13 new horror movies to haunt your dreams this Halloween

From "Longlegs" to "Trap," these movies will leave you shocked, scared, and screaming for more.

Ready to get spooky?

Whether you're in the mood for murder clowns, campy kills, genre-busters, or slow-burn nightmares ripped straight from the horror halls of history, Entertainment Weekly has you covered.

Here are 13 new scary movies to get you in the mood for the Halloween season.

Related: The 37 scariest movies of all time

'Smile 2'

Prepare to have that smile wiped off your face once again. Smile 2 follows global pop sensation Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) as she begins to have unsettling encounters with people whose mouths contort into disturbing Joker-esque grins, often followed by grisly deaths, just like in the 2022 original starring Sosie Bacon. If there's one thing this spooky movie season is teaching us, it's to stay the hell away from concert venues. The horror sequel also stars Lukas Gage, Kyle Gallner, Raúl Castillo, and Rosemarie DeWitt.

Smile 2 is in theaters on Oct. 18.

'The Devil's Bath'

Sometimes, the scariest stories come from our own history. Based on a real-life case of suicide-by-proxy, part of a larger epidemic of such incidents that plagued German-speaking areas in the 17th and 18th centuries, The Devil’s Bath stars newcomer Anja Plaschg as Agnes, an Austrian peasant woman struggling to fit in with her new community.

After her wedding, she leaves her village behind and moves into her husband's isolated cottage. But their new life gets off to a rocky start, and as Agnees sinks deeper into depression, her well-meaning but superstitious neighbors become increasingly convinced she’s cursed. "She always thought she was not good enough, and she was the one to blame," Severin Fiala, who directed the film with his creative partner, Veronika Franz, told EW of the real person the film is based on. "That's something that I think many people and many women in modern days still [feel]."

The Devil's Bath is available to stream on AMC+.

'The Substance'

Coralie Fargeat's body horror extravaganza sees washed-up former movie star Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) experiment with a mysterious injection that offers renewed youth and vitality. After using the drug in an attempt to regain her fame, Elisabeth inadvertently spawns Sue (Margaret Qualley), a younger version of herself who shares her consciousness and instantly gains the superstar reputation that Elisabeth craves.

The protagonist's relationship with her alter ego unsurprisingly takes a turn for the worse when Sue upsets the delicate balance required to maintain their survival. The French filmmaker primarily relied on practical effects to visualize The Substance's astounding amount of gore and didn't temper her vision despite concerns. "I knew I couldn’t do it differently because the movie is about flesh, blood, and bones. It’s about filming what you feel, and what society does to you. I needed to show it for real," Fargeat told EW. "It’s the symbolic: Look at the violence. Don’t shy away. The violence is here."

The Substance is now playing in theaters.

Related: Margaret Qualley 'started sobbing' while practicing intense choreography in The Substance extreme fitness video scenes

'The Deliverance'

Come for the Glenn Close memes, stay for a damn fine horror picture. The Deliverance is Lee Daniels' full-bodied return to camp, but it doesn't lack for frights. Andra Day gives one of the year's best genre performances as Ebony Jackson, a struggling single mother raising two kids in a house hell-bent on taking their souls. While Daniels experiments with off-kilter camera placements and achieves several nail-biting sequences, the reason to press play on The Deliverance is the murderer's row of outstanding supporting performances, from Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor's bewitched reverend, to Mo'nique's brash DCS worker, to Close's smooth-talking matriarch Alberta.

The Deliverance is now streaming on Netflix.

'The First Omen'

Arkasha Stevenson's debut film functions as a clever prequel to the 1976 classic The Omen, but you don't need any prior knowledge of the franchise to appreciate the terror of this religious nightmare. Set in Rome in 1971, The First Omen follows young American nun-in-training Margaret (Nell Tiger Free) as she navigates the dark underbelly of the Catholic Church with the help of Father Brennan (Ralph Ineson), a conspiracy-brained priest who believes the church is descending down a dangerous path. With a thrillingly rancid atmosphere, a dazzlingly intense lead performance, and chilling supporting turns from the likes of Sônia Braga and Bill Nighy, the film simultaneously achieves a constant sense of dread and thoughtful meditation on faith and doubt.

The First Omen is streaming on Hulu.

'Cuckoo'

Hunter Schafer proved herself an extraordinarily capable young performer in Euphoria but hasn't had the same outside opportunities to shine as her costars Zendaya, Jacob Elordi, and Sydney Sweeney. Cuckoo is that star vehicle, and it etches her name into the year's horror Hall of Fame. Schafer stars as Gretchen, a young woman ripped from her comfortable surroundings and replanted in the Bavarian Alps. She begins witnessing bizarre, stomach-turning phenomena and is chased one night by a menacing, hooded figure in one of the year's most fearsomely composed scenes. Do not rent Cuckoo looking for a coherent plot. But what this film lacks in coherence, it more than makes up for in style. Director Tilman Singer was also behind 2018's Luz, and with the pyrotechnic execution of Cuckoo, his first major feature, it wouldn't be surprising to see him tapped to take on the next Hollywood legacy horror sequel.

Cuckoo is currently available to rent on several major streaming platforms.

Related: The 23 best psychological horror movies of all time, ranked

'Salem's Lot'

It has been called unfilmable, but Stephen King's Salem's Lot has, again, been filmed, and is again quite good. Those who grew up in the '80s and '90s will vividly recall (never be able to forget, more like it) scenes from Tobe Hooper's 1979 made-for-TV miniseries adaptation of the novel. Those who came of age in the 2000s might (?) remember the TNT miniseries adaptation starring Rob Lowe and Donald Sutherland. Now we have a take on the claustrophobic tale of vampirism in a small New England town for the new generation.

Gary Dauberman, who helmed several films in The Conjuring franchise, has trekked King territory quite successfully before, having written both of Andy Muschetti's recent It films. Salem's Lot is packed with plot, and the attempt to cram the story into a two-hour feature leaves you with a bit of a head rush. But the film is full of wonderful performances from the likes of Alfre Woodard and Lewis Pullman, who told EW in September that with Salem's Lot, Dauberman attempted to "rekindle the fire of mystique about vampires." Mission accomplished.

Salem's Lot is currently streaming on Max.

'Woman of the Hour'

Anna Kendrick makes her directorial debut with Woman of the Hour, the spine-tingling true story of serial murderer and rapist Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto in the film), who appeared on a 1978 episode of The Dating Game. In real life, Alcala won the game and went on to kill at least three more women, before being arrested in 1979. In Kendrick's dark imagining, the fact of Alcala's appearance on The Dating Game was "the least interesting part of the story," as she told EW in October. Woman of the Hour instead becomes a highwire act of escalating tension that Kendrick's Sheryl Bradshaw, an aspiring actress and Dating Game contestant, must navigate or else.

Woman of the Hour premieres on Netflix on Oct. 18

'Trap'

There's no third-act revelation that turns Trap on its head like M. Night Shyamalan's best-known works — instead, the movie's twist lies in its premise. The serial killer thriller, which primarily takes place at a pop concert in a Philadelphia arena, immediately reveals that its protagonist Cooper (Josh Hartnett) masquerades as a bloodthirsty serial killer known as the Butcher. Shyamalan builds tension around our uneasy alignment with the central figure as the authorities close in on him during the show, repeatedly juxtaposing Cooper's genuine warmth as a father with his cunning sociopathy.

"Night being Night, he wants to give the audience a new experience," Hartnett told EW. "He's been doing this his entire career. He'll take a ghost story and tell it from the point of view of the ghost. He'll take an alien invasion story and not really show the aliens. So this one is like a throwback thriller in a contained space from the perspective of the antagonist. It's like Die Hard from Hans Gruber's perspective."

Trap streams on Max beginning Oct. 25.

'Speak No Evil'

The 2022 Danish horror-thriller Speak No Evil shocked audiences who caught it when it premiered in that year's Midnight section at Sundance. Only two years later, James McAvoy returns to horror with an all-star remake that pedals down on some of the bleakness to create something much more deliriously propulsive. American couple Louise and Ben Dalton (Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy) hit it off with free-spirited Paddy and Ciara (James McAvoy and Aisling Franciosi) while vacationing in Italy, and eventually go to visit them at their farmhouse in the Devon boonies. Paddy's increasingly violent and unhinged behavior leaves Ben and Louise stunned and the audience without any assurances that horror conventions will be respected. James McAvoy told EW in a September interview that his character possesses "a modern version of classic masculinity that isn't metrosexual, that isn't beta, that isn't compromising in any way. And yet he kind of makes it almost palatable." Almost, indeed.

Speak No Evil is currently in theaters.

Related: Speak No Evil director and cast explain why they based the movie on the terrifying Danish original

'Strange Darling'

The less you know about Strange Darling going in, the better. The opening crawl claims the film is a dramatization of the true story of a serial killer's final known killings, but you quickly learn this is no typical true crime caper. The stunning cat-and-mouse thriller features knockout performances from Willa Fitzgerald (The Fall of the House of Usher) and Kyle Gallner (Veronica Mars' Beaver), and marks Giovanni Ribisi's (Sneaky Pete) debut as a cinematographer. Ed Begley Jr. and Barbara Hershey also star in what feels like already a modern cult classic.

"It was really important for us to defy those conventions and lean into the fairytale aspect of it," writer-director J.T. Mollner previously told EW of the film's unconventional take on the genre. "A lot of the decisions in the movie, in general, were like, well, people don't do this in movies anymore."

Strange Darling is still playing in select theaters and available for purchase on Prime Video, Apple TV, and other video-on-demand platforms.

'Terrifier 3'

It's time to declare Art the Clown an American treasure. Or at least a Halloween season staple. Damien Leone's Terrifier films star David Howard Thornton as a gleeful, unrepentantly sadistic, and bloodthirsty clown. Basically, you just watch a man in face paint and a nylon jumpsuit tear people into pieces, feed them through meat grinders, desecrate their remains, and so on for 2+ hours. But Leone and Thornton imbue the Terrifier films with a certain special sparkle — not quite camp, not quite meta, but not entirely mean-spirited either, despite being some of the goriest films you could find in theaters this century. If you miss the torture porn days of Saw and Hostel, make sure you don't miss Terrifier 3, which is Christmas themed! Just in time for Halloween.

Terrifier 3 premieres in theaters on Oct. 11.

'Longlegs'

A movie about an obsessive FBI agent tracking down an elusive serial killer might sound like a straightforward crime mystery, but Osgood Perkins' direction and off-kilter performances ensure that Longlegs remains far weirder and much, much creepier than it sounds on paper. One of the standout sequences comes when Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) finally meets Longlegs (Nicolas Cage) for the first time — which was also the actress's first time seeing her costar in full makeup. "That day on set felt different," Monroe told EW. "Everyone knew that this was the day, this was the scene. I think also there's a layer of pressure. There's so many things that were packed into that day. Seeing Nick for the first time in costume, I hadn't seen any photos or anything before, so that was shocking. Also, not only was I seeing Nick — or rather Longlegs — for the first time, but the cameras were rolling at this point. It was this very surreal, very nerve-wracking experience."

Longlegs is available to rent from Prime Video, Apple TV, and other video-on-demand platforms.

Related: Longlegs delivers on creepy tone, with a side order of wacky Nicolas Cage

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