5 great horror movies like The Black Phone

Before checking out The Black Phone, it might make sense to check out Black Phone director Scott Derrickson’s other collaboration with star Ethan Hawke, 2012’s Sinister. The film tells the story of a man who moves his family into a supposedly haunted house in order to write a book about his experiences in the house. Thanks to the effective use of young actors, Sinister is a deeply chilling story of one man who is confident in his worldview and finds that worldview totally upended. It’s one of the scariest horror movies of the 21st century, and Hawke’s performance is a perfect anchor for all of the paranormal activity on display.

A fun, frothy horror-comedy, Fresh tells the story of a young woman who is kidnapped by a man who wants to sell off her body’s meat to weird freaks who want to eat young women. It’s a pretty blunt metaphor, and the movie doesn’t deploy it all that subtly, but the performances at the film’s center from Daisy Edgar-Jones and Sebastian Stan more than make up for any faults in the script — and the movie’s climax is suitably thrilling and triumphant. Many of the movies on this list are relatively downbeat, even if they end well, but Fresh is remarkably light in spite of the material it’s dealing with.