies are no exception. There are countless horror films from every subgenre that went unappreciated during their brief theatrical or home video runs, but now enjoy critical and fan appreciation. The 1960 cult classic "Carnival of Souls" is a perfect example, as are more recent titles like the underrated "Alone," the overlooked British-French-Canadian survival thriller "Cold Meat," and the grueling Western horror-adventure film "Bone Tomahawk." Even horror movies with terrible Rotten Tomatoes scores are worth watching, like "Halloween III: Season of the Witch" and the harrowing "White of the Eye."

The wide and ever-growing list of streaming services, which offer hundreds of films to viewers every day, includes the best places to catch some of these forgotten horror films. Following are some of the hidden horror gems you can watch right now on one of the most popular platforms, Amazon Prime.

In 1958, Hammer Films earned a worldwide box office hit with "Horror of Dracula." The venerable British company naturally began work on a sequel, but there was a catch: Christopher Lee, who starred as Dracula in "Horror," was either unavailable or uninterested in reprising the role (depending on various sources). However, the company was able to retain Peter Cushing as Van Helsing, and Hammer commenced "The Brides of Dracula," with David Peel as a seductive disciple of the Count.

Despite Lee's absence, "Brides" is one of Hammer's best vampire titles. As historian Richard Harland Smith wrote for TCM, "'The Brides of Dracula' gallops from start to finish, propelled by crisp direction from Terence Fisher." Cushing is the project's main engine; he's as much a man of action as an academic, and his battles with Peel's Baron Meinster and his vampiric brides have a pulp serial intensity. The horrific moments are equally well orchestrated, most notably in a scene where Freda Jackson, as the Baron's servant, cackles fiendishly as she summons a new bride from her grave. In addition to "Brides," Amazon is also streaming several other Hammer horror gems, including the 1962 thriller "Night Creatures," 1970's "The Vampire Lovers," and 1972's "Twins of Evil," all starring Cushing.

Violett (Valentina Blagojevic) is a young girl living in an idyllic Australian town, and her mother, Sonya (the extraordinary Georgia Evers), believes she is marked for death. Sonya sleepwalks through a mental minefield of childhood trauma and near-constant hallucinations, and she is convinced that the monstrous figure that haunted her years ago now intends to take away Violett. When nearly everyone and everything around Sonya is perceived as a supernatural threat – an elderly woman becomes a witch, a street artist transforms into a leering ghoul — how can Sonya protect her daughter? She can't, but the culprit's identity is both unexpected and devastating.

Australian director Steven J. Mihaljevic employs in "Violett" what Screen Space calls "pitch black shadows, rich primary colors, and brilliantly-realized bleakness" to depict Sonya's damaged perspective: Her world with Violett virtually glows with positive energy, while her fears blossom into oversaturated, child-like nightmares. At the 2023 film's core, however, is a heart-rending examination of the toll taken by mental abuse, and how some victims are compelled to repeat their trauma on the very people they fight to protect.

The 2014 supernatural thriller "The Taking of Deborah Logan" is one of the most underrated found footage horror films of recent years and proves that the subgenre can still generate some chills beyond the "V/H/S" franchise. It starts on familiar footing: A small film crew working on a documentary about Alzheimer's disease discovers that their elderly subject, Deborah Logan (soap star Jill Larson), is exhibiting symptoms unassociated with the condition, such as the ability to speak new languages. Though her behavior is initially dismissed as the ravages of the disease, the crew begins to suspect that supernatural forces are at play.

Adam Robitel ("Escape Room"), in his feature directorial debut, shows remarkable restraint in "Deborah Logan." He dodges many well-worn found footage tropes — jump scares, foolish characters, frightening things that happen off-screen — and keeps the action grounded in reality. The pace is steady and there's no rush to get to scary material; his three-person camera crew and Deborah's beleaguered daughter Sarah (Anne Ramsay from "Mad About You") take their time in reviewing the material and hold off on declaring anything otherworldly until the evidence presents no other option. This patience pays off in the final moments when Robitel offers up some truly nerve-rattling images.

The "Possum" referred to in the title of this 2018 psychological thriller is a hideous puppet with a spider's body and a wide-eyed human head. It's the kind of thing that you'd want to get rid of at any cost, but Philip (Sean Harris of "Mission: Impossible — Fallout") finds himself unable to part ways with the puppet. A troubled orphan, Philip has returned home in hopes of losing Possum, but each attempt not only brings it back to him but also drags him deeper into the horrors of his past he's struggled to block out.

Writer-director Matthew Holness, who starred in the cult U.K. series "Garth Marenghei's Darkplace," employs a melancholy visual and musical palette drawn from educational films of the 1970s – the score is by BBC Radiophonic Workshop, which contributed eerie music for shows like "Doctor Who." But "Possum" isn't a nostalgia exercise: As with "Violett," its focus is on the lingering and devastating impact of trauma, and how it can reshape how the mind perceives the world. And similarly, its most disturbing moments are painful, sad, and frightening.

An assured feature directorial debut by British actress Romola Garai ("Scoop"), 2020's "Amulet" offers indelible nightmare fuel from both visual and metaphoric standpoints. Romanian actor Alec Secareanu  ("God's Own Country") is Tomaz, a traumatized soldier living in squalor in London until he meets Sister Claire (Imelda Staunton), a nun who offers him a job helping a woman (Carla Juri) with her dying mother. What Tomaz finds is a deranged elderly woman in the attic who occasionally gives birth to albino monster bats. His discovery of the bats in a clogged toilet is bound to reawaken any latent bathroom terrors you've spent decades trying to forget.

But "Amulet" is more than just a creature feature with elements of David Cronenberg's work. There is a terrible purpose to the old woman and the bats, one that involves otherworldly retribution for crimes against women, and as Garai slowly reveals, Tomaz meets such criteria. The new element lends both depth, visual panache, and lingering horror to Garai's film, which The Hollywood Reporter described as an "elevated neo-Gothic [movie] executed with a firm hand and a beguiling imagination."

An unsettlingly quiet spookshow as opposed to the horror riot that is his "X" trilogy, "The Innkeepers" is writer/director/producer Ti West's take on the classic ghost story, albeit from a modern perspective. Set at Connecticut's real, allegedly haunted, and now sadly shuttered Yankee Pedlar Inn, where West stayed and reportedly experienced supernatural phenomena during the filming of 2009's "The House of the Devil," "The Innkeepers" stars Sara Paxton and Pat Healy as inn employees Claire and Luke, who alleviate their boredom by investigating rumors of ghosts on the property.

What follows is less about the search for a spirit than finding one, and all that entails. That the Yankee Pedlar is haunted is a matter of record for everyone, from an actor-turned-psychic (Kelly McGillis) to a cagey local barista (Lena Dunham), but what Claire and Luke don't realize — until it's far too late — that ghosts are not the harmless, ethereal figures seen on the ghost-hunting shows and sites they love. Brimming with smart performances (especially from McGillis and the underrated Paxton) and dialogue, "The Innkeepers" proves, as the Austin Chronicle wrote, that West is a "consummate master of the slow-burning shudder."

You can think of the 2023 Norwegian film "Good Boy" as a very (or more) warped mirror image of "Fifty Shades of Grey." The movie concerns Sigrid (Katrine Lovise Øpstad Fredriksen) a young grad student whose desperate search for romance brings her to Christian (Gard Løkke). Like his "Fifty Shades" namesake, he's handsome, fabulously wealthy, and has a secret. However, this Christian's quirk involves his best friend, a dog named Frank — who is actually a man (Nicolai Narvesen Lied) in a dog costume, but whom Christian insists that Sigrid treats as a real dog.

There are two directions that a movie like "Good Boy" can turn: It can play into the weird but funny premise of a man in a dog costume (like the short-lived Elijah Wood sitcom "Wilfred"), or it can drift into disturbing territory with detours into psychosis and subjugation. Writer-director Viljar Bøe chooses the latter, and the result is gradually and deeply unnerving. It may also make you swear off dating apps for the rest of your life.

The 2019 indie "The Deeper You Dig" is one of several independent horror films written, directed, produced, edited, scored, and starring John Adams, his wife Toby Poser, and their daughter Zelda Adams (sister Lulu Adams, a regular participant, was unavailable). And yes, that does make this an Adams Family production (note the spelling) — but don't mistake the Adams' films as morbidly comic exercises. The Adams family regularly makes visually striking films on shoestring budgets that out-creep many studio efforts. "Deeper" is no exception: it stars John as a loner named Kurt who tries to cover up his accidental murder of goth teen Echo (played by Zelda), only to discover that her spirit won't stay quiet for him or her mother Ivy (Poser), a would-be psychic.

Yet another shivery meditation on the destructive qualities of guilt and lies, "Deeper" transcends its modest production values with excellent performances and impressive special effects. It's also outrageously gory at times — John's interaction with a power saw will make jaws drop — and doesn't shy away from taboo material (the title refers to John's desperate attempts to hide away Echo's body in the frozen ground). As the esteemed critic Kim Newman notes, the film has a "certain ricketiness which undercuts the suspense situations but makes for unpredictable, unusually affecting forest magic."

It's highly unlikely that "Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made" is going to lead to your demise, but it may surprise you with its craftiness. The 2018 Canadian film is actually two pictures: A faux documentary about a Bulgarian film that killed countless viewers, and a spot-on facsimile of a grainy 1970s horror film about siblings who use black magic to bring their dead dog back from Hell (!) and unwittingly unleash evil forces. The film itself is laden with subliminal images and sounds (including clips from a supposed snuff film), all of which underscore its "deadly" reputation.

The idea of a cursed media object is well-worn; H.P. Lovecraft's Necronomicon dates back to the 1920s and John Carpenter envisioned a cursed film for "Cigarette Burns," an episode of "Masters of Horror" in 2005. In most cases, the entire object is rarely available to view — it is dangerous, right? — so writers/directors David Amito and Michael Laicini present an irresistible gambit. To see what makes "Antrum" the deadliest movie ever made, you have to watch the whole thing, but in doing so, you put your life at risk. Only the most cynical genre fan could refuse such a proposal, and "Antrum" delivers as both a horror movie and a creepy audience participation project. According to The Guardian, "Even knowing and appreciating the artifice doesn't entirely deprive the film of its eerie power."

A harrowing examination of what it means to be civilized, Lucky McKee's "The Woman" pits the titular character — the lone survivor of a primitive clan of cannibals (Pollyanna McIntosh of "The Walking Dead") — against Chris Cleek (Sean Bridgers), the patriarch of a seemingly respectable small town family. Cleek captures the Woman with the intent of rehabilitating her. However, what the Woman and the audience discover is that his brand of civility is rooted in torture, subjugation, and abuse — a practice that he and his son Brian (Zach Rand) extend to their own family members.

McIntosh is astonishing in a reprisal of her role from the 2009 film "Offspring," which, like "The Woman," was written by and adapted from a novel by the late Jack Ketchum (McKee also co-wrote both the script and source material for "The Woman"). Ketchum's work was known for its extreme violence, and "The Woman" is unflinching in that regard — it earned headlines for audience walkouts at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011 – but Ketchum and McKee also make a strong case for the hypocrisy inherent in those who proclaim moral superiority over others. McIntosh played the Woman in 2019's "Darlin'," which she also directed; the film follows the Cleeks' eldest daughter (Lauren Ashley Carter), after the events of the previous movie.

Grief and guilt, those twin engines of destruction that have motivated many horror movies in the past (including several on this list), fuel this slow-boiling supernatural shocker from Bryan Bertino ("The Strangers") about siblings (Marin Ireland and Michael Abbott, Jr.) who come to believe that supernatural forces are responsible for their family's decline. They are reluctant to return to their family home, but even more worried about leaving, especially after their mother's horrible demise (she cuts off her fingers in a trance-like state before hanging herself) and father's declining health — and that hesitation ultimately proves their undoing.

Bertino stacks the deck quickly and frighteningly with visions of their dead mother and a priest (Xander Berkeley) who lives miles away from their home, and the death of the family's goat herd. But the siblings are rooted to the spot by confusion, sadness, and terror, and it's soon too late to take any action — or maybe, there was never any chance at all. Bertino keeps his answers close to the vest but spares nothing in brutal shocks; "The Dark and the Wicked" is, as Eye For Film observed, "a fireside yarn of a film, a story to tell one another as we huddle together against the dark – but like many old stories, it makes no effort to offer comfort."

In 2023's "Stopmotion," Ella (Aisling Franciosi) is a skilled animator whose talent has been sidelined for years as she helps her mother Suzanne (Stella Gonet) — a legendary filmmaker but an abusive parent — complete her final stop-motion animation project. Ella has been so subjugated that when her mother dies, she can only think of one thing, and that's to finish her mother's film.

But the arrival of a strange girl (Caoilinn Springall) puts Ella on a different track: She wants Ella to work on a new animated project, one about a little girl and a monster called the Ash Man. The girl's suggestions grow frightening and weird — use rotten meat and dead animals for the figures — but as Ella grows more obsessed with stepping into the spotlight, she finds herself unable to refuse the new ideas.

The uncanny qualities of stop-motion, which gives something like life to an inanimate object, serve as an apt metaphor for Ella's sleepwalking existence. She's so damaged by her mother's dominance that it's no wonder that her dream project is a nightmare populated by misshapen monsters. "Each element moves in lock step to forge a deeply troubling intimacy between Ella and her repellent figurines," wrote The New York Times.

"Infinity Pool" director Brandon Cronenberg isn't the only one of David Cronenberg's children to follow in their father's unique footsteps. Photographer Caitlin Cronenberg made her feature directorial debut in 2024 with "Humane," a darkly satirical science fiction film that, in its exploration of disaster bringing out mankind's worst instincts, dips into the family's frequent showcase: Horror.

The disaster in "Humane" is no less than the end of the world, which our species faces due to ecological disaster unless it sheds 20% of its population through voluntary (but mandatory) euthanasia. Those who submit are hailed as heroes, which suits pompous, self-important newscaster Charles York (Peter Gallagher). However, it doesn't work for his combative children, who soon find out from a government official (Enrico Colatoni) that a second sacrifice is required. Bloody mayhem ensures.

Cronenberg enlists a terrific cast, including Jay Baruchel and the welcome return of Emily Hampshire ("Schitt's Creek") to illustrate our descent into savagery. "Humane" echoes aspects of her father's best work — most notably, the implacability of science and nature — while establishing her as a singular filmmaker of her own right.

As several films on this list have indicated, monsters are made, not born. Add to their number "The Eyes of My Mother" and young Francisca (played as a child by Olivia Bond and later by Kika Magalhaes), whose isolated life hinges on religion, anatomy, and no human interaction beyond her very odd parents. When a psychotic stranger kills her mother, and her father dies after punishing the killer, Francisca's mind turns inward and dark. Left to her own devices, imprisonment comes to mean love, torture means care, and affection is taken by lethal force.

Writer-director Nicolas Pesce's 2016 feature unfolds in high-contrast black-and-white images by Zack Kuperstein, which depict lyrical landscapes and horrible deaths with equal stillness and eerie beauty. Adding to the alarming mix is the idea that Francisca's actions, while monstrous, aren't entirely evil; deprived of a normal upbringing, she is simply responding to her surroundings with the tools she's been given. "This is no easy task, and this is not in any sense an easy film to watch," wrote horror critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas on The Blue Lenses. "But 'The Eyes of My Mother' is an insightful, meaningful, and exquistely beautiful horror film, and undoubtedly one of the genre's most important offerings of 2016."