Three unsettling home-invasion thrillers to kick-start October
October watchlists are usually packed with ghosts, demons, and monsters. But if you want to ground your Halloween starter pack with a Netflix watchlist where the psychological tension is real and immediate, watch these three home-invasion thrillers instead.
If you’re not ready to dive straight into gory supernatural scares, these thrillers deliver non-stop momentum and spike up your survival instincts.
Since October is anyway the month of staying indoors, grabbing a blanket, and locking the doors, home invasion thrillers take that twist and turn it into suspense.
So, before going all out with slasher marathons, here is a concise watchlist of home invasion thrillers to bridge the gap.
Three home-invasion thrillers to watch right now on Netflix
Hush (Mike Flanagan, 2016)
October 1st arrives with a scary package, and the best way to welcome it is with a Mike Flanagan home-invasion thriller, Hush. The horror-thriller movie follows Maddie Young, a writer who lost her hearing and voice due to an illness at an early age. She relocates to an isolated house in the woods, seeking solitude to focus entirely on her writing. But soon after the move, a deranged, masked intruder is seen lurking outside her window.
And once he realises that Maddie is both deaf and mute, the man goes all out to play a terrifying psychological cat-and-mouse game. Trapped inside with no easy way to call for help, Hush centres on Maddie, who banks purely on her wit, resourcefulness, and other senses to outsmart the intruder and survive the night that doesn’t seem to end, offering viewers the suspense of a silent perspective in the face of deadly danger.
The Strangers (Brian Bertino, 2008)
Speaking of unforgettable home-invasion thrillers, Netflix also added The Strangers, directed by Brian Bertino, to its queue this October. The 2008 psychological horror thriller follows a couple, Kristen and James, who return to an isolated family cabin after attending a wedding to find a mysterious blonde woman knocking on their door, searching for someone named Tamara. Although it seems like a one-off incident, it soon becomes clear they are being watched when the woman returns as soon as James steps out.
But the stranger is not the only thing they should worry about. Soon enough, three masked individuals – Dollface, Pinup Girl, and the Man in the Mask – show up, ransacking the entire home by cutting off phone lines, destroying their car, and ultimately inviting them to a grisly cat-and-mouse chase. The Strangers centres on James and Kristen, who must resist the intruders as they seem to stop at nothing, even without a clear personal agenda.
When a Stranger Calls (Simon West, 2006)
To wrap up the home-invasion thriller marathon on Netflix, we recommend a cult classic: When a Stranger Calls, a 2006 remake of Fred Walton’s 1979 film. The psychological horror-thriller follows high-school student Jill Johnson, who takes a babysitting job at the wealthy Mandrakis family at their secluded, high-tech house. One evening, after putting the children to sleep, Jill starts receiving strange calls from a mysterious entity who mostly says nothing before hanging up.
Although she initially dismisses it as a prank, assuming it could be her friends who are joking around, when she confronts them, they straight-up deny it. In the meantime, a friend arrives, but Jill sends her back home to avoid trouble, oblivious to the danger outside. However, soon enough, the friend ends up dead, while the calls escalate with sinister intent, leaving Jill on her own to fight against a stranger too close to the home.