As January winds to a close and with February right around the corner, Netflix has officially released all of the titles that will be added to and removed from its streaming service for the upcoming month.
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The service has announced many successful and well-known titles joining its library in February, like Ocean’s 11 series, the American Pie franchise, and the Kill Bill films. Sadly, films like Brubaker and King Arthur will be removed from the service as February arrives. See the full list of movies arriving here and the full list of what’s leaving here.
There are some choice selections for horror fans that will be both arriving on the service in February, and, sadly, some great titles that will no longer be available.
Scroll down to see our picks for the best horror coming to Netflix and remind you what to watch right now before they expire!
‘Scream 3’ – Available 2/1
Before it was reincarnated as a TV series and before 2011’s Scream 4 (Scre4m?), the third film in the Scream franchise closed a chapter of Sidney Prescott’s life, bringing a fulfilling conclusion to the series.
Sidney (Neve Campbell) has seemingly put her horrific past and frequent brushes with death behind her, yet a masked murderer brings the mystery of Ghostface back to life. With a series of successful films being inspired by Sidney’s real-life adventures, the film takes Sidney, Dewey (David Arquette), and Gale (Courteney Cox) to Hollywood to investigate what could have brought a new killer on the scene.
This third film began to push the comedic and meta elements to further lengths than in previous entries, ultimately giving audiences an organic and cathartic goodbye for the characters. Or, at least, a goodbye that lasted until the following film.
‘Hard Candy’ – Leaving 2/1
Before she was Juno or Kitty Pryde, Ellen Page turned the tables on a sexual predator in this psychological thriller.
14-year-old Hayley (Page) meets 32-year-old Jeff (Patrick Wilson) at a coffee shop after discovering one another on the Internet. Jeff invites Hayley back to his apartment, where he begins to make his intentions clear that he hopes this encounter ends romantically. Hayley, on the other hand, drugs Jeff and reveals that she knows he has raped young women before, offering him the chance to come clean and live or deny his crimes and be tortured and killed.
Shot in only 18 days, the film brings with it a sense of urgency, creating a tense and anxiety-riddled situation featuring two terrific performances. It’s no surprise that Page and Wilson have become such huge successes in the industry, with the mastery of their craft being evident in the film’s early moments.
It’s hard to call Hard Candy enjoyable, but it features incredibly compelling performances and a terrifying situation in which you’ll find yourself wishing the “victim” endures as much suffering as possible.
‘The Fury’ – Leaving 2/1
In 1976, director Brian De Palma brought Stephen King’s Carrie to life, showcasing the power of a teen with telekinetic abilities being pushed to the edge. The filmmaker returned to the world of telekinetic powers in 1978 with The Fury, a film that feels like an unofficial sequel to the King adaptation.
The world of The Fury shows that many young children have developed telekinetic abilities, which results in a secret government organization setting their sights on harnessing these powers, even if it means stealing children from their parents. One parent (Kirk Douglas) won’t stand for this, using the skills he earned while with the CIA to track down his son and return him to his rightful home.
Part spy thriller and part horror film, The Fury is an underseen example of a telekinetic thriller.
‘Altered Carbon’ (Season 1) – Available 2/2
Following their string of successes like Stranger Things, Black Mirror, and Bright, Netflix brings to life Altered Carbon as the latest must-see sci-fi series.
Based on the classic cyberpunk noir novel by Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon is an intriguing story of murder, love, sex and betrayal set more than 300 years in the future. While the series hasn’t officially debuted on the service, many critics are already praising it as a throwback to ’90s sci-fi, which was both hyperviolent and bizarrely erotic.
While many different sci-fi series look to the future as a way of exploring the society of the present and act as cautionary tales, Altered Carbon reportedly goes to the future using sci-fi staples from the past.
‘Cabin Fever’ (2016) – Available 2/2
A remake of Eli Roth’s 2002 breakthrough film, this version utilized the same exact script, marking an interesting experiment akin to Gus Van Sant’s Psycho in 1998.
When a group of coeds heads out to a remote cabin, they come across a vagrant who displays symptoms of a terrible disease. In hopes of protecting themselves, the coeds inadvertently kill the man, only to learn this is just the beginning of their troubles. From the backwoods community to the flesh-eating virus, dangers lurk at every turn for the characters who wanted nothing more than to escape the stresses of college for a few days.
It’s tough to actually call this remake “good,” but the experience of watching it does shine a light on how many factors can lead to a film being a success and that you can’t always replicate those factors. The script, for example, feels somewhat tone deaf in 2016 as compared to 2002, while the tone of the filmmaker feels more genuine in the remake than Roth’s tongue-in-cheek self-parodying in 2002. Watching this film is sure to make you seek out the original Cabin Fever to see how the two compare.
‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning’ – Leaving 2/3
In 2003, the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre got a slick and stylish remake starring Jessica Biel and R. Lee Ermey, which proved enough of a financial success to earn this prequel, which delved into unexplored territory.
Audiences might not have needed to learn about Leatherface’s upbringing, but that didn’t stop the studio from showing the early adventures of the chainsaw-wielding murderer and his family. It’s important to note that this film wasn’t intended to be a prequel to the original film, as there are some narrative changes between that film and the 2003 version, yet Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning did include many subtle nods and references to the original film, making for a slasher that was far more entertaining than it had any right to be.
‘Bates Motel’ (Season 5) – Available 2/20
A surprise success in the horror world, a quasi-prequel to the events of Psycho that was set in contemporary times caused enough confusion about a narrative timeline to dissuade many viewers from tuning in. Those fans who were able to put those conundrums aside were given a gripping series about the terrifying people who can inhabit a small town.
One of the most memorably twisted relationships between a boy and his mother was seemingly on display in Psycho only for audiences to learn Norman Bates’ mother had been dead throughout the whole story. With Bates Motel, audiences saw how a seemingly normal young Norman (Freddie Highmore) could be twisted into a killer after witnessing the disturbing actions of his mother Norma (Vera Farmiga) and the lengths she’d go to in hopes of protecting her boy.
With Season Five joining Netflix, you can finally catch up on the complete run of the series that regularly offered disturbing stories to audiences.
