TL;DR
- September 2026 is a strong warm-up for Halloween, with major new horror releases arriving in theaters and on streaming.
- Resident Evil and Adam Wingard’s Onslaught headline the month’s new theatrical offerings.
- Backrooms makes its HBO Max streaming debut September 25.
- Netflix adds Smile 2, while Hulu gets Heretic and Prime Video adds The First Omen.
- September’s streaming refresh also makes classics including Alien, The Thing, Halloween, Carrie and Get Out easy to revisit.
- Rather than ranking unreleased movies against established classics, we’ve divided the list into new releases, recent streaming favorites and essential horror rewatches.
October may own Halloween, but horror fans don’t have to wait that long to start spooky season.
September has traditionally served as the warm-up for the biggest horror month of the year, and 2026 is giving us plenty to watch before the pumpkins, costumes and nonstop Halloween marathons completely take over.
This month’s lineup combines major new theatrical releases, recent horror hits making their way to new streaming homes and an impressive collection of classics returning to Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Prime Video, Peacock and Shudder.
The biggest new arrival is Resident Evil, Zach Cregger’s new trip into the nightmare surrounding Raccoon City, while Adam Wingard’s Onslaught brings a very different kind of action-horror to theaters. Streaming audiences have plenty to choose from as well, including Backrooms, Smile 2, Heretic, Talk to Me and The First Omen.
Rather than pretending an unreleased movie is somehow already “better” than The Thing, we’re treating this as what it should be: a September horror watchlist.
Here are 15 movies worth adding to yours before October takes over completely.
New Horror Movies To Watch In September
Onslaught
Where To Watch: Theaters
Release Date: September 4
Adam Wingard has spent much of the last several years directing some of the biggest monsters in Hollywood. With Onslaught, he’s getting smaller, nastier and considerably more violent again.
Adria Arjona stars as Celeste, a former Army sniper forced to protect her family after genetically engineered super soldiers escape from a secret military facility and descend on her community.
Wingard reunites with writer Simon Barrett, immediately making this particularly interesting for anyone who remembers what the pair accomplished with You’re Next and The Guest. Dan Stevens also returns to Wingard’s orbit, while Michael Biehn, Rebecca Hall, Drew Starkey and Reginald VelJohnson help fill out an unusually fun cast.
The movie also reportedly exists within the same larger universe as The Guest, giving longtime Wingard fans an additional reason to pay attention.
Watch it if you like: The Guest, action-horror, home-invasion movies and genetically engineered killing machines.
Parasomnia
Where To Watch: Shudder / AMC+
Available Now
Sleep is supposed to be the safe part of the day.
Parasomnia makes that considerably more complicated.
James Ross II’s feature debut stars Jasmine Mathews as Riley, a woman whose carefully controlled sleeping habits aren’t simply the result of insomnia. Her nightmares are connected to something dangerous enough that allowing herself to sleep at the wrong time can have consequences in the waking world.
The film plays with the uncertainty between dreams and reality while building its supernatural threat around something every viewer eventually has to do: close their eyes.
It arrived on Shudder and AMC+ on September 4, making it one of the month’s easiest new horror discoveries for anyone looking beyond the major studio releases.
Watch it if you like: Nightmare horror, supernatural mysteries and movies where reality can’t entirely be trusted.
Resident Evil
Where To Watch: Theaters
Release Date: September 18
Hollywood is heading back to Raccoon City.
This time, Zach Cregger is driving.
The filmmaker behind Barbarian and Weapons takes on Capcom’s enormously influential survival-horror franchise with another live-action interpretation of Resident Evil.
Austin Abrams plays an original protagonist caught inside the outbreak rather than another heavily armed veteran who already knows how to deal with zombies and biological monstrosities.
That approach may be one of the smartest decisions surrounding the project.
The earliest Resident Evil games were terrifying because players were vulnerable. Ammunition mattered. Running away could be smarter than fighting. A hallway that looked perfectly safe could suddenly become the worst place imaginable.
Cregger has indicated that capturing the feeling of playing those games is more important than mechanically recreating one specific title.
After numerous wildly different attempts to adapt Resident Evil, that philosophy makes this easily one of September’s biggest horror releases.
Watch it if you like: Zombies, survival horror, Capcom’s games and Cregger’s previous work.
Family
Where To Watch: Limited Theaters / Digital
Release Date: September 25
Not every September horror movie needs a monster large enough to destroy a city.
Sometimes being afraid of your own parents is enough.
Writer-director Benjamin Finkel’s Family stars Ruth Wilson and Ben Chaplin in a psychological horror story centered on a 10-year-old girl who becomes convinced that her parents intend to kill her.
The film approaches its nightmare primarily through the child’s perspective, where ordinary adult behavior becomes increasingly threatening and imagination starts colliding with reality.
After making its way through the festival circuit, Family finally reaches limited theaters and digital platforms on September 25.
It could be one of the month’s better options for viewers who want uncomfortable psychological horror rather than another traditional slasher.
Watch it if you like: Family horror, unreliable perspectives, childhood nightmares and slow-building dread.
Never After Dark
Where To Watch: Limited Theaters
Release Date: September 25
For anyone who wants something quieter and more atmospheric, Never After Dark looks like one of September’s most intriguing theatrical alternatives.
Moeka Hoshi stars as a traveling psychic who helps troubled spirits cross over, only to encounter a supernatural presence unlike anything she has previously faced.
Director Dave Boyle approaches the story through the traditions of Japanese ghost cinema, leaning into atmosphere and creeping unease rather than treating the supernatural as an excuse for nonstop jump scares.
The film arrives in limited U.S. theaters September 25.
Sometimes the scariest movie isn’t the loudest one.
Watch it if you like: Japanese ghost stories, supernatural mysteries and horror that slowly gets under your skin.
Recent Horror Hits To Stream This September
Backrooms
Where To Watch: HBO Max
Streaming September 25
The endless yellow hallways are coming home.
Kane Parsons expanded the internet’s famous Backrooms mythology into a feature-length horror film built around the terrifying idea of accidentally slipping outside ordinary reality and becoming trapped somewhere that feels familiar without making any logical sense.
Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve and Mark Duplass lead the cast, but the real star remains the environment itself.
Liminal horror works because the location feels almost recognizable. The carpeting, fluorescent lights and empty rooms suggest places we’ve all encountered before, only something about them is fundamentally wrong.
If you missed Backrooms in theaters, HBO Max brings it to streaming on September 25.
Watch it if you like: Liminal spaces, analog horror, internet mythology and existential nightmares.
Smile 2
Where To Watch: Netflix
Available Now
Parker Finn could have made an easy sequel by giving another ordinary person the same supernatural problem from Smile.
Instead, he put the curse in front of thousands of screaming fans.
Naomi Scott stars as pop superstar Skye Riley, who begins experiencing increasingly disturbing events while attempting to restart her career and prepare for a major tour.
Making Skye famous fundamentally changes how the premise works. She’s constantly surrounded by people. Everyone is watching her. Her public image matters. And smiling faces are already everywhere.
Scott delivers the kind of physically exhausting horror performance that makes the supernatural material work because the emotional collapse underneath it feels convincing.
Smile 2 joined Netflix on September 3.
Watch it if you like: Supernatural horror, aggressive scares, psychological breakdowns and horror sequels that actually expand the idea.
Heretic
Where To Watch: Hulu
Available September 8
Hugh Grant’s greatest weapon in Heretic isn’t a knife.
It’s being Hugh Grant.
Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East play two young Mormon missionaries invited into the home of Grant’s Mr. Reed, a seemingly friendly man who quickly turns an ordinary theological conversation into something considerably more disturbing.
Grant weaponizes decades of audience familiarity with his charm, creating a villain whose politeness becomes increasingly unsettling as his guests realize they may not be able to leave.
Much of the movie’s power comes from conversation rather than traditional horror spectacle. Questions about religion, belief and control gradually transform into an elaborate psychological trap.
Heretic arrives on Hulu September 8.
Watch it if you like: Psychological horror, religious debates, contained thrillers and extremely polite villains.
Talk To Me
Where To Watch: HBO Max
Available Now
A24’s Talk to Me takes one of horror’s oldest rules—don’t mess around with the dead—and updates it for a generation that would absolutely film themselves doing exactly that.
Sophie Wilde stars as Mia, a teenager grieving her mother’s death who joins friends experimenting with an embalmed hand capable of temporarily connecting people with spirits.
What should obviously be treated as a terrifying supernatural object instead becomes entertainment.
People take turns. They record each other. They push the limits. Eventually someone goes too far.
Directors Danny and Michael Philippou understand that the most believable part of the movie isn’t the paranormal activity. It’s teenagers immediately transforming something incredibly dangerous into a party game.
Talk to Me joined HBO Max’s horror library at the beginning of September.
Watch it if you like: Possession horror, A24 movies, stories about grief and spectacularly bad teenage decisions.
The First Omen
Where To Watch: Prime Video
Available Now
Nobody was exactly demanding another prequel to a decades-old horror franchise.
Then The First Omen turned out to be this good.
Nell Tiger Free stars as Margaret, a young American woman arriving in Rome to begin a life serving the church. Her experiences gradually expose a conspiracy surrounding the birth of the Antichrist and connect directly to the events of the 1976 classic The Omen.
Director Arkasha Stevenson refuses to treat the film like disposable franchise maintenance. The movie has a distinctive visual identity, disturbing imagery and much more thematic ambition than its title might initially suggest.
Prime Video added the film September 1.
Watch it if you like: Religious horror, conspiracy stories, striking cinematography and prequels that are much better than expected.
Horror Classics To Rewatch Before October
Alien
Where To Watch: Netflix
Available Now
There are few better reminders that horror doesn’t require ghosts or serial killers than Ridley Scott’s Alien.
The crew of the Nostromo answers what appears to be a distress signal and brings something back aboard that absolutely should have remained where they found it.
What follows is simultaneously science fiction, creature feature and haunted-house movie, except the haunted house is traveling through space and there is nowhere to run.
H.R. Giger’s Xenomorph remains one of cinema’s greatest monster designs, while Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley helped redefine what a horror protagonist could look like.
Netflix added Alien September 1, making this an easy excuse to revisit the beginning of the franchise.
Watch it if you like: Sci-fi horror, claustrophobia, creature features and movies that understand darkness is terrifying.
The Thing
Where To Watch: Prime Video
Available Now
John Carpenter’s The Thing isn’t merely one of the best horror movies available this September.
It’s one of the best horror movies ever made.
Kurt Russell stars as R.J. MacReady, one member of an Antarctic research station whose crew encounters an extraterrestrial organism capable of perfectly imitating other lifeforms.
Suddenly every person in the room could be the monster.
Rob Bottin’s practical effects remain spectacularly disgusting more than four decades later, but the paranoia is what makes the movie timeless.
The creature doesn’t have to chase anyone when it can simply sit beside them and pretend to be human.
Prime Video added The Thing to its September library.
Watch it if you like: Body horror, practical effects, paranoia and Kurt Russell with excellent facial hair.
Halloween
Where To Watch: Peacock
Available Now
If September is the warm-up for Halloween season, you might as well invite Michael Myers.
John Carpenter’s 1978 classic helped establish the template countless slashers would eventually follow as an escaped killer returns to Haddonfield and begins stalking teenager Laurie Strode.
The movie’s simplicity remains one of its greatest strengths.
Michael doesn’t need an elaborate mythology. Carpenter doesn’t need constant violence. Much of the fear comes from seeing a white mask somewhere in the background and realizing Laurie has no idea she’s being watched.
Peacock added Halloween as part of an extensive September horror refresh.
Watch it if you like: Slashers, John Carpenter, Halloween atmosphere and suspense built from someone standing very still.
Carrie
Where To Watch: HBO Max / Prime Video
Available Now
Before Mike Flanagan delivers another interpretation of Stephen King’s first published novel, September gives viewers an opportunity to revisit Brian De Palma’s classic version.
Sissy Spacek stars as Carrie White, a painfully isolated teenager living under the control of her fanatically religious mother while enduring relentless abuse from classmates.
Then Carrie realizes she can move things with her mind.
Everyone remembers the prom, the blood and the supernatural destruction that follows. What makes Carrie endure, however, is the tragedy leading up to it.
The movie works because audiences understand how desperately Carrie wants one ordinary, happy evening before everything falls apart.
The 1976 film joined both HBO Max and Prime Video’s September libraries.
Watch it if you like: Stephen King, tragic horror, supernatural revenge and one of cinema’s most unforgettable prom nights.
Get Out
Where To Watch: Peacock
Available Now
Jordan Peele didn’t slowly ease his way into directing horror.
He arrived with Get Out.
Daniel Kaluuya plays Chris, a photographer traveling with his girlfriend to meet her seemingly progressive family for the first time.
Something is wrong almost immediately.
Peele turns uncomfortable conversations, performative politeness and social anxiety into escalating horror before revealing exactly what the Armitage family has planned.
The film’s cultural impact has been enormous, but none of that would matter if it weren’t also an incredibly effective thriller.
Peacock added Get Out September 1.
Watch it if you like: Social horror, psychological thrillers, dark comedy and stories where being overly friendly becomes a warning sign.
More Horror Movies Worth Streaming In September
Fifteen movies barely scratch the surface of what’s available this month.
Netflix
Netflix’s September horror additions also include Ready or Not, Aliens, Jaws, Unfriended, several animated Resident Evil movies and additional entries from the live-action franchise.
Oculus and House at the End of the Street arrive later in the month.
HBO Max
HBO Max has loaded up on genre favorites including Misery, Pearl, MaXXXine, The Craft, Interview with the Vampire, Final Destination and Men.
Then Backrooms arrives September 25.
Hulu
Hulu’s September additions include Sinister, Jennifer’s Body, Coraline and Ma, with Heretic joining the lineup September 8.
Prime Video
Prime Video may have one of the month’s deepest horror libraries.
In addition to The Thing, The First Omen and Carrie, subscribers can watch Don’t Breathe, The Silence of the Lambs, Prince of Darkness, They Live, Videodrome, Army of Darkness, The Visit and several Purge films.
Peacock
Peacock clearly isn’t waiting until October.
Its September horror library includes Candyman, It Follows, Psycho, The Invisible Man, Drag Me to Hell, Happy Death Day, Shaun of the Dead, Signs, Sinister and multiple Universal Monster classics.
Shudder
Horror’s dedicated streaming service has a steady stream of new September programming, beginning with Parasomnia and continuing with titles including Descendent, Mārama, Goody Goody, Above the Knee and Bloody Tennis.
What Should You Watch First?
That depends entirely on what kind of September you want.
If you want something brand new, Resident Evil is the obvious theatrical event to keep on the calendar, while Onslaught offers a much more aggressive action-horror alternative.
If you’re staying home, Smile 2, Heretic, Talk to Me and The First Omen give you four very different flavors of modern horror without requiring another rental.
And if September is simply your excuse to begin the annual horror rewatch, you can’t do much better than Alien, The Thing, Halloween, Carrie and Get Out.
The important thing is that you don’t have to wait for October 1.
Spooky season has already started.
September Is The Perfect Warm-Up For Halloween
October will inevitably bring a much larger flood of horror releases, Halloween programming and seasonal streaming collections.
That’s exactly why September works so well as the beginning rather than the main event.
There’s still time to revisit classics before the crowded October calendar arrives. New theatrical horror isn’t competing with dozens of Halloween releases every weekend yet, and streaming services are already beginning to fill their libraries with exactly the movies horror fans start looking for this time of year.
One night can be The Thing.
The next can be Smile 2.
Then you can head to a theater for Resident Evil before ending the month lost somewhere inside the Backrooms.
By the time October finally arrives, you’ll already be well into horror season.
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