variety.

Figuring out what scary movie to watch can sometimes feel like navigating a haunted house.

So here's a collection of overlooked horror gems and spooky flicks to make your TV go

bump in the night.

2017 could certainly be seen as the start of a new Stephen King renaissance.

And, flying under the radar of this phenomenon, was Gerald's Game, a Netflix original adaptation

of King's 1992 novel of the same title.

So, why did it take 25 years for Gerald's Game to make it to the screen?

Well, the story presents an interesting challenge in adaptation — one that makes the film

all the more impressive.

Without giving too much away, the story mostly takes place in one room, where a woman is

handcuffed to a bed beside her dead husband.

"Just wake up.

It's time to wake up, honey."

As a series of visions confront her with her inner demons, the tension ratchets up to an

almost unbearable degree.

It's all driven by a powerhouse performance from Carla Gugino, with director Mike Flanagan

demonstrating such a skillful hand that he was placed at the helm of Doctor Sleep soon

after.

Before Stephen King adaptations became his stock-in-trade, Gerald's Game and Doctor Sleep

director Mike Flanagan made Hush.

This 2016 Blumhouse production doesn't feature any ghosts or otherworldly demons.

It's just a lean, tense slice of home invasion thriller, with the added twist of placing

the viewer into the point of view of a protagonist who can neither hear nor speak.

The result is a sharp, fresh little movie that feels as innovative as it is old-fashioned.

The project was a labor of love for Flanagan and his star-slash-co-writer-slash-wife, Kate

Siegel.

The couple developed the screenplay by staging the action in their own home, honing each

twist and turn to perfection.

That handmade skill shows on the screen, resulting in a movie praised by the likes of Stephen

King himself.

Cults are great material for a horror film, but there remain precious few masterpieces

in the subgenre.

The original version of The Wicker Man still towers over cinema history as the definitive

movie about a cult, but it finally may have a worthy successor in Apostle.

This Netflix original comes to us from The Raid director Gareth Evans, with an impressive

cast that includes Dan Stevens, Lucy Boynton, and Michael Sheen.

"Stay in the shadows and it be the heathen stand that awaits ye both."

Like The Wicker Man, Apostle begins with a man's journey to a secluded island community

in search of a missing person.

But where The Wicker Man builds up to its shocking conclusion with a series of unnervingly

idyllic musical numbers, Apostle descends into nightmarish rituals, horrific torture,

and palpable paranoia, all with some incredibly stylish and surreal visuals.

Unsurprisingly, the Ouija board is a horror movie staple.

Filmmakers throughout history have explored the horrific potential that comes with the

use of this common "toy" that promises to connect people to spirits from beyond the

veil of death.

Rarely, though, has a Ouija board been used as a plot device quite as effectively as in

Veronica, a Spanish film that received a warm reception at the Toronto International Film

Festival.

Directed by Paco Plaza, Veronica is "based on a true story" — though that claim is

made rather liberally.

Using as its jumping-off point the factual case of a Madrid girl who died after using

a Ouija board, the movie presents a nightmarish descent into paranoia and demon possession

that even gained it a reputation in certain corners of social media as "the scariest horror

film ever."

Cam delves into the world of online camgirls, taking the dangers of toxic internet transactions

to a surreal and terrifying extreme.

Madeline Brewer stars as Alice, a.k.a. Lola_Lola, a performer obsessed with getting her livestreams

to the top of the charts.

Things get truly bizarre, though, when Alice sees Lola_Lola performing live... while she's

not online.

Though Cam takes Alice down a neon-drenched rabbit hole of nightmares, the movie has its

roots firmly planted in reality.

Screenwriter Isa Mazzei was inspired by her own history as a camgirl, having initially

set out to make a documentary before deciding that a horror movie would be a better vehicle

for the themes she wanted to explore.

The result is a fresh, stylish character piece that raises some hard questions about identity

and humanity in the internet age.

It's not often that you can call the seventh movie in a franchise "underappreciated," much

less the seventh movie in a slasher series about a killer doll.

But 2017's Cult of Chucky is something special, and Chucky's creator never abandoned him.

Having written every movie in the series and directed the last three, Don Mancini is still

firmly in control of the original Chucky brand — one that's been refreshed and reinvented

without forgetting its roots.

Cult of Chucky picks up four years after the events of the previous film, Curse of Chucky.

Nica has been committed to a psychiatric hospital after taking the fall for the murder doll's

most recent rampage.

Just as her doctors have finally convinced her of her own responsibility for the crimes,

a retro Good Guy doll — from Hot Topic, no less — turns up at the hospital as a

therapy tool.

Once the body count begins to climb, Nica has to convince the hospital's residents that

Chucky is real before it's too late.

She won't be alone — an all-grown-up Andy Barclay and Chucky's old flame Tiffany both

race to the hospital for a climax that perfectly sets up Mancini's upcoming Chucky TV series.

The summer of 2017 was pretty packed with high-profile blockbusters, so it's understandable

if a quiet little experience like It Comes at Night slipped past you.

Fortunately, now you have the perfect chance to see why critics called It Comes at Night

"one of the most terrifying films in years."

With a small but powerful cast that includes Joel Edgerton, Riley Keough, and Carmen Ejogo,

It Comes at Night follows in the illustrious footsteps of The Shining when it comes to

depicting an isolation-fueled descent into distrust and violence.

This moody little story about two families clashing over food and shelter certainly isn't

an easy watch, but it just might provide some thrills for a dark night on the couch.

If you've found yourself moved by films like The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth,

you'll definitely want to check out Under the Shadow.

Just as those Guillermo del Toro movies used the Spanish Civil War as a backdrop for supernatural

tales exploring the dangers of childhood, this 2016 Persian-language debut feature from

writer-director Babak Anvari takes you to the Iran-Iraq War in 1988 for an extremely

personal horror story.

Come for the historical drama and supernatural horror; stay for the exploration of PTSD,

childhood trauma, and life during wartime.

During the War of the Cities air strikes in Tehran, medical student and activist Shideh

is left alone with her daughter Dorsa when her husband is called to military duty.

A missile hits their apartment building during an air raid but doesn't explode, and that's

when Shideh, Dorsa, and their neighbors begin experiencing disturbing nightmares and eerie

visions.

There may, in fact, be a malevolent djinn in their midst, and Shideh must decide whether

Dorsa is in more danger from the battle outside… or the darkness inside.

As we all know, isolation can quickly turn into your worst nightmare.

Kiersey Clemons takes the lead as Jenn in Sweetheart, a terrifying thriller from Blumhouse

about a woman forced to fend for herself after getting shipwrecked.

It doesn't take long for Jenn to realize that something is coming ashore each night.

When she begins making increasingly grisly discoveries about what happened to the people

who came to the island before her, she's faced with the question of what's more frightening

— solitude, or the idea that she might not be alone after all?

Sweetheart has the heart of an old-fashioned monster movie, but it's got more than one

clever trick up its sleeve.

As director J.D. Ballard's tightly-wound tale unfolds, you'll find yourself completely uncertain

of what's coming next and questioning everything you think you know about Jenn and her predicament.

The Perfection joins a long, illustrious history of movies about the dizzying quest for artistic

achievement with one's soul at stake.

It isn't quite like Black Swan or Suspiria, but you might find yourself reminded of any

one of those at any given moment.

You may well also be reminded of Get Out, as Allison Williams again brings her talents

to a character who definitely knows more than she's letting on... or does she?

Describing the plot of The Perfection is not easy to do, as the movie intentionally blurs

the lines between reality and hallucination in its twisted tale of manipulation, gaslighting,

and revenge.

It all begins when Charlotte travels to China - where her former music academy is conducting

a new talent search.

There she meets Lizzie, the rising star who took her place.

The relationship they strike up takes one bizarre twist after another, leading to a

string of shocking revelations about just what kind of sinister organization the academy

really is.

Filmmaker Oz Perkins is the descendant of horror royalty — his father, Anthony Perkins,

played Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece Psycho.

Some of that Hitchcockian sensibility might have been passed down genetically, because

the younger Perkins' debut feature as a writer-director, The Blackcoat's Daughter, certainly displays

a touch of the master's sense of psychological tension.

Released in some markets with the title February, The Blackcoat's Daughter is a uniquely structured

thriller.

It splits its attention among three young women played by American Horror Story's Emma

Roberts, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina's Kiernan Shipka, and The Politician's Lucy

Boynton, all of whom have connections to a Catholic boarding school.

The tension may be slow-burning, but the chaotic timeline — rife with flashbacks and nonlinear

intercutting — will probably make you feel like you need to watch it a second time just

to understand exactly what happened.

The Blackcoat's Daughter comes to us from A24, and if you've enjoyed the distributor's

other atmospheric thrillers, you probably owe it to yourself to check out The Blackcoat's

Daughter — at least once.

All caught up on the Conjuring universe?

Looking to fill the void while you wait for the next installment?

You might want to check out The Autopsy of Jane Doe.

This spooky supernatural thriller from 2016 was the first English-language film from Norwegian

director André Øvredal, who saw The Conjuring shortly after completing his cult found-footage

hit Trollhunter.

Inspired by the way The Conjuring felt like it was, quote, "getting back to basics," Øvredal

turned his attention to crafting his own classic-style haunting.

Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch star as a father-son team of coroners whose ordinary evening is

interrupted by the arrival of the corpse of an unidentified woman whose cause of death

cannot be determined.

Strange occurrences follow, and it quickly becomes clear that this particular Jane Doe

has brought something with her... and it won't leave until it gets what it wants.

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