Get Out and 3 terrifying movies to watch (and 2 to skip) for Friday the 13th

Not only is spooky season in full swing, but October 2023 has the honor of hosting Friday the 13th. Thanks to the movie of the same name and all of the lore surrounding the date, it’s a consistently anticipated occasion, and when it happens to occur in October, it’s extra special.

While Friday the 13th isn’t a holiday, some people definitely observe it like one, an appetizer to Halloween if you will. Being so, just like on Halloween, you want to queue up some truly terrifying and frightening movies on Netflix to set the spooky mood.

This month, Netflix added the hit horror movies Get Out, Us, and Ma and they have all sailed directly into the higher rankings of the top 10 movies list. Obviously, those are blockbusters everyone should add to their watch list on Friday the 13th, but what movies can you skip?

Get Out

Watch! Jordan Peele’s directorial debut hit theaters in February 2017 and became a runaway success, making over $255 million at the box office on a $4.5 million budget. That’s amazing! The film also landed multiple Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor, with Peele winning for Best Original Screenplay. Get Out’s truly an unmissable and chilling modern horror classic that’s not to be skipped while it’s streaming on Netflix.

Deliver Us from Evil

Skip! Also recently added to Netflix in October 2023 is the 2014 horror movie Deliver Us from Evil, which stars Eric Bana, Edgar Ramírez, Olivia Munn, Sean Harris, and Joel McHale. While the movie performed modestly at the box office, it received mostly negative reception from critics dogging its originality. On the Netflix page, the streamer describes it as “bloody” and “grisly” with “terror throughout.” If that’s not quite your horror jam, feel free to skip Deliver Us from Evil.

Ma

Watch! Octavia Spencer stars in the 2019 psychological horror film Ma, which became cult favorite upon release. The Academy Award winner reteams with The Help director Tate Taylor and stars as a middle-aged woman who terrorizes a group of teenagers when she allows them to hang out in her basement. Although it received middling reviews, Ma’s been a viral meme since its release, and it will always be worth revisiting whenever and wherever it streams.

The Strangers

Skip! If you’re looking for a terrifying movie to put on Netflix for Friday the 13th, it might not get as scary and legitimately bone-chilling as The Strangers. The 2008 horror film starring Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman has been praised among the best and scariest home invasion movies. Being a sleeper hit, the movie spawned a sequel in 2018, and a standalone reboot trilogy starring Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez is also in the works. However, if you’re an easy scare, it’s probably best to skip The Strangers.

Us

Watch! Jordan Peele’s follow-directorial effort to his Oscar-winning debut Get Out arrived in 2019 with his next psychological horror film Us. The film starring Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, and Tim Heidecker again earned the writer-director rave reviews, though Us and its performances were oddly snubbed by the Academy Awards. If you managed to miss it the first time around, make sure to check it out while it’s available to stream on Netflix!

What movies will you be watching on Netflix for Friday the 13th?