The best horror to watch on Netflix this August

Summer is coming to a close, and that means it’s the perfect time to start gearing up for Halloween. And there’s no better way to get ready than by throwing on a few horror movies just as the sun starts setting a little earlier.

Every month we pick out a few of the best horror movies that Netflix currently has to offer. Sometimes we pair them with another recent release, or we might suggest a title that’s new to the platform this month.

Here are just a few of the creepiest movies on Netflix, including an absolutely terrifying tale of the old west, a haunting exorcism movie in a style you’ve never seen before, and a good old-fashioned shark movie that’s a lot more fun than you might expect.

Director: S. Craig Zahler
Cast: Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox

There aren’t nearly enough horror movies set in the wild west, but Bone Tomahawk is both a great example of what the setting can offer, and maybe a good reason on its own that more movies don’t take place in this brutal period.

The movie follows a small band of men who set out in search of a few local towns people who have been kidnapped. The local legends suggest that they may have been kidnapped by a vicious and murderous tribe that hides in the local valley. And the legends are right.

Bone Tomahawk isn’t for the faint of heart, a particularly gory and brutal movie that makes it clear just how horrifying the American frontier could be. It’s also one of the most violent, creepiest, and most disturbing horror movies of the last decade, which certainly makes it worth a look.

Director: Na Hong-jin
Cast: Jun Kunimura, Hwang Jung-min, Kwak Do-won

Part murder-mystery, part exorcism movie, The Wailing is likely to be one of the most unique movies you’ve ever seen. The film is set mostly in a small village where an infectious disease breaks out, causing the infected to violently lash out and attack those around them. While the cause of the infection isn’t clear, many soon believe it to be a demonic form of possession, a curse leveled against the village for unknown reasons.

This is when The Wailing’s story really takes off into uncharted territory. As soon as the concept of demons enter the story, it stops being a procedural police mystery and turns into a life and death battle between the forces of good and evil, even if it’s not always clear who is on which side. All of this makes The Wailing a staggering, ridiculously ambitious horror movie, and unlike just about any other movie ever made.

Director: Johannes Roberts
Cast: Sophie Nélisse, Corinne Foxx, Brianne Tju

The first 47 Meters Down movie was about two divers who got trapped in a shark diving cage — you guessed it — 47 meters underwater. This should explain to you why “uncaged” is an absolutely perfect subtitle for this sequel. While the characters of the movie are totally different, the one thing we need to know is still the same: a bunch of people are trapped in a very terrible place by a whole lot of sharks.

This time around, the unlucky shark victims are a group of teenage girls who find an underwater cave and decide to take a very dangerous detour on their swimming trip to explore the caves. Cave diving is dangerous enough under the best circumstances, but as you might expect, this particular group of caves is absolutely full of very scary sharks. From there, the whole movie is tense diving, dark caves, and lots and lots of extremely tense and extremely fun shark attacks.