The latest: 2025 checking in so far with Wolf Man and The Woman in the Yard.
For some movies, the hype building up to their release isn’t based on its stars or director or plot, but by the boutique company putting it out to the public. Think A24. Think Laika. Think Blumhouse, the production org that’s become synonymous in horror with low budgets, big returns, and bigger thrills.
Over the past two decades, magnate of monstrosity Jason Blum — who has also produced plenty of “normal” movies — has banked his legacy on reinventing how horror scripts are discovered and made, keeping the genre from going stale, like it infamously did in the ’90s. After all, blood dries quickly; gotta keep it fresh. Look to franchises like The Purge, Paranormal Activity, and Insidious: when you watch one Blumhouse horror movie, you’re probably gonna seek out what else they’re up to.
Blumhouse had a very busy 2022 with The Black Phone, They/Them, Halloween Ends, and Nanny among their major releases. And they kick off 2023 with a dolled-up bang with M3GAN, their best-reviewed horror movie since Get Out. Since then, we’ve added Sick, Insidious: The Red Door, Totally Killer, and The Exorcist: Believer, and Five Nights at Freddy’s.
With 2024, they’ve released Imaginary, Speak No Evil, and AfrAId.
Now, we’re ranking all Blumhouse horror movies by Tomatometer, with Certified Fresh films first!
#1
Critics Consensus: Funny, scary, and thought-provoking, Get Out seamlessly weaves its trenchant social critiques into a brilliantly effective and entertaining horror/comedy thrill ride.
#2
Critics Consensus: Unapologetically silly and all the more entertaining for it, M3GAN is the rare horror-comedy that delivers chuckles as effortlessly as chills.
#3
Critics Consensus: Smart and suspenseful, CAM is a techno-thriller that’s far more than the sum of its salacious parts — and an outstanding showcase for Madeline Brewer in the leading role.
#4
Critics Consensus: Hush navigates the bloody waters of home invasion thrillers and incisive slashers for a contemporary horror puree.
#5
Critics Consensus: Carried by Kiersey Clemons’ performance, Sweetheart balances smart subtext and social commentary against effective genre thrills.
#6
Critics Consensus: Smart, well-acted, and above all scary, The Invisible Man proves that sometimes, the classic source material for a fresh reboot can be hiding in plain sight.
#7
Critics Consensus: Led by Anna Diop’s strong central performance, the smartly disquieting Nanny is a promising debut for writer-director Nikyatu Jusu.
#8
Critics Consensus: Consistently clever and creepy, The Vigil mines richly atmospheric supernatural horror from a deep well of religious traditions.
#9
Critics Consensus: Totally Killer may not take full advantage of its promising conceit, but this time-traveling horror/sci-fi mashup is still enjoyable overall.
#10
Critics Consensus: Harnessing sick suspense from the glimmer in James McAvoy’s eye, Speak No Evil is the rare remake that hushes up concerns of “been there, done that.”
#11
Critics Consensus: A painfully timely horror-fueled thriller, Soft & Quiet forces the viewer to confront the ugly underbelly of modern American race relations.
#12
Critics Consensus: An entertaining slasher with a gender-bending, body-swapping twist, this horror-comedy juggles genres with Freaky fun results.
#13
Critics Consensus: Ouija: Origin of Evil swerves its franchise’s planchette unexpectedly to YES with a surprisingly scary and dramatically satisfying follow-up to its lackluster predecessor.
#14
Critics Consensus: Using its low-budget effects and mockumentary method to great result, Paranormal Activity turns a simple haunted house story into 90 minutes of relentless suspense.
#15
Critics Consensus: The Black Phone might have been even more frightening, but it remains an entertaining, well-acted adaptation of scarily good source material.
#16
Critics Consensus: Halloween largely wipes the slate clean after decades of disappointing sequels, ignoring increasingly elaborate mythology in favor of basic – yet still effective – ingredients.
#17
Critics Consensus: Split serves as a dramatic tour de force for James McAvoy in multiple roles — and finds writer-director M. Night Shyamalan returning resoundingly to thrilling form.
#18
Critics Consensus: Barry Levinson’s eco-horror flick cleverly utilizes familiar found-footage methods in service of a gruesome yet atmospheric chiller.
#19
Critics Consensus: With an emphasis on dread over gore and an ending that leaves the door wide open for sequels, Oculus could be just the first spine-tingling chapter in a new franchise for discerning horror fans.
#20
Critics Consensus: An intriguing debut for writer-director Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour, Black Box compensates for a lack of surprises with strong performances and an emotionally rewarding story.
#21
Critics Consensus: Creep 2 has everything that made the original work and more — more laughs, more awkwardness, more unsettling terror.
#22
Critics Consensus: A smart, oddball take on found-footage horror, Creep is clever and well-acted enough to keep viewers on the edges of their seats.
#23
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#24
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#25
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#26
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#27
Critics Consensus: A funnier follow-up with a sci-fi bent, Happy Death Day 2U isn’t as fiendishly fresh as its predecessor, but fans of the original may still find this a sequel worth celebrating.
#28
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#29
Critics Consensus: Happy Death Day puts a darkly humorous sci-fi spin on slasher conventions, with added edge courtesy of a starmaking performance from Jessica Rothe.
#30
Critics Consensus: It may not be particularly scary, but Black as Night has just enough bite to satisfy audiences in the mood for dark, teen-focused supernatural drama.
#31
Critics Consensus: The Visit provides horror fans with a satisfying blend of thrills and laughs — and also signals a welcome return to form for writer-director M. Night Shyamalan.
#32
Critics Consensus: Aside from a shaky final act, Insidious is a very scary and very fun haunted house thrill ride.
#33
Critics Consensus: While the jolts and thrills are undeniably subject to the diminishing returns that plague most horror sequels, Paranormal Activity 3 is a surprisingly spine-tingling treat.
#34
Critics Consensus: It may occasionally mistake more gore for genuine terror, but The Town That Dreaded Sundown is just stylish and clever enough to justify this second stab at the source material.
#35
Critics Consensus: Although its card is far from full, Bingo Hell delivers moderately effective socially conscious horror while suggesting greater things for director Gigi Saul Guerrero.
#36
Critics Consensus: 13 Sins may be derivative of other horror films that made their moral points with more finesse, but it atones with a grim sense of humor and sleek style.
#37
Critics Consensus: Its plot hinges on typically implausible horror-movie behavior and recycles countless genre cliches, but Sinister delivers a surprising number of fresh, diabolical twists.
#38
Critics Consensus: Nocturne‘s thought-provoking themes find themselves at odds with its genre ingredients, resulting in a mild blend that isn’t quite pulpy enough.
#39
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#40
Critics Consensus: Unfriended subverts found-footage horror clichés to deliver a surprisingly scary entry in the teen slasher genre with a technological twist.
#41
Critics Consensus: Conceptually strong but uneven in execution, There’s Something Wrong with the Children is a serviceable horror movie that could have been much more.
#42
Critics Consensus: Run Sweetheart Run‘s heavy-handedness blunts the effectiveness of its message, but this remains a wily, unpredictable thriller.
#43
Critics Consensus: Unfriended: Dark Web is more interested in chills than an exploration of its timely themes, but horror fans should still find this sequel to be steadily, undeniably effective.
#44
Critics Consensus: Gritty, grisly, and uncommonly ambitious, The Purge: Anarchy represents a slight improvement over its predecessor, but it’s still never as smart or resonant as it tries to be.
#45
Critics Consensus: Paranormal Activity 2 doesn’t cover any new ground, but its premise is still scary — and in some respects, it’s a better film than the original.
#46
Critics Consensus: The Hunt is successful enough as a darkly humorous action thriller, but it shoots wide of the mark when it aims for timely social satire.
#47
Critics Consensus: Insidious: Chapter 3 isn’t as terrifying as the original, although it boasts surprising thematic depth and is enlivened by another fine performance from Lin Shaye.
#48
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#49
Critics Consensus: Octavia Spencer’s performance overpowers many of Ma‘s flaws, but uneven pacing and a labored story keep this thriller from fully realizing its unhinged potential.
#50
Critics Consensus: The First Purge should satisfy fans of the franchise and filmgoers in the mood for violent vicarious thrills, even if its subtextual reach exceeds its grasp.
#51
Critics Consensus: It isn’t particularly subtle, but The Purge: Election Year‘s blend of potent jolts and timely themes still add up to a nastily effective diversion.
#52
Critics Consensus: The Belko Experiment offers a few moments of lurid fun for genre enthusiasts, but lacks enough subversive smarts to consistently engage once the carnage kicks in.
#53
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#54
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#55
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#56
Critics Consensus: The Forever Purge fails to fully engage with its most frighteningly timely themes, but the franchise remains largely — albeit bluntly — effective.
#57
Critics Consensus: Although director Zoe Lister-Jones has forged a new path for the weirdos of today, The Craft: Legacy‘s spells may only enchant fans of the original.
#58
Critics Consensus: The Lords of Salem has lots of atmospheric portent, but it’s unfortunately short on scares.
#59
Critics Consensus: DASHCAM is visually and thematically provocative, although the film’s grating protagonist undercuts its effectiveness.
#60
Critics Consensus: Despite a pair of layered performances from its talented leads, Mr. Harrigan’s Phone never quite connects with the source material’s intriguing themes.
#61
Critics Consensus: Queasily compelling without ever truly coming together, The Lie won’t fool many viewers seeking worthwhile horror fare.
#62
Critics Consensus: With Evil Eye, directors Elan and Rajeev Dassani spy a premise that has no shortage of potential, but despite the efforts of a game cast, it remains tantalizingly unfulfilled.
#63
Critics Consensus: While admirably intelligent and well-cast, Don’t Let Go suffers from a formulaic approach compounded by its uneven writing and an awkward tonal balance.
#64
Critics Consensus: Dark Skies writer director Scott Stewart has a solid cast, an interesting premise, and some admirable ambitions, but he can’t figure out what to do with any of them, and the result is a dull, muddled effort that will bore all but the most devoted horror buffs.
#65
Critics Consensus: Halloween Ends — for now, anyway — with a frequently befuddling installment that’s stabbed, slashed, and beaten by a series of frustrating missed opportunities.
#66
Critics Consensus: You Should Have Left hints at a genuinely creepy experience, but never quite manages to distill its intriguing ingredients into a consistently satisfying whole.
#67
Critics Consensus: Thriller has an appealing cast and a fresh perspective on its genre, but those elements aren’t enough to outweigh a bland and predictable story.
#68
Critics Consensus: Half social allegory, half home-invasion thriller, The Purge attempts to make an intelligent point, but ultimately devolves into numbing violence and tired clichés.
#69
Critics Consensus: Better than the 2006 remake yet not as sharp as the original, this Black Christmas stabs at timely feminist themes but mostly hits on familiar pulp.
#70
Critics Consensus: A change of setting breathes some new life into the franchise, but Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones fails to provide enough consistent thrills to justify a fifth film in the series.
#71
Critics Consensus: Halloween Kills should satisfy fans in search of brute slasher thrills, but in terms of advancing the franchise, it’s a bit less than the sum of its bloody parts.
#72
Critics Consensus: Insidious: Chapter 2 is decidedly short on the tension and surprises that made its predecessor so chilling.
#73
Critics Consensus: Earlier installments have had their moments, but behind Insidious: The Red Door lies the disappointing denouement of a once-frightening franchise.
#74
Critics Consensus: The Green Inferno may not win writer-director Eli Roth many new converts, but fans of his flair for gory spectacle should find it a suitably gruesome diversion.
#75
Critics Consensus: Although it deserves credit for its strong cast and inclusive premise, They/Them is too tonally messy to cut more than skin deep.
#76
Critics Consensus: Insidious: The Last Key offers franchise star Lin Shaye another welcome opportunity to take the lead, but her efforts aren’t enough to rescue this uninspired sequel.
#77
Critics Consensus: Loaded with Easter eggs, Five Nights at Freddy’s may be fun to watch for fans of the game, but most viewers of any other persuasion will find this adaptation muddled and decidedly unscary.
#78
Critics Consensus: Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin gives the long-running found-footage franchise a new level of visual polish; unfortunately, effective scares are few and far between.
#79
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#80
Critics Consensus: Jessabelle hints at a bright future for star Sarah Snook, but clouds her performance with a cliched — and tasteless — storyline.
#81
Critics Consensus: Repeating the beats of better techno-horrors, AfrAId short circuits due to the clichéd software of its script and the uninspired hardware of its craft.
#82
Critics Consensus: Imaginary‘s core concept is solid enough to produce a handful of scares, but too much of its potential is lost in a clichéd story that gets bogged down in world-building.
#83
Critics Consensus: While it does manage to wring a few more screams out of the franchise’s surprisingly durable premise, Paranormal Activity 4 provides fans of the series with dismayingly diminishing returns.
#84
Critics Consensus: The Exorcist: Believer earns points for trying to take the franchise back to its terrifying roots, but a lack of new ideas — and scares — make this an inauspicious start to a planned new trilogy.
#85
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#86
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#87
Critics Consensus: Incarnate can’t be accused of lack of ideas — if only any of them made sense or coalesced in any meaningful or scary way.
#88
Critics Consensus: Truth or Dare‘s slick presentation isn’t enough to make this mediocre horror outing much more frightening than an average round of the real-life game.
#89
Critics Consensus: The Lazarus Effect has a talented cast and the glimmer of an interesting idea, but wastes it all on insipid characters and dull, recycled plot points.
#90
Critics Consensus: Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension ties up some of the franchise’s lingering questions, but six films into the series, the thrills are mostly gone.
#91
Critics Consensus: Sinister 2 has a few ingredients that will be familiar to fans of the original; unfortunately, in this slapdash second installment, none of them are scary anymore.
#92
Critics Consensus: Narratively contrived and visually a mess, The Gallows sends viewers on a shaky tumble to the bottom of the found-footage horror barrel.
#93
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#94
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#95
Critics Consensus: There was plenty of room to improve on the original, but Firestarter trips over that low bar and tumbles toward the bottom of the long list of Stephen King adaptations.
#96
Critics Consensus: Martyrs flays off everything that gave the original its icy horrific beauty, leaving us an empty, pointless remake.
#97
Critics Consensus: Fantasy Island tries to show audiences the dark side of wish fulfillment, but mainly serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of exhuming long-dead franchises.
#98
Critics Consensus: Slowly, steadily, although no one seems to be moving it in that direction, the Ouija planchette points to NO.
#99
Critics Consensus: The Darkness clumsily relies on an assortment of genre tropes, leaving only the decidedly non-frightening ghost of superior horror films in its wake.
#100
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
