The best horror movies of the year so far, ranked by scariness

The year got off to a rather slow start when it comes to horror movies, but now that the release calendar has ramped up, there are at least a few horror movies worth watching in 2024.

While it’s still early on, it’s hard not to feel like this year’s horror theme is “fun” (if you’re our kind of sicko), or at least “playfulness.” With killer swimming pools that haunt former baseball pros, deadly convents, and haunted talk shows, most of the year’s best movies so far are doing a delightful job of making their horror feel fresh and inventive, making us smile and scream in equal measure.

But whether you’re more toward the smiling end or just in it for the screams, we’ve put together a list of the best horror movies of 2024 so far, ranked by scariness. Scariness is certainly different for everyone, but we’ve tried to break it down into two categories: terror, which is the movie’s overall tension, jump scares, and general suspense, and gore, which is all about how bloody the movie gets.

Night Swim

Image: Blumhouse/Universal Pictures

Run time: 1h 38m
Director: Bryce McGuire
Cast: Wyatt Russell, Kerry Condon, Amélie Hoeferle
Where to watch: Streaming on Peacock, digital purchase on Amazon and Apple TV

Night Swim is a movie about a killer pool, and it’s both better, funnier, and scarier than you might expect. With an fantastically goofy performance by Wyatt Russell as an ex-baseball player moving his family into a new house with an ancient and malevolent wish-granting pool in the backyard, the movie has a very specific tone that snaps back and forth from silly to creepy without a moment’s notice.

Night Swim is for the die-hard horror fans. Not because it’s especially scary (it isn’t) but because its scariness is limited to a few great ideas and specific moments, and otherwise the movie is a self-aware and silly blast. It’s a movie perfectly built for anyone that loves to scroll a streaming service and throw on nice little horror movie at 11:30 p.m. In other words, Night Swim is a pretty good time, but one you might not remember much about a week later.

How scary is Night Swim?

• Terror: 1/5
• Gore: 2/5

Total scariness score: 3/10

Late Night with the Devil

Image: IFC Films/Shudder

Run time: 1h 33m
Directors: Cameron Cairnes, Colin Cairnes
Cast: David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon, Ian Bliss
Where to watch: Theaters

In this terrific faux-documentary, we follow the behind-the-scenes story of a struggling ’70s talk show’s final episode, in which the host and producers attempt to communicate with a demon in a bid for show-saving ratings. Things don’t go well.

What makes Late Night with the Devil work so well is how completely it captures the vibe of its subject matter. Everything from the set to the studio audience is pitch-perfect, and it’s all held together by the desperate host, Jack Delroy, played with nervous energy and Carson-esque charm by the singular David Dastmalchian. Beyond just being an impressive feat, this loving re-creation also gives the movie a true sense of being some kind of illicit live TV broadcast that would thoroughly creep out those unlucky enough to be watching and inspire urban legends for years to come.

How scary is Late Night with the Devil?

• Terror: 2/5
• Gore: 3/5

Total scariness score: 5/10

Abigail

Image: Universal Pictures

This new vampire movie from the directors of Ready or Not is one of the most surprisingly fun and funny horror movies of 2023. The movie follows a group of somewhat bumbling but very self-serious criminals after they kidnap a little girl and have to watch her for 24 hours before the ransom comes through. Unfortunately for them, she’s a vampire.

What comes after is 110 minutes of vampiric antics as the criminals are chased around a giant mansion by a vampire that loves to play with her food. The movie’s script hangs together pretty well, but the biggest key to its success is the stellar, hilarious cast, with Kathryn Newton and Dan Stevens as particular standouts.

Abigail is much funnier than it is scary, but it’s got more than enough gore to make up for that fact and to keep it pretty high on our scariness list.

How scary is Abigail?

• Terror: 2/5
• Gore: 4/5

Total scariness score: 6/10

Immaculate

Image: Neon

Run time: 1h 29m
Director: Michael Mohan
Cast: Sydney Sweeney, Álvaro Morte, Simona Tabasco
Where to watch: Theaters

Immaculate tells the story of a devout American nun who falls mysteriously pregnant shortly after transferring to a convent in Italy. Her seemingly immaculate conception leads to instant fervor from her fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, but she suspects something much darker than a miracle is at play.

Beautifully shot and led by a fantastic performance from Euphoria’s Sydney Sweeney, Immaculate is more creepy and haunting than it is actually scary, but the shower of gore — both pregnancy-related and not — still makes it one of the year’s best and most harrowing horror offerings.

How scary is Immaculate?

• Terror: 3/5
• Gore: 4/5

Total scariness score: 7/10

In a Violent Nature

Image: Shudder

Run time: 1h 34m
Director: Chris Nash
Cast: Ry Barrett, Andrea Pavlovic, Cameron Love
Where to watch: In theaters May 31

In a Violent Nature is easily the most unique horror movie of the year, taking a typical “teens in the woods” premise and following it from the killer’s point of view. The movie is light on details of the killer’s backstory, but in a further fun twist, they’re also mostly gleaned from snippets of teen campfire stories the killer overhears.

Surprisingly, for a movie about a supernatural murder monster, this is also one of the most quiet horror movies of the year, cleverly and beautifully passing its time with long, unbroken stretches of its monster just walking through nature, waiting for his next encounter with the teens who disturbed his slumber. Once he gets to them, though, In a Violent Nature transforms into one of the year’s most gruesome movies too, finding new and inventive ways to disembowel people that will make even the most hardened horror vets squirm.

How scary is In a Violent Nature?

• Terror: 3/5
• Gore: 5/5

Total scariness score: 8/10

The First Omen

Image: 20th Century Entertainment

Considering the disasters some horror sequels and prequels for long-dormant franchises can be, it was awfully tough to believe that a prequel for The Omen could be good, but The First Omen proved its doubters very wrong. This excellent and extremely creepy movie follows Margaret (Nell Tiger Free), a young nun brought to Rome who uncovers a terrifying plot to resurrect the Antichrist.

The First Omen is impressively scary, with dread seeping into every frame of its Catholic conspiracy. Ralph Ineson uses his excellent voice to great effect here as a priest who has been excommunicated after finding out the Church’s secrets, but it’s Free who winds up the standout, as her character slowly spirals as the plot gets thicker and more confounding.

Gory, brutal, and terrifying, The First Omen is already a strong contender for the scariest movie of the year, particularly if pregnancy horror is extra upsetting for you.

How scary is The First Omen?

• Terror: 4/5
• Gore: 5/5

Total scariness score: 9/10