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A party game turns into a supernatural nightmare in the upcoming supernatural horror movie Spin the Bottle, featuring Justin Long (Barbarian) as the local authority savvy to the paranormal. Paramount has debuted the new trailer today, giving a closer look at the haunted rules.

The film’s official synopsis: “When a group of friends plays spin the bottle in a house marked by a brutal massacre, they unknowingly unleash an evil spirit and start dying in terrifying ways. Now, the survivors must stick together to uncover the house’s dark secrets and end the bloodshed.”

While some audiences may view PG-13 horror movies as restrained, unable to let loose for full-on frights, the best supernatural movies in this category rely on technical competence and premise development to secure the scares. The paranormal plots of the genre invite audiences to imagine a reality where occult creatures exist behind a veil only revealed under the most dire of circumstances. From hauntings to taxing psychological what-ifs, the best PG-13 supernatural movies allow audiences to focus on the unsettling atmosphere and tension-building sequences instead of the overwhelming violence and gore found in their R-rated counterparts.

The skepticism of the paranormal put in competition with the intrigue of possibility makes for an intoxicating and enticing watch that ultimately goes home with the viewers versus slasher or body horror movies where the frights are left onscreen instead of attaching to their reality. Whether adapted from source material or a franchise continuation, the supernatural films in this canon operate so successfully within their limits that the rating is secondary...

If you're a horror fan, you're familiar with Blumhouse Productions (cited as Blumhouse from here out). Even if you're not a horror fan, you've probably watched a Blumhouse film without knowing it ("Whiplash?" "Jem and the Holograms?" "Tooth Fairy?"). Jason Blum's nightmare factory is synonymous with today's mainstream horror pillars, securing the rights to everything from "Halloween" to "The Exorcist" and beyond. Indeed, it's impossible to banter about our contemporary horror era without acknowledging how prevalent and prodigious Blumhouse has become — so why does it feel like it's ghosting us this year?

Blumhouse decimated last year's horror movie market. In 2023, Blum's juggernaut scared up nearly $800 million worldwide in box office totals. Emma Tammi's video game adaptation "Five Nights at Freddy's" boasted a high score of $297 million on a $20 million budget — one of nine films released by Blumhouse. Now, there's no metric for reporting for streaming titles like "Totally Killer" (Prime Video) or "The Passenger (MGM+), so that $800 million-ish haul only considers "Five Nights at Freddy's," "The Exorcist: Believer," "Insidious: The Red Door," and "M3GAN." Anywhere you looked, whether in theaters or on multiple streaming platforms, Blumhouse was crushing the competition.

How about 2024? It's like night and day.

The last time I remember really noticing Demi Moore in a movie was in Margin Call. The film was an excellent (and unfortunately still timely) portrait of the type of Wall Street backbiting and greed that precipitated the 2007 housing collapse. It’s also an ensemble where Moore stands out while still being positioned in support of male co-stars like Jeremy Irons and Kevin Spacey, one of whom scapegoats Moore’s character in her biggest scene. Before that film, it was The Joneses and Mr. Brooks, where Moore twice played “the wife,” which often is Hollywood code for the most underwritten character in a movie.

I bring this up because not one of these pictures was released in the last 10 years. Two of them not even in the past 15. It’s a remarkably depressing thing, especially when one remembers Demi Moore was among the biggest stars of the ‘90s. And she radiates still, ferociously so, when given the chance. Well, Coralie Fargeat just provided her a great one in The Substance, the most original, and pitiless, horror movie I’ve seen this year...

There are so many try-hard reboots and hollow sequels in horror that it can be hard to remember that some legacy properties can (and should) be properly dusted off. In that spirit, Vulture has compiled a list of scary-movie remakes that are truly worth your time: thrill rides that improved upon their source material, matched wits with the classics that came before them, or, in a few cases, nobly committed to turning bad first movies into highly entertaining second efforts. From alien parasites lurking in Antarctic research facilities to girls getting picked off on sorority row, here are the horror remakes that will make you glad Hollywood took a second stab at...

"Several residents of Mexico shared shocking video footage of a UFO seemingly hovering to the ground, drawing a mixed response.

Videos on social media captured what appeared to be an oval-sized object hovering over the western city of Zitácuaro on September 8.

The footage shows the UFO-like figure hovering near a tree while a second recording captured it slowly moving in front of the overcast skies.

The alleged flying saucer sightings were reported in the neighborhoods of El Naranjo and Manzanillos..."

"The Senate Armed Services Committee is looking to hold a UFO hearing after the November elections, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s (D-N.Y.) office confirmed to The Hill.

The hearing announcement follows an increase in sightings of what’s officially known as unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAP, including one purportedly near Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. It would also come more than a year after an explosive House hearing in July 2023, when three former Pentagon officials testified about their experience with or sightings of UAP, warning that a lack of information on the phenomena could pose national security risks.

Now Gillibrand, who in 2022 helped start the Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) — created to assess reports of UAP — wants a progress update on the office’s work.

“It’s a priority for me. I think it’s very important that we continue to make things publicly available,” Gillibrand earlier this month told Matt Laslo’s D.C. “Ask a Pol” podcast.

She wants “a progress report on how many unidentified aerial phenomena we’ve assessed and analyzed” and for the office to “give examples of what we have identified and give examples of what we haven’t identified.”

Gillibrand, who chairs the subcommittee under the Senate Armed Services Committee on emerging threats and capabilities, added that she wants AARO “to continue to build credibility.”

Her office confirmed Tuesday to The Hill that there will be a hearing, likely in November..."

"Directive 8020 is the next game in line to continue the Dark Pictures anthology series. As the first game to kickstart Season 2 of the ongoing anthology, Directive 8020 is taking its setting to the dark and unforgiving world of space. This is the first time that the series is leaving Earth, and early footage promises plenty of cosmic body horror on the horizon.

This is an exciting change of pace for the series, as Directive 8020 is Dark Pictures' first major venture into the sci-fi horror sphere. House of Ashes dabbled with some sci-fi elements with its vampiric monsters from outer space, but Directive 8020 aims to bring humans into the furthest reaches of the unknown. Directive 8020 is a grotesque chapter in the anthology, which is a staple in sci-fi horror. The sci-fi horror subgenre is having a huge renaissance period, and if Directive 8020 wants to be as successful as possible, it needs to announce its release date sooner than later..."

"French director Alexandre Aja has been known as a member of the horror helming fraternity called the “Splat Pack,” named for the extreme violence in their films. Certainly, many of his pictures, from the 2003 breakthrough Haute Tension and the 2006 remake of The Hills Have Eyes, to his exceptional, and most successful film to date, 2019’s Crawl — in which a family is trapped in the crawl space of their home as alligators surround them during a Category 5 hurricane in Florida (a personal favorite of Quentin Tarantino) — have proved his chops as a genre filmmaker. Now, he steps up to another level with a less gory and more psychological thriller style of film, Never Let Go, in which Halle Berry stars as a mother of twin boys who is traumatically haunted by her own lifelong demons, which she passes on to them in their remote house deep in the woods...

... At every turn Aja keeps us on the edge of our seats with an exceptional skill to create bone-chilling scares out of almost nothing. The emphasis here is not on piling up the bodies or following the usual tropes of the horror genre, or his own bloody cinematic past, but rather keeping it for the most part (yes, there are a couple of gross-outs) in the psychological realm. Fear is a very strong weapon. Clearly, Momma has issues and it is driving her family apart and diminishing the control she wields.

Both Daggs and Jenkins are outstanding in their film debuts, as natural as kid actors can get, and they really have to carry this film throughout.

Cinematography by Maxime Alexandre and editing by Elliot Greenberg really add to the lush remote look of this film set in the middle of nowhere. It all grabs you by the throat — the best horror film I have seen this year..."

"Visionary writer/director Jason Trost (The FP series, All Superheroes Must Die) uniquely blends classic horror influences with the latest in digital filmmaking technology, forging a new frontier in modern independent cinema. While touted as the first side-scrolling horror adventure film, pulling from classic video game influences, The Waves of Madness is also inspired by the timeless terror of 1930s monster movies.

The Waves of Madness follows “a special agent dispatched to investigate a distress call from a round-the-world cruise. Upon arrival, the agent finds the ship eerily abandoned and haunted by a malevolent force that distorts reality and warps sanity into terror.”

The trailer emphasizes the retro, side-scrolling fun, while the brand-new poster teases a rather Lovecraftian foe ahead..."

"Horror fans are in for a treat as a sneak peek of the upcoming slasher thriller Last Straw. The film, set to hit select theaters and digital platforms on September 20, 2024, looks to be a night of heart-pounding suspense and terror.

Produced by Shout! Studios, Last Straw is a rural, small-town horror that blends classic slasher thrills with a gripping, tension-filled narrative. Directed by Alan Scott Neal in his directorial debut, the film stars Jessica Belkin (American Horror Story: Hotel), Taylor Kowalski (Snowfall), and Jeremy Sisto (Thirteen, Clueless).

The story centers around a young waitress working the overnight shift at a desolate roadside diner. When a group of masked assailants begins to terrorize her, the quiet night quickly turns into a brutal fight for survival. With no help in sight, she must outwit her attackers and fight back if she hopes to make it through the night alive..."

"In Wes Craven’s “Scream” — not quite the definitive horror movie but certainly the definitive account of horror fandom — final girl Sidney famously responds to the question of whether she likes scary movies with a resounding no. “What’s the point? They’re all the same,” she says through the phone to the movie’s slasher. “Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can’t act who is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door.”

Her complaint acts as a clever joke about the stale state of the mainstream slasher genre that Craven was riffing on (and unintentionally revived) through his tongue-in-cheek meta spin. But it’s also a nod toward the less-than-flattering viewpoint that gatekeepers and non-horror aficionados have toward the genre, as a playground for cheap and easy B-movies and formulaic jump scares.

In Wes Craven’s “Scream” — not quite the definitive horror movie but certainly the definitive account of horror fandom — final girl Sidney famously responds to the question of whether she likes scary movies with a resounding no. “What’s the point? They’re all the same,” she says through the phone to the movie’s slasher. “Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can’t act who is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door.”

Her complaint acts as a clever joke about the stale state of the mainstream slasher genre that Craven was riffing on (and unintentionally revived) through his tongue-in-cheek meta spin. But it’s also a nod toward the less-than-flattering viewpoint that gatekeepers and non-horror aficionados have toward the genre, as a playground for cheap and easy B-movies and formulaic jump scares. Related Stories 'Separated,' a documentary by Errol Morris Errol Morris’ Hard-Hitting Documentary ‘Separated’ Should Be Released Before the November Election HAPPY DEATH DAY, Jessica Rothe, 2017. ph: Patti Perret. ©Universal Studios/courtesy Everett Collection Blumhouse Brings Screams to Theaters with AMC’s BlumFest

Anyone who dives into the history of horror will know that that’s certainly not the case. Rooted in silent cinema classics like “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” and “The Phantom Carriage,” the horror genre encompasses campy creature features, exploitative shock fests, cerebral psychological terror, vomit-inducing flesh-and-spine-bursting Cronenberg creations, mournful ghost stories, modern “elevated horror,” and a dozen other microcategories beyond films about a stalker with a knife and a grudge. And that’s not to discount the slasher films that offer something rivetingly new and original.

What makes a horror film a part of the genre thus has relatively little to do with its actual content and everything to do with what it provokes within its audience. Making a truly scary movie — one that burrows into your mind and delivers a sense of unease that can’t be forgotten — is a task that requires much more skill behind the camera than it is often given credit for, and the best horror movies have a craft to them that stands up to any auteur project or Oscar Best Picture winner. It’s no surprise that the genre has such a passionate, devoted following of film geeks that regularly turn out for new releases — when a horror movie is great, there’s no experience quite like it.

In building IndieWire’s new list of the greatest horror movies ever made, we opted to omit some films that straddle the nebulous line between the horror and thriller genres (so you won’t find “The Silence of the Lambs” here, to get a particularly major example out of the way), at least for now. We paid attention to films that paved the way for the genre and for filmmaking as a whole, as well as to modern classics that bring something new and brilliant to the canon today. What every film on this list has in common is that their horrors are more than just boogeymen and spirits projected upon a silver screen, but a conduit into which deeper real-life fears are made manifest. From social discontent to primal fear of the unknown, horror is a genre that reflects on humanity’s most potent paranoia, and the eternal darkness that rests within us. Read on for our list of the 75 greatest horror movies ever made..."