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2026 was a year of horrors. With the exception of The Odyssey and perhaps the frenzy surrounding You Can See Everything, most of the films that beg for conversation have been genre offerings, and horror fans are spoiled for choice. Since January, a steady stream of movies, from decent to great, have hit theaters. Some did better with the critics than with the audience. Some became huge hits, using low budgets for massive profits.
Since our last ranking of this year’s summer horror offerings, the genre has had some memorable entries. With Halloween just around the corner, we’re looking back at the best the genre had to offer this year. New films were released, old films were re-appreciated and several festival hits reached a wider audience.
A few honorable mentions: Honey Bunch, They Will Kill You, and Undertone cracked our bottom ten, but recently released; Likewise, Faces of Death, It Ends, Leviticus, Marama, Obex, Onslaught and Saccharine would be standout entries in another year, but the competition was simply too fierce.
Here are the 15 best horror movies of the year, just in time for Halloween.
15. Clay
One of the latest horror offerings to hit theaters, Clayface is what happens when a major studio machine goes all-in on horror. James Gunn’s DCU gave writers Mike Flanage and Hossein Amin and director James Watkins room to turn the lesser-known Batman villain into a body horror. Clayface is set in Gotham, but Batman is nowhere to be seen. Reviews are mixed, but make no mistake, Clayface is committed to the genre.
Tom Rees plays Matt Hagen, an actor whose career is on the rise until he confronts the seedy underbelly of Gothan and ends up horribly disfigured. His quest to reclaim his place involves an experimental treatment, and the film offers plenty of gruesomely arranged pieces of sliced skin and pulpy flesh. While some of its rhythms are rote, Clayface’s body horror allows the comics to break down to become a twisted juxtaposition of substance and fly. Even if it doesn’t reach as high as those films, it offers a tight, unflinching descent into monstrous texture that sits happily in the upper echelon of this year’s offerings.
14. Exit 8
Horror aside, 2026 was a particularly good year for video game adaptations. Minecraft, Mortal Kombat II, Street Fighter and the Super Mario sequel all scored at the box office, and this year also saw the release of two of the most popular video game adaptations. The first is Exit 8, which, in addition to being a video game adaptation, is also one of the best liminal horror films of the year (more on that later).
Like the game it’s based on, Exit 8 is simple. The adaptation of Genki Kawamura’s game of the same name follows a nameless man (Kazunari Ninomiya) who finds himself trapped in an endless subway station. As in the game, he must come up with a solution, and his missteps lead him to hideous creatures, terrifying events and dangerous strangers. Exit 8 largely succeeds by capitalizing on its gaming origins to immerse the audience in its eerie liminal environment and convey a sterile sense of dread. The characterization is light, and the guiding emotional beats are simple (and very similar to some adaptations of this year’s game), but even this sparseness creates an unpleasant feeling.
13. Colony
Director Yeon Sang-ho may never be able to top his zombie classic Train to Busan, but damn if he’s not going to try. Colony may not have received the same enthusiasm (at least not yet), but the director’s latest is another creative, distinctive take on zombie horror that’s smarter than the average brain eater.
A pharmaceutical conference emphasizing cell regeneration and the development of collective intelligence becomes the site of a bioterrorist attack. The victims are transformed into rabid members of the human nest, and the few survivors are left to figure out how to escape. If that wasn’t enough, the chair can adapt. The zombie genre has come a long way from Haitian voodoo and Romero’s lumberjacks, but Ion has found another angle to make them scary and distinctive. Colony offers twisting, throbbing, choking menace and a driving pace that makes Colony one of the more exciting offerings of the year.
12. Sending assistance
Sam Raimi’s latest, written by Mark Swift and Damian Shannon, may be more of a thriller, but we’re still here, if only for its sinister, evil tone and horror beats – from the plane crash to his jump – this smack of the genre’s macabre pleasure. This rags-to-riches comedy is an explosion of scares that go beyond its central cat-and-mouse game.
Rachel McAdams is a corporate jet set for a well-deserved promotion after the CEO’s son, played by Dylan O’Brien, takes over. A plane crash leaves them alone on an island where McAdams’ Survivor lover is no longer a subordinate, and a game of wits begins. Its premise is broad and some of the beats may be obvious, but Send Help is a wild ride, enhanced by McAdams’ expert performance and Rahim’s ability to seamlessly blend gritty gore, visceral dread, and humor. The comedy is pitch black, the morality is grey, and the tone is gleefully macabre.
11. Touch me
Touch Me is perhaps less polished than the other films on this list, but it’s a surprisingly long psychosexual cosmic horror comedy that’s weird, deadpan, and very weird. Addison Heyman’s film explores the themes of codependency, toxic relationships and addiction. Its graphic nature and irreverent tone may turn some off, but Touch Me is a welcome mix of weird, weird, and disgusting.
The film opens with Joy (Olivia Taylor Dudley) describing a disturbing experience in close-up. When her monologue and stares are cut off, we see her talking to her best friend Craig (Jordan Gavaris). Both are still dealing with childhood trauma when financial hardship leads them to Joey’s ex, an alien named Brian (Lou Taylor Pucci). Brian says he’s here to save the world. Its touch also causes euphoria. If the reviews are any indication, Touch Me is half-baked, but the film’s blending of tones and genres is what makes it so much fun. Sure to disappoint anyone who looks to horror for sensitive metaphors of pain, Touch Me is more on the mind than the references admit, and its horror when it comes down to it is brutal, terrifying and different. A film worth celebrating is how wild and different it is.
10. A ghost in a cell
Jocko Anwar is one of the genre’s most beloved directors, and Ghost in the Cell goes a long way to explaining why. A socially conscious splatter horror comedy, Ghost in the Cell has something for everyone, assuming they can handle the gore. Anwar’s film is both broad and extreme. This is a film where the murders are staged like works of art and it still features dance scenes in the end credits.
We open with journalist Dimas rushing to submit an article about a mysterious death in a nickel mine to the fury of his boss, before moving to a prison where a group of inmates, including the decent man Angoro and the ghost-sensitive Six, are trying to survive other inmates and corrupt guards. Soon after the arrival of the new prisoner, gruesome murders staged as elaborate art installations begin, and Anwar has a ball that throws several tons against the wall. Screwball comedy gives way to social criticism, which gives way to martial arts and brutal, violent scenes. It’s a hangout comedy, a ghost story, a prison drama, and a social issue film, and it wraps all of its seemingly disparate elements into a rousing package that fits right in even as it bounces off the walls.
9. Friend
Casper Kelly made his theatrical film debut after creating various nightmare-fueled adult flicks (“Too Many Cooks,” Fireplace) and the V/H/S series (Fun Size!). Now here’s Buddy, a horror take on the kids’ show Barney & Friends that replaces the purple dinosaur with an orange unicorn that’s less “I love you” and more “I love you.”
Voiced by Keegan-Michael Key, Buddy is the star of It’s Buddy!, a retro kids’ show populated by child actors and sensitive subjects. But Buddy’s wholesome demeanor hides a dark streak that becomes clearer as each episode ends and the next begins. Buddy (the movie) isn’t afraid to get grotesque, and it channels 1990s nostalgia into a terrifying, somewhat liminal terror. Tweaking the tropes of children’s television—cheerful music, colorful settings, wholesome undertones—into something terrifying, Bud creates a unique brand of horror. And a shout-out to Mr. Monkey’s Magic Merry-Go-Round , another movie this year that takes the form of a children’s TV show to garner genuine horror from a fusion of the wholesome and the grotesque. Together, these two films make for a disarming and disturbing retro double bill.
