Credit: Netflix

Oh, for heaven’s sake… And in this case, hell’s Netflix horror has progressed brilliantly in the past few years to the point that it’s maddening. You click on anything these days expecting the regular haunted-house business, and before you know it, you are in a Korean high school during a zombie outbreak with All of Us Are Dead.

Just when you are recovering, you are struck by His House, following a refugee couple in England while supernatural horror closes in around them. Do not forget Hellbound and a mass favourite, The Haunting of Hill House.

But do you know what’s interesting here? The horror isn’t all coming from the same place, so the fears change with the setting. Thank goodness, because there are only so many creaking doors anyone can reasonably tolerate.

But you can’t possibly binge an entire series over one weekend, no matter how ambitious you’re feeling. So why not get the same panic and emotional ruin from something that wraps up in two hours? Much more sensible, right?. Here are five films handpicked for the job.

Five disturbing horror thrillers to stream on Netflix this weekend

Bird Box (Susanne Bier, 2018)

Long, long before Bird Box became meme fuel, it was a 2014 Josh Malerman novel, and Netflix made sure to jump on it only to turn it into one of its most lucrative films of all time. If we had to give the gist of the film in short, it’d be ‘look at the creatures, and you die.’ In Bird Box, we have unseen creatures that trigger visions so devastating that most people who see them kill themselves within moments. Sandra Bullock’s Malorie is left trying to survive with two children, which means blindfolds on and absolutely no peeking.

And as if that weren’t dark enough, some people can look at these creatures without dying and then become obsessed with forcing everyone else to see them. The creatures are never shown, so you spend the film listening for them instead. The thriller side kicks in when Malorie must take two children on a dangerous river journey towards a possible safe haven, with almost none of them able to see where they are going. It is such a simple rule, but blimey, the film wrings a whole lot of tension out of it.

Incantation (Kevin Ko, 2022)

If Bird Box makes you scared to look, Incantation makes you wonder whether watching was a terrible idea in the first place. The Taiwanese horror thriller follows Li Ronan, a mother whose past involvement with a forbidden religious ritual comes back to haunt her daughter years later. At first, symbols appear, but then behaviour turns disturbing. Ronan thinks the curse has followed her home. Well, obviously. What did you think was going to happen after breaking a sacred taboo and filming the whole thing?

Ronan starts going through old recordings, trying to work out what she saw, what the chant means and how on earth she can stop the curse before it takes Dodo. Except Incantation keeps addressing us through the camera, asking us to look at symbols and repeat things along with Ronan. Sorry, come again? We’re involved now? The film was inspired in part by a real Taiwanese case involving a family who believed they were possessed, though its central religion was invented. Just when we thought it couldn’t get crazier!

Under Paris (Xavier Gens, 2024)

From crazy cursed recordings to a shark in the Seine, yes, we are making quite the jump here, but it’s to keep you on your toes. Under Paris follows marine scientist Sophia, who discovers that Lilith, the enormous shark that killed her team years earlier, has now reached Paris. Wow, as if human stalkers weren’t enough, now we have a shark getting involved. Shark Tank, anyone? And since it’s a movie, the city is preparing to hold a triathlon in the river at the same damn time. And of course, we have officials reluctant to cancel it. Thousands of people with a predator swimming underneath them. What could go wrong?

That ticking clock gives Under Paris its thriller pulse, while the horror comes from what happens once Lilith starts hunting. But kudos to the filmmakers for turning this ridiculous setup into something that will give you goose bumps. That sense of people refusing to react until things are properly out of hand is where a lot of the tension comes from. Typical horror thriller setup, isn’t it?

The Platform (Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, 2019)

And from one very wet nightmare to a much more claustrophobic setup, we land on one of Netflix’s most-watched non-English films: The Platform. This Spanish horror takes the protagonist, Goreng, into a vertical prison where food descends once a day on a platform, stopping at every level for a few minutes. Sounds manageable, right? Ha, only in theory. The people at the top eat first, and everyone below gets whatever is left.

Some days, that means scraps. Some days, absolutely nothing. How lovely. And because prisoners are moved to a different floor each month, today’s feast can become tomorrow’s starvation. Hunger turns people desperate, and every floor feels like another experiment in how quickly civilisation can fall apart. It’s the reality check you won’t expect from a film such as this.

No One Gets Out Alive (Santiago Menghini, 2021)

Right, so after getting the haunting from Food, No One Gets Out Alive decides rent is the next thing we should fear. Ambar is an undocumented immigrant in Cleveland who moves into a dirt-cheap boarding house because, frankly, what else is she supposed to do? Then come the noises. Then the visions. Then the landlord starts acting dodgy. Here we go. You can already tell this place is going to be an absolute nightmare, and yet Ambar cannot just pack a bag and disappear because money and survival are all working against her.

Honestly, in the world we’re living in, rent and utilities are a bigger nightmare than some random ghost living in the attic. In Ambar’s case, you are not just waiting for something supernatural to jump out; you are just watching her realise that every possible exit is blocked by something worse. A note for future house hunters: if the rent looks too good to be true, maybe just keep scrolling.