There’s not much better than wrapping yourself in a blanket, sipping a warm drink and watching a classic scary film, especially during “spooky season.” But maybe it’s time to switch up your Halloween movie repertoire. There are many streaming scary movies to choose from, and do you really need to watch Hocus Pocus for the 27th time? (Probably, but you can also watch something new afterward.)
This year, try giving your horror films an international twist. We’ve compiled a list of seven scary movies in different languages that are available to stream on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime or elsewhere. These streaming scary movies will give you the adrenaline you crave, and they may boost your language skills and cultural fluency in the process. But remember, it’ll be hard to look at the subtitles if you have your eyes closed!
El Orfanato (“The Orphanage”)
Language: Spanish
Where To Stream: Hulu
What It’s About: Set in Spain, this highly acclaimed 2007 film centers around a woman who returns to visit her childhood home, which happens to be a creepy orphanage, with her husband and adopted son. The son disappears, and things get very weird.
Shutter
Language: Thai
Where To Stream: Netflix
What It’s About: A woman and her photographer boyfriend see mysterious shadows and faces in the pictures he takes. Is it connected to a recent hit-and-run accident they were involved in? Make sure you watch the original Thai version of this film released in 2004, and not the American remake from 2008.
Suspiria
Language: Italian
Where To Stream: Tubi.tv
What It’s About: Directed by famous Italian filmmaker Dario Argento, this 1977 supernatural horror film tells the story of a series of gruesome murders at a prestigious ballet academy. Things take a turn when a new student begins to suspect something evil is at play. While not as helpful, language-wise, a 2018 English remake directed by Luca Guadagnino is available on Amazon Prime.
Gräns (“Border”)
Language: Swedish
Where To Stream: Hulu
What It’s About: This 2018 Swedish fantasy film is less scary than the others on this list, but it has supernatural elements. The movie features a customs officer with facial deformities who has the ability to literally smell fear and contraband. She finds herself strangely attracted to a mysterious traveler during a police investigation, and it only gets weirder from there.
Morto Não Fala (“The Nightshifter”)
Language: Portuguese
Where To Stream: Amazon Prime
What It’s About: Stênio works the night shift at a morgue. Unfortunately for him — or maybe fortunately? —he can communicate with the dead. When the cadavers start making requests and threatening his family, things quickly spiral out of control.
The Maus (“The Mouse”)
Language: German
Where To Stream: Netflix
What It’s About: In this 2017 survival thriller, a young couple gets lost in a Bosnian forest after their car breaks down. Surrounded by land mines and tormented by mysterious Serbian men, the pair has to face the lasting remnants of the Bosnian War and its racial tensions.
Insidious
Language: English
Where To Stream: Netflix
What It’s About: We’re rounding out the list of streaming scary movies with a popular English-language pick. This 2010 horror film tells the story of a suburban family who moves out of the home they thought was haunted only to discover it’s actually their son who is haunted. And if you like this one, it has two sequels and a prequel.
Header Photo by Ján Jakub Naništa on Unsplash