Chilling Supernatural Horror Movies on Netflix to Kick Off the Fall Season

As fall approaches and the nights begin to feel made for horror, Netflix has assembled a particularly unsettling collection of supernatural movies built around ghosts, demonic possession, unexplained visions and forces that refuse to stay on the other side.

The supernatural has been one of horror cinema’s most enduring sources of fear. Decades before modern franchises filled theaters with haunted houses and possessed families, films such as Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist were already exploring the possibility that something terrifying might exist beyond what we can see.

Later movies including The Blair Witch Project and The Conjuring found new ways to exploit the same basic anxiety: What if the supernatural isn’t imaginary — and what happens when ordinary people realize they’re no longer alone?

Netflix’s current supernatural-horror selection offers several variations on that idea, from a kidnapped boy receiving impossible phone calls to a mother trapped between wartime terror and Persian folklore, and a skeptical priest-in-training confronting a case that threatens everything he believes.

Here are three particularly chilling choices for the fall season.

The Black Phone

Few horror setups are as immediately disturbing as the one at the center of The Black Phone.

Based on Joe Hill’s short story and directed by Scott Derrickson, the film follows Finney, a boy growing up with his sister Gwen in a Colorado community during the late 1970s.

Children have been disappearing.

Authorities believe an elusive serial killer known as the Grabber, played by Ethan Hawke, is responsible.

Eventually, Finney becomes his next victim.

The Grabber abducts him and locks him inside a nearly empty basement. There appears to be no obvious escape route, and the killer makes it clear that Finney should not expect to leave alive.

Then the black telephone on the basement wall begins to ring.

There is one problem: the phone is disconnected.

When Finney answers it, he begins hearing from the Grabber’s previous victims. The dead children may be the only people capable of teaching him how to survive the man who killed them.

At the same time, Gwen begins experiencing strange dreams that may contain clues to where her brother has been taken.

That supernatural element transforms what initially resembles a serial-killer thriller into something stranger. The ghosts aren’t simply there to frighten Finney; they become part of his attempt to escape.

Mason Thames stars as Finney, with Madeleine McGraw playing Gwen and Ethan Hawke delivering a disturbing performance behind the Grabber’s shifting masks.

Netflix currently lists The Black Phone among its supernatural horror offerings.

The film runs 1 hour and 43 minutes.

Under the Shadow

Babak Anvari’s Under the Shadow finds its horror in two different kinds of danger — one painfully real, the other potentially supernatural.

Set in Tehran during the Iran-Iraq War, the 2016 film centers on Shideh, played by Narges Rashidi.

Shideh once hoped to continue studying medicine, but her political activism following the Iranian Revolution has prevented her from returning to university.

Her frustrations soon become secondary to something far more immediate.

War is closing in.

Shideh’s husband is called away for medical service, leaving her in Tehran with their young daughter, Dorsa, as missile attacks become an increasingly frightening part of everyday life.

Then an unexploded missile crashes into their apartment building.

A neighbor suggests that the weapon may have brought something with it: a djinn, a supernatural being rooted in Middle Eastern and Islamic folklore.

At first, the possibility seems almost easier to dismiss than the very real danger outside.

But strange events begin inside the apartment.

Dorsa becomes convinced something is there. Shideh’s certainty begins to erode. As other residents abandon the building, mother and daughter become increasingly isolated.

Soon, the distinction between wartime trauma and supernatural persecution becomes much harder to identify.

Netflix describes the story as following a Tehran mother caring for her daughter during the Iran-Iraq conflict while gradually becoming convinced that evil spirits are operating around them.

That combination helped Under the Shadow stand apart when it was released in 2016.

Rather than using its historical setting merely as atmosphere, the movie allows the terror of war and the possibility of a haunting to reinforce each other. The apartment should be the family’s refuge from the violence outside, yet it slowly becomes another place they cannot trust.

The film was also widely celebrated critically after appearing at the Sundance Film Festival. Netflix describes it as a politically conscious supernatural story that combines Islamic mythology with the very real terror of oppression.

At just 1 hour and 24 minutes, Under the Shadow is also an unusually compact horror experience.

The Rite

If ghosts aren’t enough and demonic possession is more your idea of a fall horror movie, The Rite takes the story directly into the world of exorcism.

Released in 2011, the film stars Colin O’Donoghue as Michael Kovak, a young man who enters seminary without being convinced that the priesthood — or even faith itself — is truly his calling.

Michael’s decision is partly practical.

He hopes seminary will provide an escape from his father’s funeral business and allow him to obtain an education without accumulating enormous debt. His plan is to leave before taking his vows.

His doubts, however, become impossible for those around him to ignore.

Father Xavier, played by Ciarán Hinds, sends Michael to Rome to participate in an exorcism course, hoping exposure to the subject will force him to confront his skepticism.

There Michael meets Father Lucas Trevant, played by Anthony Hopkins.

Lucas is an experienced Jesuit exorcist, but he is hardly the kind of religious mentor Michael expects.

His methods are unconventional, and Michael remains uncertain about whether the disturbing behavior he witnesses represents genuine supernatural possession, psychological illness or something else entirely.

That skepticism becomes increasingly difficult to maintain as Michael encounters a case that challenges his assumptions.

Netflix summarizes the film as the story of an American priest-in-training who reluctantly becomes the protégé of Father Lucas, a veteran exorcist in Rome dealing with a case of demonic possession.

Alice Braga co-stars as Angelina Vargas, a reporter interested in the Vatican’s approach to exorcism, while Ciarán Hinds and Rutger Hauer are also among the ensemble.

The film is loosely inspired by Matt Baglio’s nonfiction book about Father Gary Thomas, an American priest who trained in exorcism in Rome.

Unlike horror stories in which everyone immediately accepts that demons exist, The Rite builds much of its tension around Michael’s refusal to believe.

The question isn’t simply whether something supernatural is happening.

It is how much Michael will have to witness before skepticism is no longer enough.

Three Very Different Ways to Be Terrified

Together, The Black Phone, Under the Shadow and The Rite demonstrate how widely supernatural horror can vary.

One turns a disconnected telephone into a link between a kidnapped child and the dead.

Another places a possible djinn inside an apartment building already surrounded by the genuine terror of war.

The third sends a skeptic into the world of Vatican exorcism, where the difference between psychological disturbance and demonic possession becomes increasingly difficult to maintain.

And they’re only part of Netflix’s current supernatural lineup. The service’s horror catalog also includes titles such as The Ritual, The Deliverance, The Mothman Prophecies, His House, Incantation, Malevolent and Things Heard & Seen, though availability can vary by region.

For viewers preparing for fall horror season, the appeal of these movies is straightforward.

Serial killers are frightening.

War is frightening.

A crisis of faith can be frightening.

But supernatural horror adds one more possibility: that after every rational explanation has been exhausted, something impossible might still be waiting in the darkness.

The Black Phone, Under the Shadow and The Rite are among the supernatural horror titles currently listed by Netflix.