The Best Horror Movies of 2020 Will Make You Feel Alive With Fear

The Best Horror Movies of 2020 Will Make You Feel Alive With Fear

We're currently living in a new golden age of horror. As our real world becomes ever more terrifying, filmmakers have stepped up their game to use horror as a way to analyze the nightmare of our off-screen lives. That continues in 2019—from clever reboots of classic horror flicks, twisty genre-bending films, to a headier second swing at horror from Oscar winner Jordan Peele. This year is about feeling alive, and what better way to do that than getting the bejesus scared out of you? Skip that summer trip to Sweden, delete all your phone apps, and check out one of these films instead.

1 . IT: Chapter Two

IT: Chapter Two isn’t quite as great at its predecessor, but for anyone who was craving a dose of Stephen King’s thrilling clown horror, this film is a solid choice. Balancing a bit of heart with its terrifying premise (nothing is scarier than a monster than manifests as your biggest fear), Pennywise returns to haunt the now-adult kids of Derry, 27 years after his first appearance. The cast for the sequel is insane, and even better when you see them with their child counterparts. It 2 may not go down as the best horror film, but it’s a respectable entry into the Stephen King canon.

2. Ready or Not

Like a socioeconomic reimagining of Get Out, in Ready or Not, if you marry up, you have to earn it. After marrying the guy she always hoped to end up with, a woman (Samara Weaving) has to survive the night while she is—wait a minute—hunted by her rich board game-business in-laws toting guns and miscellaneous weapons? Cool. Wonderful. Great. Bonus points for the film—it’s essentially a throwback cast for anyone who relishes the late 90s and early 2000s. Adam Brody and Andie MacDowell round out the top-billed cast for the screwed up thriller. Does it sound bananas? Sure. But critics love it, and with the growing economic divide in America, this is the new American Dream. Sorry, we don’t make the rules. Run.

3. Countdown

Honestly, this might be the scariest film of the year based on premise alone. Let’s be real—our phones are definitely going to kill us. In Countdown, an app has gone viral and when you download it, it will tell you when you’re going to die. Hilarious, right? The characters have the same reaction—until they determine that there seems to be a bit of truth behind the app when the numbers dial down. But an app can only be so omnipotent, so the leads in the film have to figure out what’s happening before time literally runs out.

4. The Prodigy

What begins as your typical adolescent troubled behavior becomes much more sinister when a young boy begins to show signs not of hormones and puberty—but rather a terrifying demonic possession.

5. Happy Death Day 2U

A sequel to the 2017 box-office hit sees the original protagonist once again stuck in a Groundhog Day-style time loop—only instead of becoming a better person, she has to figure out who is killing her and her friends over and over again.