If you’re a horror fan and you have a Prime Video subscription, your streaming options are vast—especially if you don’t mind ads (via Freevee) or paying a couple bucks to rent the title of your choice. But you also shouldn’t overlook the original films that get distributed through Prime Video—including these 10, a creative, artistically interesting bunch that just so happen to have the power of a massive streaming platform behind them.
Nanny
In writer-director Nikyatu Jusu’s 2022 feature debut, a magnetic Anna Diop plays a Senegalese immigrant who’s hired as a nanny for an upscale Manhattan family; she’s hoping to quickly earn enough to bring her young son to America. Before long, she realizes the family she’s working for isn’t as perfect as it seems, and as her own deep feelings of guilt begin to intrude, the story takes an eerie, folklore-tinged turn. Watch on Prime Video.
Nocturne
Back in 2020, when she was just “the girl from Handmaid’s Tale” (and not yet “a viral superstar from Euphoria and the Madame Webb trailer”), Sydney Sweeney starred as an unhinged pianist in this “Welcome to the Blumhouse” co-production, a blend of Suspiria, Black Swan, Carrie, and its own prickly mojo. Watch on Prime Video.
Totally Killer
The totally fun Totally Killer integrates time-travel into a slasher-movie plot, and makes the most of that creative concept (with plenty of ‘80s nostalgia to boot). Kiernan Shipka stars in this Halloween 2023 release that’s worth watching any time of year. Watch on Prime Video.
In My Mother’s Skin
The only non-English language film in the Midnight section of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival was scooped by Prime Video with good reason. Set in the rural Philippines near the end of World War II, it’s about a young girl who makes a desperate decision while trying to protect her family—and realizes she’s awakened a supernatural force that’s somehow more dangerous than anything in her frightening reality. Watch on Prime Video.
Bingo Hell
This 2021 “Welcome to the Blumhouse” entry directed by Gigi Saul Guerrero—who just contributed the creepy Mexican earthquake segment to V/H/S/85—stars Blue Beetle’s Adriana Barraza as a woman who begins to realize something very sinister is afoot in her town when the local bingo hall comes under new management. Watch on Prime Video.
The Manor
Another “Welcome to the Blumhouse” entry, this time from Axelle Carolyn (who directed the haunting, black-and-white eighth episode of Netflix’s The Haunting of Bly Manor), The Manor stars horror veteran Barbara Hershey as an aging dancer who stumbles onto a horrifying plot involving some very spooky magic after she moves into a nursing home. Watch on Prime Video.
Master
Mariama Diallo’s 2022 feature debut stars Regina Hall as a newly appointed university head and Zoe Renee as a new student, both of whom start to realize their prestigious academic surroundings are not nearly as progressive as they’d hoped. Watch on Prime Video.
Black as Night
This 2021 “Welcome to the Blumhouse” entry directed by first-time feature helmer Maritte Lee Go has an appealing young cast and a plot that asks, “What did you do on your summer vacation?” and answers “Fought vampires all across New Orleans with my friends, what else?” Watch on Prime Video.
Run Sweetheart Run
Writer-director Shana Feste (The Greatest) made this 2020 thriller about a woman (Resident Evil’s Ella Balinska) as a young woman who’s pressed by her boss (Marvel vet Clark Gregg) into meeting a hunky client (Game of Thrones’ Pilou Asbæk) for a dinner date. Things soon go violently sideways—and spiral into a night of supernatural frights and strange encounters. Watch on Prime Video.
Goodnight Mommy
No, not the 2014 Austrian film—which is also streaming on Prime, if you want to be a completist; the Amazon Studios version is the 2022 English-language remake starring Naomi Watts. It’s about twin boys who believe their mother isn’t really their mother, both based on her odd behavior and the fact that her face is totally, unsettlingly, swaddled in bandages after plastic surgery. Watch on Prime Video.
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