Top 10 Underrated Spooky Halloween Movies of the 2020s

“Back to the Future” meets “Halloween” in this slasher comedy starring “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” star Kiernan Shipka. She plays Jamie, a teen whose mother survived a killer’s small town massacre some 35 years before. When her mother is murdered, Jamie time travels back to the 1980s to stop the killer the first time around. In solving the original case, she may be able to save herself and her mom. Mixing time travel confusion, generational comedy, and nonstop butchery, “Totally Killer” is an innovative and bracing horror thriller for the contemporary audiences that also pays tribute to the past.

This Mexican-Peruvian import made quite a splash when it played at the 2022 Tribeca Festival. Since then, it’s captivated audiences with its story of an expectant mother who becomes haunted by images of a faceless woman with shattered bones. Its images of bodily injury are not for the faint of heart. Exploring the physical, emotional, and spiritual toll of childbirth, “Huesera: The Bone Woman” is a disturbing and gripping exercise in body horror. Relying less on jump scares and more on building tension and an atmosphere of dread, it’s a movie that stays with you long after it ends.

We have just one word of advice. Don’t go into this one with any expectations regarding plot or traditional storytelling. Yes, it’s about two young siblings whose house and family seem to be disappearing around them without explanation, but it’s not your typical haunted house story. Merging surrealism with nightmarish analog horror aesthetics, “Skinamarink” is a visceral experience. Something about its grainy found footage look and disembodied sound effects really does feel like a bad dream. It’s a well-crafted, meticulously-detailed piece, with layers of meaning for those who can withstand its slow burn thrills. It may not be for everyone, but it’s well worth a look.

Despite earning an Academy Award nomination for its cinematography, this Chilean film is largely undersung. It imagines a fictional timeline where former dictator Augusto Pinochet is actually a vampire who has lived many lives and faked many deaths. At least, we assume it’s fiction. Not only is it a great vampire story, it’s also a raucous and irreverent political satire. Just when you think it can’t get any crazier, it turns out famed British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is also a vampire.

Seeing as he’s the most famous vampire of all time, you’d have been justified in thinking we’d seen every possible take on the original Dracula story. This one goes all the way back to Bram Stoker’s original novel for inspiration. Telling the bloody and treacherous story of the ship that carried the count from his home in Transylvania to the streets of London, this movie is anything but old-fashioned. With action scenes and makeup effects that rival any big budget blockbuster, “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” does the unthinkable. It makes Count Dracula terrifying again.

This aptly named slasher movie follows the cast and crew of an adult film who secure a farmhouse location for their latest skin flick. The only trouble is that the nice elderly couple they’re renting the house from has no idea what they’re up to. And once they find out, it turns out they’re not so nice after all. Mia Goth does double duty as the decrepit, homicidal Pearl and the gorgeous, young ingénue Maxine. Ti West’s trilogy made Mia Goth the ultimate scream queen. While “Pearl” and her tour de force performance gets most of the glory, it all started with “X.”

From its eerie framing device to its classic horror feel, this indie darling felt like a return to form for the whole genre. “Late Night with the Devil” focuses on a lost episode of a late night talk show that aired a very interesting Halloween episode. The host and a parapsychologist perform an exorcism for the studio audience. It goes about as well as you’d expect. Watching lead actor David Dastmalchian try to maintain his control of the show while all hell breaks loose makes for an incredibly tense and taut possession thriller. Reminiscent of a 70s movie with its grainy footage and captured in warm colors, it’s a perfect watch for the spooky season.

Urban decay and demonic possession make for one long night as demons lay siege to a dilapidated apartment building in L.A. When an earthquake releases the demonic Deadites on her apartment building, single mother Ellie is possessed and begins to attack her family. Even her three children are not safe from her vicious rage. Despite taking place in the city, this standalone sequel manages to capture the claustrophobia of the original. It’s a highly suspenseful and unexpectedly emotional movie that doesn’t offer one bit of mercy. This is one sequel that stands on its own.

The weird and surreal world of the current Internet era takes center stage in this low-budget oddity. Teenager Casey participates in a viral challenge that makes her life a living hell. She begins sending a friend videos of herself experiencing some increasingly bizarre symptoms. Fantasy and reality begin to blur. Is Casey being authentic for her perceived audience, or is she genuinely breaking down under the strain of the World’s Fair Challenge? Director Jane Schoenbrun crafted the film as an allegory, but even without the subtext, it’s still a deeply unsettling experience unlike any other.

In this dread-inducing Argentinian-American movie from 2023, evil and violence are pretty mundane. When humans are already treating each other as disposable, how much worse can things get? Two brothers are about to find out. When they realize the literal embodiment of evil is about to be born, the two accidentally unleash literal evil on themselves, their families, and their community. There are no easy answers, and no easy wins in this film festival favorite that’s definitely not for the faint of heart. Let’s just say this is one movie that’s not precious about who lives and who dies.

Which of these movies are you adding to your Halloween watchlist? Tell us in the comments.