There’s no better time for horror than summer. With June finally here, it’s time to dig into the perfect warm-weather horror options on Netflix and beyond. Whether you’re popping into a movie that reminds you how nice it is to be inside, a chilly movie that feels like eating a Popsicle, or the cinematic equivalent to a blast of air conditioning, this month’s streaming options have your early summer covered.
To help you figure out what to watch on those still-cool June evenings, we’ve put together a list of the best streaming horror movies that are around this month and included everything from Psycho to You’re Next to 47 Meters Down. Every single movie on this list is available to stream on Netflix, Hulu, or Max, so it should be easy to find every single one of June’s best horror movies this time around.
The Thing (2011)
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Year: 2011
Run time: 1h 43m
Director: Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.
Cast: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Ulrich Thomsen
The early days of summer, just as everything’s starting to heat up again, are the perfect time to throw on a very chilly horror movie, and 2011’s The Thing is an excellent option. Yes, really, the prequel to John Carpenter’s masterpiece is actually pretty good.
The story of the Norwegian base that first fell victim to the Thing monster’s mimicry and rampage is every bit as brutal, bloody, and creepy as the original, even if no one here is as charming or interesting as the characters in the first movie. The biggest tragedy of this version of the Thing is the production originally featured practical effects reminiscent of Carpenter’s classic, but those were scrapped in favor of CGI creations that aren’t nearly as neat or scary. Even still, The Thing’s prequel is a great concept well executed, and even a slightly pale imitation of the original movie is more fun than most other horror movies you can stream.
The Thing is streaming on Netflix.
Psycho
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Year: 1960
Run time: 1h 49m
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles
Don’t let the black-and-white look or its classic-movie status fool you: Psycho is still an outstanding horror movie, even today. The film follows Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), a young woman dead-set on escaping her life with a large sum of money she’s just come into. While that may be the actual plot, most people will likely recognize this first for the presence of Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), one of cinema’s greatest and most unsettling villains and characters in general. Even beyond the infamous shower stabbing, with its iconic score and framing, Psycho is full of creepy and disconcerting scenes that still make it an absolute must-watch for horror fans.
Psycho is streaming on Netflix.
In the Earth
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Year: 2021
Run time: 1h 47m
Director: Ben Wheatley
Cast: Ellora Torchia, Joel Fry, Hayley Squires
Summer is finally here, and that means it’s time to kick off your shoes and head outside to the wonder of the great outdoors. Or you could watch In the Earth and resolve yourself to never step outside your home again… if it isn’t onto a nice paved surface.
This movie, a pandemic-era offering from Kill List and The Meg 2 director Ben Wheatley, sends its characters into the forest in hopes of finding some kind of scientific discovery. The film’s beautiful and pristine wilderness feels at once like it could be just a few yards from any highway in America, as well as terrifyingly remote and isolated. Forest horror is too rare a genre nowadays, especially the kind that gives power back to the land itself, but Wheatley’s thoroughly modern folk horror entry is outstandingly creepy and surprisingly brutal — and all in the great outdoors, making it a perfect movie for kicking off the summer.
In the Earth is streaming on Hulu.
47 Meters Down
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Year: 2017
Run time: 1h 29m
Director: Johannes Roberts
Cast: Mandy Moore, Claire Holt, Matthew Modine
In honor of the impending release of The Meg 2: The Trench (yes, we’re aware it doesn’t come out until August, but something has to make the waiting easier), we’re offering up an underrated shark attack movie from just a few years ago.
47 Meters Down focuses on two divers who jump into a shark cage to get up close and personal with the ocean’s scariest predator. Unfortunately for the divers, a great white gets the better of their supposedly shark-proof cage. What comes next is 90 minutes of survival, you guessed it, 47 meters below the water’s surface.
While it’s no Jaws, 47 Meters Down is an extremely entertaining creature feature and the best shark movie since The Shallows (streaming on Tubi) — which also merits checking out if you’re in a particularly sharky mood.
47 Meters Down is streaming on Hulu.
You’re Next
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Year: 2011
Run time: 1h 35m
Director: Adam Wingard
Cast: Sharni Vinson, Joe Swanberg, AJ Bowen
Quite possibly the best comedy slasher since the original Scream, You’re Next follows an incredibly wealthy family who is attacked, out of nowhere, by a gang of assailants wielding crossbows and axes and wearing animal masks.
To say much more would be to give up some of the movie’s excellent reveals, but the team-up of director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett — who also made The Guest and the surprisingly great third Blair Witch movie — has plenty of surprises up their sleeve to make every second of the movie entertaining. The duo stuffs in a gory mess of unique and brutal kills, all while keeping it light, funny, and scary — thanks to a perfect understanding of the slasher genre’s rhythms and how to exploit them.
You’re Next is currently streaming on Max.