Is horror back?! That’s the question that so many people ask themselves daily on social media. Well, when you’re paying attention to the pulse of horror fans and movies, you’d realize that the genre never left. It’s been here, quietly dominating the box office, adding new inventive movies to the cultural zeitgeist. 2024 was a fantastic year for all kinds of horror movies. We had great slasher movies, supernatural movies, movies with puppets, and even multiple movies where people melted into piles of goo. There were new characters, old characters, returning characters, and everything in between. If you love horror, you probably found a movie in 2024 that you love. Here are the Top 10 Horror Movies of 2024.

Before we get to the full list, here are some of the honorable mentions.

(There are links to reviews as the title for each movie!)

Honorable Mentions:

Terrifier 3

Terrifier 3

Art the Clown returns with a more bloody, yet deeper slasher. The third film gave us more absolutely wild kills and even more memes with Art. The Christmas theming added an even bigger layer to the slasher proceedings.

In A Violent Nature

A fantastic premise was mixed with some major arthouse vibes in a horror flick. Take a slasher movie, but show it from the POV of the slasher who’s stalking teenagers. This one had some excellent and inventive kills, most inventively, the yoga kill.

Oddity

A classic ghost story that’ll keep you up with the lights on. Oddity has some of the most inventive use of the “jump scare” in modern horror combined with an iconic “villain” in the statue used in the movie. Some truly terrifying stuff here.

The Inheritance

The Inheritance takes influence from plenty of other horror elements and even some non-horror elements, think the episode of The Twilight Zone “The Masks” and Knives Out. It packs plenty of punch with familial drama and a horrific monster at the end. If you’re in the mood for a mish-mash of genres with some creatures, familial dynamics turned upside down, and even a vault-escape; The Inheritance is for you.

Speak No Evil

James McAvoy in Speak No Evil

Yes, they showed this trailer far too often at the movie theaters, at Halloween Horror Nights, and wherever else. That didn’t take away from how great of a remake it was. James McAvoy is a force of nature and charisma here, dripping sweat and flexing his muscles. The performances across the board are fantastic in an incredibly fun, tense, and thrilling movie.

10. Heretic

Heretic took a standard horror story about two women being trapped against their will by a weird guy but added in questions of faith, what control is, and even some slight supernatural elements. You’ll never smell a blueberry pie candle the same again after this movie. Hugh Grant might get all the press, but Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East both give superb performances across from him.

9. Salem’s Lot

We might have had to wait for this one for far too long because Warner Bros. took their sweet time releasing it. However, that wait was worth it because we got an excellent Stephen King adaptation with some of the coolest cross effects in a recent movie. Lewis Pullman shines alongside some excellent young actors like Jordan Preston Carter. It fits a fat ass King book into a clean 1 hour and 53 minutes of runtime. This one doesn’t pull any punches, no one is safe.

It is a crowd-pleasing horror flick with plenty of bite. This is a nearly perfect Stephen King adaptation with a flawless cast, including a star-making performance from Lewis Pullman, a dreamy aesthetic, and terrifying vampires.

8. Late Night With The Devil

Late Night With The Devil is a shining example of how getting together a magnificent performer like David Dastmalchian and a subject material that hits a nostalgic nerve. The movie tells the real-time story of a ’70s late night talkshow gone wrong with supernatural forces and demonic rituals.

We don’t get many films that stick to their guns when it comes to building tension and allowing a film just to breathe. Let the tension build, take some off, let it build again, and then hammer the audience with shocking imagery. That shocking imagery isn’t for cheap scares, though. The best thing that Late Night With The Devil does is make you think a cheap jump scare is coming, and it never does. The terror is all in that sense of dread.

Armed with a future all-time performance from David Dastmalchian, Late Night With The Devil is exquisite.

7. Street Trash

What happens when you make a requel/sequel to a beloved ’80s Troma classic? Well, it turns out when you put it in the hands of a more than capable director in Ryan Kruger and add even more gooey mess to it, you get a new horror classic.

Street Trash ends up as a movie that outdoes the original in plenty of ways. Ryan Kruger and the cast understood the assignment of updating the ’80s version for a new audience and they ended up with a surprisingly personable and powerful look into the lives of the have-nots, and they also made people melt in explosively colorful ways.

6. Destroy All Neighbors

Destroy All Neighbors might have come out early in 2024, but don’t forget about it as one of the best horror movies of the year. It’s not just a horror movie about a horrible neighbor, it’s about the self-doubt that comes from all forms of artists out there. There’s a prog rock dream of every creative person stitched into the film. It’s that undying feeling to create and get your feelings out in some sort of medium that really sells Destroy All Neighbors.

The ending of the film is my favorite part. The final confrontation between Vlad and William isn’t a final confrontation at all. It’s a commentary on shutting out the negativity, second-guessing art, and creating art. I won’t spoil it, but as a creative, it’s among the most powerful messages someone or something can tell you. Just ignore it. What if no one listens/reads/watches? The right ones will.

Just like the right people will find and love Destroy All Neighbors for years to come.

5. Abigail

Abigail

A group of paid kidnappers kidnap a vampire ballerina. That’s about all you need to know about Abigail, and actually a bit more than I’d have liked to know about the movie going into it. That kind of plot twist should normally be saved, but the marketing for the film decided to give it away. That doesn’t take away from the fact that Abigail is one of the best and most fun horror flicks you’ll see in 2024.

Those who want to complain about unoriginal movies can point to this one being a shining beacon of originality, even when it’s borrowing a couple of things from past movies in the Universal catalog. Abigail is a new horror classic.

Plus it has the line read of the year from Dan Stevens talking about onions.

4. Longlegs

You’ll feel unnerved long after watching Longlegs. It’s not the type of horror that’ll just pop out of a window at you, making your heart rate spike for a short time. It’s the type of movie that sticks with you, hiding in the back of your brain until its reactivated. Nicolas Cage is utterly terrifying in this film. Maika Monroe channels her best inner Scully/Clarice Starling, but adds a youthful energy to the normal archetypal FBI agent.

3. Alien: Romulus

Alien: Romulus

At this point Fede Alvarez should be known as the franchise whisperer. Either he knows how to spruce up a long-dormant franchise with his filmmaking style like he did with Evil Dead and as a producer on Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or he finds the essence of what makes a franchise what it is, and adds heightened terror and gore to it.

Besides some winks and nods to Alien fans, the thing that stood out to me the most about Alien: Romulus is that this could have been another sci-fi movie, without all the extra Weyland-Yutani, Xenomorph stuff, and been as generically science fiction as possible, and it would have worked just as well. Fede Alvarez was the absolute perfect choice to direct and craft this movie.

At its heart, Alien: Romulus is exactly what the Alien series needed. David Jonsson’s performance as Andy is magnificent and carries the film. Add into it a Xenomorph that is more cunning, deadly, and conniving than ever, and you get a horror classic.

2. Frankie Freako

2024 was a hell of a year for a lot of people. Sometimes, you just need something joyous and nostalgic in your life. Frankie Freako might not look like your normal horror movie, but for fans of Full Moon Studios and Psycho Goreman, you’ll be in for a treat.

Frankie Freako is an absolutely wild time at the movies. A burst of joy, partying, and one of the most fun movies of the year. The nostalgic feeling that permeates throughout, evoking those ’90s adventure/horror movies, is joyous. This feels like a Disney Channel movie of the week on steroids with somewhat satanic puppets that like to party. The ending follows a similarly hilariously wholesome routine, but could throw off some people with its “twist”. It doesn’t change anything, but it builds up the tension of Kristina coming home to a destroyed house really well. You’ll be humming along to the party song from the movie for a long time after the credits roll.

1. Nosferatu

The ending shot of Nosferatu is one of the most striking and powerful images on film in recent memory. The entire ending of the film is tragic but still keeps up a beautiful vision of one of the most iconic and famous movie monsters ever. There’s so much under the surface of this film that’ll be debated and bandied about by film fans, but through the entire runtime, Nosferatu keeps up an unparalleled excellence. There’s plenty of scares, monsters (man and vampires), and commentary here on all things in our world, but Eggers steers the ship while still remaining true to the original source material. It’s one of the best examples of how a remake in the right hands can be more than just a soulless cash grab.

So, what was your top horror movie of 2024? Let us know in the comments.

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