5 Netflix Horror films to get you in the Halloween spirit!

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I love Halloween. It is my absolute favorite holiday. As long as I can remember I have loved everything that came with the holiday. Cool-weather, beautifully colored trees, spooky music, lots of great horror new releases, the annual specials like It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, Halloween parties and last but certainly not least, the unmitigated joy of Trick-Or-Treating. It was a great tradition.

First off, nothing beats getting dressed up as your favorite character from cartoons, movies, shows, comics or video games. Secondly, you get to walk around with friends and family going door to door around your local neighborhood where people willingly shower you with costume compliments and candy after candy. As long as they had their porch lights on of course…No lights means no candy. Grumpy cheap chiselers!

I loved going home and dumping out my pillowcase full of candy onto the table. Yes, I said pillowcase. Any self-respecting trick-or-treater knows those plastic orange pumpkin heads don’t hold enough candy. They also result in you getting less candy from people. It is a psychology thing. If they see your bucket almost full, they only give you a piece or two of candy. But if they see your pillowcase is only a quarter of the way full they will put a hand full of candy in there.

But I digress. You had to dump your candy out and check it piece by piece for glass and razor blades because of that ridiculous urban legend that said in the past kids were tricked into eating booby-trapped sweets and lost their tongues because of it! Our parents believed it whilst we never did. But you did what you had to in order to be able to pig out on your candy for the next few weeks.

Of course, as an adult, you aren’t able to trick-or-treat. If you did people would probably call the cops thinking you were some kind of weirdo. So once you hit your late teens you start going to Halloween parties. As you get bigger the parties get more raucous and the costumes get a lot smaller. It is a great time for all.

But what does all this preamble have to do with 5 scary movies? Everything! How do you ask? All of the above things are not something you really get to do here in Qatar or the GCC in general really. So what can you do to enjoy this Spooktacular season with your friends and family? Watch horror movies while chowing down on Halloween treats of course.

Here are 5 horror films that I highly recommend you watch to get in the mood for this Halloween! So get your popcorn mixed with whoppers, candy corn, and peanuts ready, have your friends sit close to you on the couch as there is safety in number and prepare to binge till you can’t sleep for fear of nightmares! Remember the choices in this list were dictated by what is available on Netflix Middle East North Africa which is not a lot. Never fear though as I have picked some of the best for you screaming pleasure!

Hush – From the creator of The Haunting of Hill House Mike Flanagan and Blumhouse Productions comes the 2016 home invasion thriller Hush. I can already imagine you rolling your eyes at the mention of home invasion thriller and I understand. This one is different though.
Imagine being on holiday in the woods just trying to relax and get some relaxing work done when someone tries to break into your cabin and cause you harm. Now imagine that happening and you being deaf…Picture that super tense opening scene of Scream but imagine it being an hour and a half long! There are almost no dumb decisions to further the plot and our scream queen is unique and resourceful. It is all about nail-biting suspense and will have you hooked till the credits roll.
The Ritual – This 2017 creature feature from David Bruckner (V/H/S) is about a group of friends who reunite on the anniversary of a tragic event to try to make sense of what happened and what their lives have become since. They decide to go on a hiking trip through the Scandinavian wilderness. The only problem is the area they are hiking in seems to have a mind of its own and all it can think about is their destruction. Not so unrealistic when you think about it since there are pockets of the world where people still follow ancient rituals and deities where outsiders are not welcomed. This, unfortunately, is one of those places. With stark visuals, uncompromising violence, great makeup effects, and a truly memorable creature, you will get lost in this one for sure.
You’re Next – a 2011 Home invasion thriller from Adam Wingard (The Guest) about a family enjoying a reunion in honor of their parents' wedding anniversary. But this isn’t your typical home invasion film. It is equal parts funny and horrifying with a few twists and turns along the way. Things don’t go as smoothly as planned since the family has a lot of old wounds that haven’t quite healed and secrets still coming to the surface. Erin our atypical female lead is an Australian who is new to the family and also has a few secrets of her own. As if the family reunion wasn’t awkward enough, animal mask-wearing psychos have decided to interrupt the celebration and murder everyone. Can the family band together to survive till help arrives?
Lights Out – The writer-director David F. Sandberg (Shazam!) jokingly calls his feature debut “Jump Scare The Movie”. While it is true of this film and jump scares have many detractors, I think this is a perfect film to watch with family, friends or that special someone on the couch. Why? You will have a great time getting the crap scared out of one another together! The premise is simple. A monster that cannot move freely into the light has been stalking a family for quite some time now. To survive they have to figure out how to destroy it while keeping the lights on at all times. If the lights go out the monster known as Diana to the family, will come for them once and for all.
The Stephen King Netflix Trilogy – Ok so this is cheating a bit…It is not 1, but 3 films. That being said Netflix has killed it with adapting Stephen King’s work into pretty great movies. Yes, I know Joe Hill, King’s son wrote In The Tall Grass with his pops, but you know what I mean. Other than Andy Muschietti’s It and anything the genius Frank Darabont has touched, most King adaptations have been pretty bad. So I think it is a real treat to get 3 relatively solid movies from Netflix. What 3 movies you say? 1922, Gerald’s Game and most recently In The Tall Grass. Check out my review for In The Tall Grass which is part of my month-long video series “The Geeky Amreeki’s Halloween Spooktacular” attached to this article. I highly recommend you take a night to watch these on their own as they tend to be a bit heavier than the titles above. They are all very different from one another, as is often the case with King’s short stories, but all offer some great thrills and chills.

So those are my 5 choices for the Netflix MENA Horror films that will get you in the mood for All Hallows’ Eve. They won’t replace a good trick-r-treat or party, but they will scratch that Halloween itch so long as you enjoy them with chocolate, candles and some company!