Movies
Five Gothic Horror Movies to Stream This Week
Atmosphere plays a crucial role in Gothic Horror in a way that complements Fall well. That’s also reflected in Gothic horror’s themes of death or good versus evil, made more ominous by gloomy settings filled with dark passages, cobwebs, and hidden secrets. Crumbling interiors filled with ghosts and skeletons in the closet match the protagonists’ unraveling psychology.
Now that Fall has officially arrived with October hot on its heels, this week’s streaming picks are dedicated to atmospheric Gothic horror movies that bring cooler temps and moody fog.
Here’s where you can watch them this week.
For more Stay Home, Watch Horror picks, click here.
The Awakening – Kanopy, Tubi
Set in 1921, Rebecca Hall stars as paranormal debunker Florence Cathcart. She accepts an invitation from war vet Robert Mallory (Dominic West) to stay at the boarding school where he teaches, to determine if the place is indeed haunted. The more she encounters strange phenomena, the more her skepticism gets shaken. The realization that the hauntings exist comes with frightening reveals about Florence’s past. The Awakening bears a stronger resemblance to The Devil’s Backbone than The Others, in terms of period supernatural movies. There are genuine paranormal frights, but there’s more than meets the eye to this spectral tale.
Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes – Fandango at Home, Hoopla, Kanopy, Prime Video
An unhappy woman and her irritable husband have just inherited a rundown mansion, but reality and time cease to hold meaning the longer they stay and realize something is amiss with the place. Kevin Kopacka directs a sumptuous visual feast, channeling the likes of Mario Bava and capturing a psychedelic, ’70s Italian occult aesthetic. What begins as a bizarre, disjointed movie that favors style over coherent story quickly gives way to something far more unexpected and extensive in scope. In other words, it’s a gorgeous, ethereal movie full of surprising twists that deftly shift genres in a clever deconstruction of Gothic horror.
The Others – AMC+, Shudder, Criterion Channel (starting October 1)
Director Alejandro Amenábar’s atmospheric horror movie brought the haunted house back to its gothic roots. Set in 1945, a mother (Nicole Kidman) cares for her light-sensitive children while her husband is away at war. Things start going bump in the night, and soon the children claim to see other people inhabiting their home with threats that the house actually belongs to them. This traditional ghost story eventually gives way to tragedy, one that changes the perspective of the entire film. If there’s one recurring theme of haunted houses, it’s residual grief that refuses to mend.
Sleepy Hollow – Hoopla, Kanopy, Paramount+, Pluto TV
Fallen leaves, gnarled trees, and a constant roll of fog leave the small town of Sleepy Hollow steeped in the autumn air. That’s where police constable Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp) winds up on an assignment to investigate a series of beheadings. The culprit, of course, is the legendary Headless Horseman. Based on Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” Tim Burton’s Gothic tale is intertwined with Halloween and the Fall season. Look for new twists and updates to the iconic story, with a witchy take on the iconic headless foe.
The Woman in Black – Hoopla, Kanopy, MGM+, Paramount+
This Gothic horror movie adapts Susan Hill’s 1989 novel and follows recent widower and lawyer Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) as he’s sent on assignment to sort the affairs of a deceased client. The caveat, of course, is that the client’s home is a desolate manor on a gloomy marsh. Oh, and it’s deeply haunted. Director James Watkins (Eden Lake, Speak No Evil) maintains a dreary, foreboding atmosphere from the moment Arthur arrives at the estate. From there, Watkins keeps escalating the chills with spectral encounters and terrifying things that go bump in the night.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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