20 Horror Movies You Might Have Missed This Year
by Alex Kaan 20 August 2026
Dark Sky Films
While 2026 has been a landmark year for horror, with the overwhelming success of films like Obsession and Backrooms, there have been a slew of indie chillers and straight-to-streaming genre films that may have flown under your radar.
From lavish Gothic horror set in Victorian England (Mārama) to a queer body horror comedy (Touch Me), from a witchy romance (The Serpent’s Skin) to a cross between Mean Girls and The Craft (Forbidden Fruits), we’re highlighting 20 hidden horror gem releases you may have missed this year.
Forbidden Fruits
IFC and Shudder
Putting a witchy spin on cult classics like Heathers and Jawbreaker, this horror comedy from producer Diablo Cody (Jennifer’s Body) follows a fashionable coven (Lili Reinhart, Victoria Pedretti, Alexandra Shipp) whose bond is tested by the arrival of a new member (Lola Tung).
Buffet Infinity
Yellow Veil Pictures
Unfolding entirely over a series of hazy low-budget TV ads, this surreal cosmic horror comedy follows a rivalry between two small-town restaurants that escalates into a sinister tale of cults, sinkholes, and apocalyptic consequences.
Touch Me
Yellow Veil Pictures
A psychedelic, hentai-inspired thriller doubling as a queer body horror comedy, Touch Me follows two co-dependent roommates, Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley) and Craig (Jordan Gavaris), as they both fall for her former flame: a muscular alien named Brian (Lou Taylor Pucci) who can temporarily remove anxiety with a single touch.
Mārama
Dark Sky Films
Set in Victorian England, this New Zealand Gothic horror film follows a young Māori woman who, after receiving a mysterious letter from a stranger claiming to know about her heritage, travels to a manor in Yorkshire—only to unearth some horrifying secrets.
Faces of Death
IFC
In this meta reboot, Barbie Ferreira plays a content moderator investigating videos inspired by the 1978 cult classic of the same name, a faux documentary presenting a series of supposedly real deaths. Dacre Montgomery and Charli xcx also star.
Mermaid
Utopia
When a slacker (Fallout’s Johnny Pemberton) discovers an injured mermaid, he becomes determined to nurse her back to health in this wild horror comedy filled with gills and gangsters. John Waters called one of director Tyler Cornack’s previous efforts, Butt Boy, the best film of 2020.
Her Private Hell
Neon
Nicolas Winding Refn’s (The Neon Demon) first film in a decade follows a melancholic actress (Sophie Thatcher) and a vengeful American GI (Charles Melton), whose storylines are united by a mysterious slasher killer known as the Leatherman, who targets women across their futuristic metropolis.
Pretty Lethal
Prime Video
A bickering ballet troupe (Maddie Ziegler, Lana Condor, Millicent Simmonds, Iris Apataow, and Avantika) is forced to shelter in a remote inn. Unfortunately for them, it’s run by a bitter former ballet prodigy (Uma Thurman) who wants them dead in this comedic horror thriller.
Leviticus
Neon
In this Sundance breakout from the producers of Talk to Me and Bring Her Back, two teenage boys (Joe Bird and Stacy Clausen) find themselves stalked by an evil entity which takes the form of the person they desire most: each other.
The Serpent’s Skin
Dark Star Pictures
A witchy sapphic horror film in the mould of a 90s TV pilot, The Serpent’s Skin is as indebted to the early films of Gregg Araki as it is to Buffy. The latest from trans horror auteur Alice Maio Mackay sees a young woman (Alexandra McVicker) develop dangerous supernatural abilities—powers that she shares with her mysterious love interest (Avalon Fast).
Camp
Dark Sky Films
Haunted by guilt, a young woman (Zola Grimmer) takes a job as a counsellor at a remote Christian summer camp, where she soon joins a coven with potentially askew morals in this atmospheric sapphic witch tale.
Rose of Nevada
1 + 2 Special
When a mysterious boat returns to a coastal British town 30 years after disappearing, two fishermen (Callum Turner and George MacKay) join its crew. But after one voyage, the pair are transported back in time. Mark Jenkin’s dreamy sci-fi folk horror premiered at the Venice Film Festival.
Is God Is
Amazon MGM Studios
This grindhouse-inspired revenge thriller stars Kara Young and Mallori Johnson as twin sisters on the hunt for their villainous father (Sterling K. Brown), with one order from their dying mother (Kill Bill’s Vivica A. Fox): “make [their] daddy dead — real dead.”
Rosebush Pruning
MUBI
The psychosexual thriller meets satirical tragicomedy in this eat-the-rich tale of an ultra-wealthy family that starts to unravel when their beloved son (Jamie Bell) brings home a girlfriend (Elle Fanning). Filled with murder and incest, the film also stars Callum Turner, Pamela Anderson, Lukas Gage, Riley Keough, Tracy Letts, and Elena Anaya.
The Holy Boy
Shudder
A cross between Carrie and The Wicker Man, this Italian queer horror hit out of the Venice Film Festival follows a grieving schoolteacher (Michele Riondino) who accepts a position at a remote mountain village. With the town nicknamed “The Valley of Smiles”, he soon discovers the eerie secret behind their happiness.
Dead Lover
Lightbulb Film Distribution
A Sundance indie darling that reimagines Frankenstein through a blend of German expressionism and Monty Python, Grace Glowicki’s horror comedy is a charmingly off-centre love story about a gravedigger’s ill-begotten attempt to resurrect her dream man.
Saccharine
IFC and Shudder
The Substance meets Ozempic culture in this queer body horror film from Relic director Natalie Erika James. A lovelorn med student (Midori Francis) takes a weight-loss pill with a strange key ingredient: human ash. The drug yields remarkable results, but she soon finds herself haunted by the ghost of the person she ingested.
Mother of Flies
Wonder Wheel Productions
From prolific indie filmmaking troupe The Adams Family, this harrowing witch tale follows a young girl with cancer who travels with her father to see an unorthodox healer in the Catskill forests.
Mother Mary
A24
In this Gothic two-hander set on a rainy night in a British country house, a pop star equal parts Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift (Anne Hathaway) reunites with her estranged best friend and former costume designer (Michaela Coel) to confront the ghosts of their past on the eve of her comeback performance.
Cold Storage
StudioCanal
Two storage facility workers (Joe Keery and Georgina Campbell) must fight a mind-controlling fungal virus in this light-hearted, underrated B-movie featuring an exploding cat, a cockroach POV sequence set to Blondie, and Liam Neeson’s best phone-call acting since Taken.