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The 12 Scariest Horror Movies Streaming on Peacock, From Knock at the Cabin to M3GAN
From killer robots to creepy knocks on the door, these films bring the frights.
We're now a third of the way through 2023, and we've already seen a very robust crop of horror films this year. From Knock at the Cabin to M3GAN, it's been a wonderful year for scary movies, but that shouldn't stop you from digging into the classics alongside the new releases. Fortunately, Peacock has you covered either way.
The NBCUniversal streaming service has retained a robust horror collection pretty much since it launched, and right now it's particularly packed with great options from across the genre's history, just waiting for horror junkies or the horror curious. From a zombie classic to a new home invasion thriller and everything in between, these are the scariest horror films streaming on Peacock right now.
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Night of the Living Dead (1968)
What can we say about Night of the Living Dead that hasn't already been said? George A. Romero's stone-cold classic served as the blueprint for the modern zombie genre. Without it, our collective cultural notion of reanimated corpses seeking out flesh and representing deeper ideas about society would simply not exist.
"We had $6,000 and a loose idea based on a short story I'd written which was in fact an allegorical thing," Romero remarked in a 1972 interview. "We decided to take that and turn it into a real blood and guts film, and that's how it started."
Watch it here on Peacock!
Black Christmas (1974)
Once again, we return to the debate of which movie kicked off the slasher boom that would come to define the late ‘70s and all of the 1980s. Released a full four years before Michael Myers went on his famous killing spree in Haddonfield, Black Christmas might very well have a genuine claim to the title of being the first modern slasher flick.
Prior to his death in 2007, director Bob Clark shot down speculation that Halloween was a rip-off of his movie: "[John] liked Black Christmas and may have been influenced by it, but in no way did John Carpenter copy the idea." Whatever the case, Black Christmas (a simple tale of sorority sisters being stalked and killed in gruesome fashion) makes for a festive watch any day of the year.
Watch it here on Peacock!
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Shot over one sweltering Texas summer in 1973, Tobe Hooper's chaotic horror masterpiece still ranks among the most unsettling things you can watch on any given day. The seat-of-your-pants production, coupled with the real sweat across the actors' faces and a sense of lived-in funk that you can feel in your nostrils, adds an almost docudrama air to the whole piece. You feel like you're in the van with this group of youths driving to their doom, like you're in the house where Leatherface starts carving people up, and like you've got a seat for the most terrifying dinner party in history. Nearly 50 years after its release, Texas Chain Saw remains notorious not because it's bloody, but because it still feels transgressive and horrifying.
Watch it here on Peacock!
The Changeling (1980)
One of the all-time great haunted house movies, Peter Medak's The Changeling begins with a very simple, yet effective, setup for a horror story. A composer (George C. Scott), still grieving the loss of his wife and child, moves across the country and settles into a historic, secluded mansion to begin work on some new music. It's not long before he starts experiencing odd phenomena around the house, all connected to what seems to be the ghost of a dead boy. Rich with atmosphere and anchored by Scott's wonderful central performance, The Changeling just keeps adding layers to its horrific narrative, right up until one of the most unforgettable climaxes in horror.
Watch it here on Peacock!
Prom Night (1980)
There's a reason Jamie Lee Curtis (the daughter of Psycho star Janet Leigh) gained the moniker of "Scream Queen." Her involvement with early slashers like John Carpenter's Halloween and Paul Lynch's Prom Night cemented her status as a cinematic icon — the prototypical "Final Girl," if you will. Curtis wasn't entirely happy with the latter project, which she claimed was a rip-off of Halloween (everyone was trying to capitalize on the crazed killer, er, craze at the time). Nevertheless, Prom Night remains an indelible part of the slasher canon and even got a remake in 2008.
Watch it here on Peacock!
M3GAN (2023)
Yes, there's a lot about M3GAN that pushes it into horror-comedy territory, from its self-aware campiness to the flat-out jokes populating its story. It's a funny movie, and a fun movie, but there's also some genuine fear at work in this story. The very idea of M3GAN doesn't sound so farfetched, of course, and the way the film deploys her, and shifts her from comedy to horror on a dime, is truly unsettling. Plus, if you like a little more intensity, you can stream the unrated cut!
Watch it here on Peacock!
Knock at the Cabin (2023)
Like many of his films, M. Night Shyamalan's latest effort might fall more into "thriller" than outright horror, depending on who you ask, but there's plenty to be scared of in Knock at the Cabin. That doesn't means monsters or ghosts are going to jump out at you at every turn, but it does mean that Shyamalan and his talented cast dig deep into the existential fears at work in Paul Tremblay's original novel The Cabin at the End of the World. What if you had to sacrifice a member of your own family to save the entire world? This movie asks that questions, and answers it with fierce, unnerving intensity.
Watch it here on Peacock!
The House of the Devil (2009)
Ti West is a master of doing a lot with a little. His independent horror films are some of the best the genre's had to offer us over the last 20 years, and if you loved his recent successes like X and Pearl, you owe it to yourself to go back and take a look at this throwback chiller. Set in the 1980s and hinging on that decade's Satanic Panic vibes, it's the story of a babysitter who takes a gig to earn some quick cash and soon finds that she's trapped in a nightmare she may never escape. Jocelin Donahue is fantastic in the central role, and the way West manages to crank up the tension in close quarters, even when nothing seems to be happening, makes it a nail-biter to the very end.
Watch it here on Peacock!
Train to Busan (2016)
It's hard to do something new with the zombie genre, so when a film comes along and breathes new life (no pun intended) into the realm of reanimated corpses, you have to give credit where credit is due.
Director Yeon Sang-ho's thrilling, and terrifying, Train to Busan is one of those projects. Entirely set aboard a speeding locomotive infested with frenzied zombies, the film gained a great deal of attention for its socioeconomic subtext. In a New York Times review, Jeannette Catsoulis described the effort as "a public-transportation horror movie with a side helping of class warfare."
Watch it here on Peacock!
The Invisible Man (2020)
The plot of Leigh Whannell's The Invisible Man is certainly scary by itself: A woman can't shake her terrifying ex-boyfriend, so much so that he seems to come back from the dead as an invisible presence in her life. But that's not what makes The Invisible Man a modern horror classic. No, what really puts the film over the top is the simple attention to detail in every single horror sequence, from the subtle to the ultra-violent. Everything is put in place so perfectly that when Whannell finally lets the scares loose, you're already slumped down in your seat, biting your nails and waiting for the jump.
Watch it here on Peacock!
The Exorcist III (1990)
Nearly 20 years after The Exorcist arrived and quickly gained a reputation as quite possibly the scariest movie ever made, novelist and screenwriter William Peter Blatty returned to the world of the film with this adaptation of his follow-up novel, Legion. Perhaps due to the lackluster reception of the previous sequel, Exorcist II: The Heretic, The Exorcist III has been met over the years with a certain level of skepticism among horror fans, but trust me when I tell you this is very much a film worth watching. It doesn't generate terror in the same way that The Exorcist does, but that leaves it free to create a dreadful atmosphere all its own as it tells the story of a possibly supernatural serial killer, a new possession, and George C. Scott as the cop caught in the middle of it all. Plus, keep an eye out for one of the best and most unexpected jump scares in horror history.
Watch it here on Peacock!
Sick (2023)
One of the first great horror films of 2023, Sick is simultaneously a great home invasion thriller, a solid high-concept slasher, and an incisive, often funny look at the dread that surrounded us all in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The setup is simple: Two friends head out to a secluded lake house to quarantine amid luxurious surroundings, then masked killers show up and try to murder them. Why are they trying to murder these specific people, and what does it have to do with other deaths back in the crowded city? That's for you to find out, but along the way you're definitely going to get plenty of tension-laden chase scenes, memorable injuries, and a truly wild third act.
Watch it here on Peacock!
