77 New Black Horror Movies to Watch for Halloween 2023
Updated in Gil Santos
Horror movies have always captivated audiences with their tales of terror. Yet, it's the recent spotlight on Black voices that has added a fresh dimension to this genre.
From iconic classics like "Blacula" to modern masterpieces like "Get Out," Black protagonists have enriched the horror narrative, offering diverse stories that resonate deeply.
As an avid horror enthusiast, I've always championed the brilliance of diverse narratives. If you haven't yet, I highly recommend diving into these gems:
- Night of the Living Dead (1968): Groundbreaking resilience.
- Blacula (1972): Traditional horror meets cultural richness.
- Ganja & Hess (1973): A poetic exploration of identity.
- Eve's Bayou (1997): Mesmerizing family secrets.
- Event Horizon (1997): A deep dive into the human psyche.
- Get Out (2017): Suspense with societal nuance.
- Spell (2020): A journey into ancestral magic.
- Talk To Me (2023): Emotion and suspense intertwined.
Dive in and celebrate the diversity that Black voices bring to the horror genre.
Quick Jump
Black Horror Movies releasing in 2023
Black Horror Movies already released in 2023
Our favorites from 2022
In 1866, a young doctor is summoned by his uncle to a remote town in the Ozarks only to discover upon his arrival that the utopian paradise is not all that it seems to be.
An anxious shut-in unwittingly moves into a haunted apartment and hires a mysterious stranger to perform an exorcism which takes a horrific turn.
At an elite New England university built on the site of a Salem-era gallows hill, three black women strive to find their place. Navigating politics and privilege, they encounter increasingly terrifying manifestations of the school's haunted past… and present.
In an isolated family mansion, a group of rich 20-somethings decides to play Bodies Bodies Bodies, a game where one of them is secretly a “killer” while the rest tries to “escape”. Things take a turn for the worse when real bodies start turning up, setting off a paranoid and dangerous chain of events.
After a governor issues an executive order to arrest the children of undocumented immigrants, the detained youth are offered an opportunity to have their charges dropped by volunteering to provide care to the elderly. Once inside the elder care facility, however, they discover more twisted secrets than they could have possibly imagined.
In town for a job interview, a young woman arrives at her Airbnb late at night only to find that it has been mistakenly double-booked and a strange man is already staying there. Against her better judgement, she decides to stay the night anyway, but soon discovers that there is much more to be afraid of in the house than the other house guest.
After the death of her mother and having no other known relatives, Evie takes a DNA test and discovers a long-lost cousin she never knew she had. Invited by her newfound family to a lavish wedding in the English countryside, she soon realizes a gothic conspiracy is afoot.
A woman runs for her life though the streets of Los Angeles after her blind date suddenly turns violent.
Alana and a group of college seniors board a party train for a Halloween-themed bash, but their fun spirals into fear when the attendees are killed off one by one by an unknown killer. As the train continues full steam ahead, Alana must race against the rails to find the killer before she becomes the next victim.
A gang initiation goes wrong when a group of four recruits break into a house of horror, as they're all forced to play deadly games for their lives.
A teenage girl, who accidentally releases an ancient and mischievous spirit on Halloween which causes decorations to come alive and wreak havoc, must team up with the last person she'd want to in order to save their town - her father.
Bri is recently divorced and under house arrest due to her ex-husband's crimes, but when a stalker shows up, seems to have control over his surroundings.
Abandoned by her father, a young woman named Maren embarks on a thousand-mile odyssey through the backroads of America where she meets Lee, a disenfranchised drifter. But despite their best efforts, all roads lead back to their terrifying pasts and to a final stand that will determine whether their love can survive their otherness.
Aisha, an undocumented Senegalese immigrant, lands a job as a nanny of a wealthy Manhattan couple. While she easily wins the affection of their young daughter Rose, she becomes a pawn in the couple’s facade of a marriage.
Our favorites from 2021
A young driver picks up two mysterious women for a night of party hopping. But when their passengers reveal their true nature, he must fight to stay alive.
As the countdown to graduation begins, students at Osborne High are being stalked by a maniac intent on exposing their darkest secrets to the entire town, terrorizing victims while wearing a life-like mask of their own face. With a mysterious past of her own, Makani and her friends must discover the killer's identity before they become victims themselves.
An eerie psychological thriller about Tsidi, who is forced to moved in with her estranged mother, a live-in domestic worker caring obsessively for her catatonic white 'Madam' in the wealthy Cape Town suburbs. But as Tsidi tries to heal her family, the 'spectre' of 'Madam' begins to stir.
An anthology film presenting six short horror stories from black writers and directors, featuring racist vampires, supernatural creatures, and Satan his damn self.
Successful author Veronica finds herself trapped in a horrifying reality and must uncover the mind-bending mystery before it's too late.
When her boyfriend dies suddenly in an accident, psychologically fragile mother-to-be Charlotte is taken in by his family - but they seem increasingly obsessed with her every move. Her suspicions grow and panic builds - but just how far will they go in their desire to control her and her unborn baby?
A father survives a plane crash in rural Appalachia, but becomes suspicious of the elderly couple who take him in to nurse him back to health with the ancient remedies.
After making a harrowing escape from war-torn South Sudan, a young refugee couple struggle to adjust to their new life in a small English town that has an unspeakable evil lurking beneath the surface.
Tales from the Hood 3
Academy Award- winning director Spike Lee executive produces with writers/directors/producers Rusty Cundieff and Darin Scott in this next installment of the ground-breaking original Tales from the Hood. Following the franchise's cult classic roots, this all-new anthology, which features Tony Todd and Lynn Whitfield, is four terrifying tales that will scare and thrill audiences with its horrifying twists and social commentary.
After losing his wife and memory in a car accident, a single father undergoes an experimental treatment that makes him question who he really is. There is no escape from who you really are.
Three gutsy kids from a rapidly gentrifying Bronx neighborhood stumble upon a sinister plot to suck all the life from their beloved community.
An African American male is imprisoned and placed in solitary confinement after being found guilty of murdering his wife, as he's haunted by internal demons and his dead wife, and pushed to the breaking point by an abusive female guard.
When best selling author Carl Black moves his family back to his childhood home, he must team up with oddball neighbors to do battle with a pimp, who may or may not be an actual vampire.
Working in the shadow of an esteemed police veteran, brash Detective Ezekiel “Zeke” Banks and his rookie partner take charge of a grisly investigation into murders that are eerily reminiscent of the city’s gruesome past. Unwittingly entrapped in a deepening mystery, Zeke finds himself at the center of the killer’s morbid game.
When a proposed pipeline creates hostilities between residents of a small town, a newly-arrived forest ranger must keep the peace after a snowstorm confines the townspeople to an old lodge. But when a mysterious creature begins terrorizing the group, their worst tendencies and prejudices rise to the surface, and it is up to the ranger to keep the residents alive, both from each other and the monster which plagues them.
Six people unwittingly find themselves locked in another series of escape rooms, slowly uncovering what they have in common to survive… and discovering they’ve all played the game before.
For as long as residents can remember, the housing projects of Chicago's Cabrini Green neighborhood were terrorized by a word-of-mouth ghost story about a supernatural killer with a hook for a hand, easily summoned by those daring to repeat his name five times into a mirror. In present day, a decade after the last of the Cabrini towers were torn down, visual artist Anthony McCoy and his girlfriend, gallery director Brianna Cartwright, move into a luxury loft condo in Cabrini, now gentrified beyond recognition and inhabited by upwardly mobile millennials.
Lacey, a socially detached loner is cursed with immortality and a never-ending tedium of existence. In her attempts to keep her compulsions in check, she seeks out the darkest souls humanity has to offer. Lacey must now face her own inner demons while simultaneously finding her next meal.
In 1989 an ambitious young woman gets a weave in order to succeed in the image-obsessed world of music television. However, her flourishing career may come at a great cost when she realizes that her new hair may have a mind of its own.
Our favorites from 2010's
Mr. Simms returns to tell more eerie, unsettling tales involving dolls, psychics, possession and ghosts.
France, June 1944. On the eve of D-Day, some American paratroopers fall behind enemy lines after their aircraft crashes while on a mission to destroy a radio tower in a small village near the beaches of Normandy. After reaching their target, the surviving paratroopers realise that, in addition to fighting the Nazi troops that patrol the village, they also must fight against something else.
Jenn has washed ashore a small tropical island and it doesn’t take her long to realize she’s completely alone. She must spend her days not only surviving the elements, but must also fend off the malevolent force that comes out each night.
Husband and wife Gabe and Adelaide Wilson take their kids to their beach house expecting to unplug and unwind with friends. But as night descends, their serenity turns to tension and chaos when some shocking visitors arrive uninvited.
Sue Ann is a loner who keeps to herself in her quiet Ohio town. One day, she is asked by Maggie, a new teenager in town, to buy some booze for her and her friends, and Sue Ann sees the chance to make some unsuspecting, if younger, friends of her own.
After losing his brother in combat, Jacob Singer returns home from Afghanistan -- only to be pulled into a mind-twisting state of paranoia. Singer soon realizes that his sibling is alive but life is not what it seems.
A washed-up musician teams up with a teacher and a kids show personality to protect young children from a sudden outbreak of zombies.
In the future, a strange fungus has changed nearly everyone into a thoughtless, flesh-eating monster. When a scientist and a teacher find a girl who seems to be immune to the fungus, they all begin a journey to save humanity.
A surrogate mother harbors a deadly secret desire for a family of her own with the husband who is expecting to raise her child.
Madea winds up in the middle of mayhem when she spends a hilarious, haunted Halloween fending off killers, paranormal poltergeists, ghosts, ghouls, and zombies while keeping a watchful eye on a group of misbehaving teens.
Chris and his girlfriend Rose go upstate to visit her parents for the weekend. At first, Chris reads the family's overly accommodating behavior as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter's interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he never could have imagined.
Clara, a lonely nurse from the outskirts of São Paulo, is hired by mysterious and wealthy Ana as the nanny for her unborn child. The two women develop a strong bond, but soon Clara discovers a terrifying secret about the child.
The story follows a team of highly trained operatives who find themselves trapped inside an isolated military compound.
Madea and the gang encounter monsters, goblins and boogeymen at a haunted campground.
Orbiting above a planet on the brink of war, scientists test a device to solve an energy crisis and end up face-to-face with a dark alternate reality.
Two scientists investigate the root of environmental changes and strange animal behavior at a remote site where a cult committed atrocities. The isolated location, the unraveling of their relationship, and the biome itself begin to lead them down a path of doom where primeval forces threaten to consume them. An adaptation of Laird Barron's short story "–30–".
A couple off for a romantic weekend in the mountains are accosted by a biker gang. Alone in the mountains, Brea and John must defend themselves against the gang, who will stop at nothing to protect their secrets.
To push the crime rate below one percent for the rest of the year, the New Founding Fathers of America test a sociological theory that vents aggression for one night in one isolated community. But when the violence of oppressors meets the rage of the others, the contagion will explode from the trial-city borders and spread across the nation.
During the slavery period in Brazil, a sugar cane farm was the stage for the darkest kinds of horrors. Years later, the place's cruel past is still stained in its walls, even if unnoticed, until a series of strange events starts happening and death returns to the farm. The film is divided in five short horror stories.
[PORTUGUES]
Há dois séculos, no período da escravidão, uma fazenda canavieira era palco de horrores. Anos depois, o passado cruel permanece marcado nas paredes do local, mesmo que ninguém perceba. Eventos estranhos começam a se desenvolver e a morte torna-se evidente. Cinco contos de horror ilustram a narrativa.
A spoof of all the "found-footage/documentary style" films released in recent years.
When a nun broke her covenant with God to save the life of her unborn son, Aman, he was cursed for life. As an adult, Aman has killed those who have crossed him. But his curse brings his victims back to life and they pursue him for revenge, so Aman enlists a young gunman to fight by his side against his undead victims.
Dr. Hess Green becomes cursed by a mysterious ancient African artifact and is overwhelmed with a newfound thirst for blood. Soon after his transformation he enters into a dangerous romance with Ganja Hightower that questions the very nature of love, addiction, sex, and status.
After exorcising the demons of his ex-, Malcolm starts afresh with his new girlfriend and her two children. After moving into their dream home, Malcolm is once again plagued by bizarre paranormal events.
Mad Couple
A pregnant and uneducated girl grows dangerously resentful when her best friend gets the opportunity to leave their small village and study medicine.
Ojuju
Romero is at a crossroads. News of his girlfriend's pregnancy has motivated him to make good of his life, but something strange is happening in his neighborhood. The local water supply has been tainted causing people to suddenly manifest symptoms of rabid river blindness. Romero recruits his friends Emmy and Peju to get to the bottom of the epidemic in a race against time for their own survival.
The Duplex
A cash-strapped man and his pregnant wife buy a beautiful new home at a bargain price, only to learn that they aren't the only occupants.
As Carl Black gets the opportunity to move his family out of Chicago in hope of a better life, their arrival in Beverly Hills is timed with that city's annual purge, where all crime is legal for twelve hours.
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About the Author
Gil Santos
With over 20 years of experience in various narrative mediums, Gil Santos is the singular mind behind Culture Bay. His journey began as a lyricist and web developer, later expanding into crafting dynamic conference presentations and engaging YouTube sketches. This diverse background has allowed him to hone his storytelling skills across different fields. Santos' lifelong passion for sci-fi and fantasy, combined with his knack for interactive storytelling, culminate in Culture Bay - a fusion of innovative ideas and engaging narratives intended for all to enjoy.