Halloween horror shows: 5 underrated movies on Prime Video that will scare you silly

Renfield
(Image credit: Amazon)

Brown leaves are falling, shops are full of skeletons and people are changing their social media handles to something more spooky. It's our favorite time of the year, and as with every spooky season the best streaming services have plenty of horror, gore and paranormal-themed movies to excite and delight you. 

We're always on the look out for new horror movies and regularly roundup seven great new horror movies we can find every month. From horror comedies to knowing slashers, here are five must-stream movies on Prime Video.

Renfield (October 10)

Nicholas Cage is famed for chewing scenery but here he is chewing necks as Dracula. Renfield is a horror comedy in which the titular manservant of Dracula, played by Nicholas Hoult, embarks on comical, comic-book mass slaughter. Imagine What We Do In The Shadows with a massive body count and gallons of gore. It's not perfect by any means but Cage is having an absolute blast channeling Bela Lugosi. Empire magazine gave it four stars, saying: "Cage... has obviously been waiting for this gig all his life and chews every morsel given him."

Totally Killer (October 6)

They had me at "Back To The Future meets Scream". This teen slasher has a time-travelling twist. When Jamie comes face to face with a serial killer who's been quiet for three decades, she's transported back in time to the original killings – and she has to team up with her teenage mom to do it. This isn't one for hardcore horror fans but it's a fun and funny take on the genre that's well worth hunkering down to watch on Halloween.

Make Me Scream (streaming now)

This is going to be funny rather than frightening (for us at least). Three celebrity teams have to face a house of horror, moving through multiple spooky Scare Zones and trying not to scream. Hosted by Tempestt Bledsoe (The Cosby Show) and Darryl M. Bell (A Different World) and starring three celebrity teams led by Jaleel White (Family Matters), Shoniqua Shandai (Harlem) and Lil’ Xan, Make Me Scream promises scares and gruesome games. 

Bubba Ho-Tep (streaming now)

Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead) is Elvis, who didn't die but instead is ageing quietly in a remote nursing home – or maybe he's a delusional Elvis impersonator who only thinks he's The King. Either way, when an ancient Egyptian soul-sucker comes to town for unspeakably evil reasons, there's only one hero who can hold back the horror. It sounds silly and weird and it is, but it's also very funny, surprisingly poignant and Bruce Campbell won several well-deserved awards for his performance. This is much more than Evil Dead With Elvis, as much as I'd totally watch that too.

Scooby-Doo / Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (streaming now)

The most horrible thing about these two live action Scooby spin-offs may be the reviews, which award them 32% and 22%, respectively on Rotten Tomatoes. But that seems awfully harsh to me, as these are irreverent, fun movies that don't take themselves too seriously and that stick to the spirit of the much-loved cartoons. Although to be fair to the critics, the first film features one of the most frightening and evil characters ever created in popular culture, the demonic entity best known as Scrappy-Doo. 

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Carrie Marshall
Contributor

Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall (Twitter) has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than a dozen books. Her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, is on sale now. She is the singer in Glaswegian rock band HAVR.