Halloween is more than a month away, but who’s to stop us from grabbing a bucket of popcorn, cuddling under a blanket and binge-watching some bone-chilling horror that will make you paranoid about that unexplained noise in your home. Beyond the usual suspects like The Conjuring, Tumbbad, Hereditary and Chhorii, here are six horror films and shows to watch on Amazon Prime Video.
A Tale of Two Sisters (Korean)
After being institutionalised for her mental health, Su-mi reunites with her sister, Su-yeon. As they return to their country home to live with their father and cruel stepmother, strange events begin to unfold. The film goes beyond the usual jump scares and haunted house tropes to explore the horrors of melancholy, guilt, trauma, and mental illness with surrealism.
Exhuma (Korean)
A Feng Shui master, a shaman, and a mortician are paid handsomely to relocate a cursed ancestral grave. But the excavation unearths a painful colonial past, forcing the trio into a battle with an immortal warrior. This is yet another Asian film that relies heavily on atmospheric elements and unsettling visuals from shamanic ceremonies rather than jump scares.
Khauf (Hindi)
Every woman knows what it’s like to feel like she’s constantly being watched. This eight-episode series takes that feeling and turns it into a nightmare. A young woman with a painful past moves to Delhi and begins living in a hostel room. She soon starts to doubt her own sanity after feeling unsafe even in her room. A masterclass on how to pull off something important but well-made.
Masooda (Telugu)
The peaceful life of a single mother and her young daughter is interrupted by a malevolent presence. As Neelam begins to notice her daughter, Nazia, behaving as if she’s possessed, she turns to her neighbour and confidant, Gopi, for help. Unlike most Indian horror offerings, the main culprit here is the personification of evil instead of a misunderstood underdog.
Smile (English)
There’s something bizarre and unsettling about watching people being killed to death by an eerie grin, but that’s exactly what Smile pulls off. An evil entity forces victims to witness trauma before they die in disturbing ways, passing the curse to the next victim. This is one film where the atmospheric dread and jump scares work in its favour.
Them (English)
It’s the 1950s Great Migration in America, and a Black family move from North Carolina to an all-White Los Angeles neighbourhood. What seems like an idyllic home soon becomes a hotbed for malevolent forces that threaten to destroy them in more ways than one. While the supernatural themes are top-notch, it’s the real-life bigotry that cuts the most. Rage, identity struggles, trauma, and pain all turn into a different form of horror.
