If you are as big a fan of scary slashers and creepy classics as I am, you are always on the lookout for all the new horror movies (or older ones) that each of your favorite streaming services have to offer. While every platform boasts a healthy selection of titles that are sure to feed your bloodlust, a very impressive amount of the best movies on Peacock fall under that particular category, many of which come at no cost. If you find yourself in the mood for a good scare, look no further than our picks for some of the best horror movies you can check out with a Peacock subscription at the moment.
The Terrifier Movies (2017, 2022)
A horrifying harlequin (played by David Howard Thornton) stalks and brutally murders victims of his choosing, preferably on Halloween night.
Why it is one of the best horror movies on Peacock: Few creepy clown movies are as gleefully grotesque and bewilderingly brutal as writer and director Damien Leone’s Terrifier and its 2022 sequel, Terrifier 2, – each of which follow the shockingly cruel exploits of one of the greatest modern horror movie villains, Art the Clown.
Stream the Terrifier movies on Peacock.
American Psycho (2000)
A young yuppie (played by Academy Award winner Christian Bale) begins to descend into murderous insanity in 1980s Manhattan.
Why it is one of the best horror movies on Peacock: Bale gives one of the most gloriously deranged performances of his career as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho – director Mary Harron’s deliriously twisted adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ novel with a captivatingly mysterious ending.
Stream American Psycho on Peacock.
Body Bags (1993)
A ghoulish morgue attendant (played by John Carpenter) presents the three increasingly bizarre tales behind his latest clientele.
Why it is one of the best horror movies on Peacock: Not only does Carpenter host this made-for-TV horror anthology movie, but the horror master also directs two segments of Body Bags, while the remaining story is helmed by The Texas Chain Saw Massacre creator, Tobe Hooper.
Def By Temptation (1990)
A minister-in-training (played by James Bond III), his actor friend (played by Kadeem Hardison), and a cop who specializes in the supernatural (played by Bill Nunn) take on an alluring succubus (played by Cynthia Bond).
Why it is one of the best horror movies on Peacock: Not only does James Bond III star in Def by Temptation, he also writes and directs this underrated, Troma-produced Black horror movie that also stars Samuel L. Jackson.
Stream Def by Temptation on Peacock.
The Host (2006)
A man stops at nothing to rescue his daughter after she is abducted from an unusual creature that emerges from the Han River in Seoul, South Korea.
Why it is one of the best horror movies on Peacock: Before Parasite earned him an Oscar, co-writer and director Bong Joon-ho earned major Kudos with the creature feature-loving community when he released the inventive and thoroughly intense, The Host.
Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer (1991)
A seemingly innocent exterminator (played by Michael Rooker) takes his roommate (played by Tom Towles) on a road trip, during which he reveals to him his own deadly secret.
Why it is one of the best horror movies on Peacock: Rooker has never been more unsettling, but impossible to look away from, when portraying real-life murderer Henry Lee Lucas in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, from co-writer and director James McNaughton.
Stream Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer on Peacock.
Freaky (2020)
After surviving an attack by a notorious murderer (played by Vince Vaughn), a teenage girl (played by Kathryn Newton) finds herself trapped in the body of the killer, whose own consciousness is inhabiting her body.
Why it is one of the best horror movies on Peacock: By, essentially, reimagining the plot of the classic body swap movie, Freaky Friday, as a quirky slasher flick, director Christopher Landon lands yet another horror-comedy movie favorite with Freaky.
Nope (2022)
A horse wrangler (played by Academy Award winner Daniel Kaluuya), his sister (played by Keke Palmer), and others attempt to catch evidence of an otherworldly visitor without falling prey to it.
Why it is one of the best horror movies on Peacock: With Nope, writer and director Jordan Peele not only delivers one of the best horror movies of 2022, but one of the most unique takes on the alien invasion movie genre yet, in ways we will not give away.
Sleepaway Camp (1983)
Young campers and adult counselors alike are eliminated one-by-one by an elusive, unseen assailant at a summer camp.
Why it is one of the best horror movies on Peacock: If not for the existence of the Friday the 13th franchise, Sleepaway Camp would be the ultimate summer horror movie, especially for its iconically shocking twist ending.
Stream Sleepaway Camp on Peacock.
Splinter (2008)
A young couple (played by Paulo Costanzo and Jill Wagner) and a criminal on the run (played by Shea Whigham) hole up together at a convenience store to avoid becoming host to a deadly, sentient parasite.
Why it is one of the best horror movies on Peacock: One of the most underrated body horror movies in recent memory is Splinter – an impressive low-budget thriller from director Toby Wilkins.
The Void (2016)
An understaffed hospital becomes the site of strange, otherworldly circumstances that seem to be related to a group of hooded bystanders gathering outside the building.
Why it is one of the best horror movies on Peacock: From writers and directors Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski and boasting grade-A practical effects, The Void is a passionately executed callback to Lovecraftian creature features of the 1980s.
The Exorcist III (1990)
A veteran detective (played by George C. Scott) finds disturbing evidence linking a series of recent murders to a long-dead serial killer.
Why it is one of the best horror movies on Peacock: A sequel to William Friedkin’s 1973 classic mostly in name, writer and director William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist III is a terrifying, unjustly overlooked masterpiece that fuses crime drama with supernatural thrills.
Stream The Exorcist III on Peacock.
Let The Right One In (2008)
A lonely boy (played by Kåre Hedebrant) forms a friendship with a girl (played by Lina Leandersson) hiding a deadly secret in 1980s Stockholm.
Why it is one of the best horror movies on Peacock: Director Tomas Alfredson’s gorgeous, brutal adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel, Let the Right One In, is one of the most hauntingly unique vampire movies ever made.
Stream Let the Right One In on Peacock.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
A group of young road-trippers fall prey to a family of cannibals – one of which hunts with a power tool.
Why it is one of the best horror movies on Peacock: Writer and director Tobe Hooper masterfully captures the feeling of a seemingly endless nightmare with one of the best horror movies of the ‘70s, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre – which is not exactly a horror movie based on a true story like it was advertised, but does take inspiration from the murders of Ed Gein.
Stream The Texas Chain Saw Massacre on Peacock.
Tucker And Dale Vs. Evil (2010)
A wild misunderstanding leads young campers to suspect that a pair of unassuming hillbillies (played by Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine) have targeted them for murder.
Why it is one of the best horror movies on Peacock: Co-writer and director Eli Craig takes many of the common things that happen in slasher movies and turns them on their heads in wonderfully clever and dementedly hilarious ways in Tucker and Dale vs. Evil.
Stream Tucker and Dale vs. Evil on Peacock.
The Beyond (1981)
A woman (played by Catriona MacCall) and others begin to experience bizarre and horrifying events after she inherits an old New Orleans hotel that happens to sit on top of a gateway to the underworld.
Why it is one of the best horror movies on Peacock: With its shocking gore effects that are signature for its time and a chilling atmosphere throughout, The Beyond is, arguably, the finest of the legendary Lucio Fulci’s unofficial “Gates of Hell” trilogy and one of the most essential films of the supernatural Giallo era.
Phantasm (1979)
A recently orphaned teenage boy (played by A. Michael Baldwin) and his older brother (played by Bill Thornbury) set out to under why mysterious tall man (played by Angus Scrimm) is stealing bodies from their graves.
Why it is one of the best horror movies on Peacock: With a plot so unapologetically strange, a villain so memorably imposing, and other enduringly iconic elements, writer and director Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm is a definitive, must-see cult horror film.
Starry Eyes (2014)
An aspiring actress (played by Midnight Mass cast member Alex Essoe) goes to unimaginably dangerous lengths to earn what she believes will be the role of a lifetime.
Why it’s one of the best horror movies on Peacock: Not just one of the best horror movies on Peacock, but one of the most criminally underrated horror movies in recent memory is Starry Eyes – a harrowing tale of ambition gone south with a dash of treacherous body horror from Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer of 2019’s Pet Sematary remake fame.
Stream Starry Eyes on Peacock.
The Wailing (2016)
A police officer and family man from South Korea (played by Kwak Do-won) struggles to prevent the spread of a strange illness which has some villagers convinced it is the work of a demon.
Why it is one of the best horror movies on Peacock: Director Na Hong-jin’s horrifying, thoroughly compelling, and sometimes darkly funny bedtime story, The Wailing, is a masterpiece of slow-burn horror and one of the greatest Asian horror films of its time.
Stream The Wailing on Peacock.
Black Christmas (1974)
A college student (played by Olivia Hussey) and her fellow sorority sisters find themselves taunted by a stranger that is most definitely not Santa Claus while spending winter break together at their school’s currently desolate campus.
Why it is one of the best horror movies on Peacock: Years before director Bob Clark finished his iconic and hilarious dream project, A Christmas Story, his first holiday classic was Black Christmas – one of the greatest horror films set around Christmas that is often argued to be the true first modern slasher movie.
Stream Black Christmas on Peacock.
The Changeling (1980)
After suffering the loss of his wife and daughter, a professor of music (played by Academy Award winner George C. Scott) moves himself into a luxurious Seattle estate where strange, unexplainable phenomena lure him into a dark mystery surrounding the house.
Why it is one of the best horror movies on Peacock: Master filmmaker Martin Scorsese called The Changeling one of the scariest movies he had ever seen and, with director Peter Medak’s talent for building suspense and being a horror movie that meaningfully addresses grief, it is easy to see why.
Stream The Changeling on Peacock.
The House Of The Devil (2009)
A cash-strapped college student (played by Jocelin Donahue) accepts a baby-sitting job that she quickly comes to regret when nothing appears to be as it seems on the night of a lunar eclipse in 1983.
Why it’s one of the best horror movies on Peacock: Writer and director Ti West, later known for X in 2022, instantly became one of the leading heroes in modern indie horror with his underrated ode to the Satanic Panic era, The House of the Devil – another masterpiece of slow-burn horror that earns its place with a shocking final act and an early appearance by future Oscar nominee Greta Gerwig.
Stream The House Of The Devil on Peacock.
Night Of The Living Dead (1968)
A group of strangers taking refuge in a small house in the country struggle to survive the hungry, shuffling corpses outside… and each other.
Why it’s one of the best horror movies on Peacock: Co-writer and director George A. Romero first introduced the world to the modern, definitive incarnation of the zombie with Night of the Living Dead, which is also one of the best movies on Peacock, period, for its cleverly veiled social commentary that would become a staple of the filmmaker’s long-running Dead movies series.
Stream Night Of The Living Dead on Peacock.
Day Of The Dead (1985)
A dwindling number of scientists and military personnel take refuge together in an underground bunker, where they struggle to survive the hungry, shuffling corpses above – and each other – while warring over what is most important in a world overrun with the dead.
Why it’s one of the best horror movies on Peacock: After following up his first horrid night with a distressing dawn, George A. Romero would then give us Day of the Dead – one of the more thoughtful, thematically unique, and technically impressive zombie movies in his influential franchise, and of all time, if you ask me.
Stream Day Of The Dead on Peacock.
Train To Busan (2016)
An overworked businessman (played by Gong Yoo) takes his daughter (played by Su-an Kim) on a trip to visit her mother by train, which ends up becoming a ride into relentless terror when the train cars become overrun with hungry, fast-moving corpses.
Why it’s one of the best horror movies on Peacock: One of the most exciting and intelligent zombie movies in recent memory is one of the best Korean horror movies ever, Train to Busan.
Stream Train To Busan on Peacock.
Ginger Snaps (2000)
As she approaches womanhood, a teenage girl (played by Katharine Isabelle) undergoes a more startling transformation than she anticipated following a mysterious animal attack with only her close younger sister (played by Emily Perkins) to confide in, even as the strange circumstances threaten to tear them apart.
Why it’s one of the best horror movies on Peacock: One of the most stylish and refreshingly character-driven werewolf movies is the Canadian import Ginger Snaps, which is co-written and directed by Orphan Black creator John Fawcett and boasts makeup effects that are extremely impressive for an early-2000s, low-budget creature feature.
Stream Ginger Snaps on Peacock.
This, of course, is only a handful of recommendations of the best horror movies on Peacock. But, as you can see, they are enough to prove that the streaming service really knows what constitutes a good scare.
