This Friday brings the release of David Bruckner’s The Night House (review), a haunted tale that goes heavy on the scares from the outset. It doesn’t stop, either, further establishing Bruckner as a master of scare crafting. The Night House stars Rebecca Hall as a recently widowed woman coming to terms with her husband’s suicide. The more a presence from beyond beckons her, the more she digs into her husband’s belongings and finds a secret life she didn’t know he had.
It’s a chilling new take on classic haunted house horror, with an emphasis on chilling. So, this week is haunted house set horror that brings the scares to help cool off the blazing August heat. More fittingly, these titles feature protagonists experiencing grief and loss in varying ways. Sad characters trapped inside with things that go bump in the night? Yes, please.
As always, here’s where you can stream them this week.
The Changeling – AMC+, Plex, Shudder, Tubi
George C. Scott stars in this seminal haunted classic as a music professor attempting to start fresh after his wife and child’s death. He relocates to Seattle and moves into a historic Victorian mansion with plans to work on his music, but he experiences strange phenomena right away. The more the paranormal activity increases, the more he’s drawn into a decades-long mystery involving a child. The Changeling is a quiet chiller grounded by a fantastic lead performance and an intriguing murder mystery. Mostly, though, it’s full of dread and creepy moments – no other horror movie will make you afraid of bouncing balls quite like this one.
His House – Netflix
Husband-and-wife Sudanese refugees Bol (Sope Dirisu) and Rial (Wunmi Mosaku) have been through more than most endure in a lifetime. They’ve fled their war-torn village, crossed the ocean, survived a degrading stint in a U.K. detention facility, and have been finally granted an opportunity for housing in their new country. The home may be roomy, but they face hostility in and outside its moldy walls. Remi Weekes’s feature debut transforms the refugee experience into a petrifying horror film with expertly crafted scares. For all the existential terror that Bol and Rial face in their new lives, the director keeps a firm grip on the supernatural, too.
Ju-On: The Grudge – Prime Video
The third entry in Takashi Shimizu’s terrifying franchise introduced Kayako and her equally terrifying son Toshio to international audiences. While most haunted houses bear the imprint of past traumas through their ghostly residences, Ju-On takes it further by ensuring that the house is irrevocably cursed. Kayako and Toshio suffered horrible deaths, and their pain manifested in the form of vengeful spirits that doom anyone who steps foot into their former home to suffer the same fate. You’ll never be able to un-hear Kayako’s death croak.
The Dark and the Wicked – AMC+, Shudder
Bryan Bertino, a filmmaker with a reputation for bleak horror, creates unrelenting dread and evil in the vacuum of loss here. His latest is rife with suffocating dread, disturbing visuals, and a haunting atmosphere. Siblings Louise (Marin Ireland) and Michael (Michael Abbott Jr.) return to their childhood home to say their final goodbyes to their dying father, much to their mother’s disappointment. She’d warned them not to come, and it doesn’t take long to figure out why; an evil presence has taken root on the family’s rural land, and it wants them all. Ireland and Abbott Jr. deliver tremendous performances. The horror is intrinsic to a family coping with grief and loss, but it’s heightened to a horrifying degree thanks to Bertino’s distinct style and twisted vision of evil. It makes for a volatile, frightening viewing experience steeped in nihilism.
The Orphanage – Starz
What a debut by director J.A. Bayona (A Monster Calls, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom). As an adult, Laura returns to the closed orphanage where she grew up with plans to reopen it as a center for disabled children. But when her HIV-positive son learns he’s adopted and goes missing soon after, strange things begin happening within the expansive orphanage. Laura’s former friends from childhood may never have left at all. It’s creepy, it’s moving, and it takes a few unexpected turns in terms of plot. Kids in horror are creepy, but kid ghosts? Even creepier. But be sure to have tissues on standby for this one.