Movies like What Lurks In the Shadows (2026)
The best movies like What Lurks In the Shadows (2026) are The Boy Behind the Door (2020), Whisper (2007) and Vicious (2025). If What Lurks In the Shadows hooked you with its horror, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedGhostland (2018)7.4/10 from 2,789 votes
- NewestMonkey’s Magic Merry Go Round (2026)Released 2026
The Boy Behind the Door (2020)
Bobby tries to save himself and his best friend when they are kidnapped on their way home from school.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhisper (2007)
Sinister things begin happening to kidnappers who are holding a young boy for ransom in a remote cabin.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVicious (2025)
When Polly receives a mysterious box, it comes with one rule: place inside something she needs, something she hates, and something she loves. If she doesn’t obey, it will consume everything—and everyone—she’s ever known.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNever Let Go (2024)
As an evil takes over the world beyond their front doorstep, the only protection for a mother and her twin sons is their house and their family’s protective bond.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Evil (1978)
Shortly after moving into a dark, brooding mansion, a psychologist and his co-workers are terrorized by a horrible evil being.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisPlay Dead (2025)
A woman wakes up injured in a basement surrounded by corpses. To survive, she pretends to be dead while a grotesque ritual unfolds in the house above.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural (1974)
A notorious bank robber kills his wife and flees the police, only to be captured by a mysterious group of figures in an abandoned town. His beautiful daughter, Lila Lee, receives a letter stating that her father is near death and that he needs to see her. Sneaking away at night from her minister guardian, Lila embarks on a terrifying journey...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGhostland (2018)
A mother of two inherits a home from her aunt. On the first night in the new home she is confronted with murderous intruders and fights for her daughters’ lives. Sixteen years later the daughters reunite at the house, and that is when things get strange...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSilver Bullet (1985)
The small city of Tarker's Mills is startled by a series of sadistic murders. The population fears the work of a maniac, but sightings of a mysterious, hairy creature soon spread. People lock themselves up at night, but there's one boy who's still outside…
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDark Harvest (2023)
In a small Midwestern town, a deadly annual ritual unfolds when the mythical nightmare, Sawtooth Jack, rises from the cornfields and challenges the town’s teenage boys in a bloody battle of survival.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDeadsight (2018)
A man with partial blindness and a young pregnant police officer must work together to escape a deadly virus that has spread across Grey County.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMonkey’s Magic Merry Go Round (2026)
After a mysterious bout of amnesia, a beloved children’s television host struggles to piece together his fractured memories, only to find his once-cheerful puppet co-stars behaving with sinister intent. As reality unravels, the line between performance and nightmare begins to blur.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Curse of Buckout Road (2017)
A college class project on creation and destruction of modern myth, turns terrifying when a trio of young people come to realize the urban legends surrounding the famed Buckout Road may, in fact, be REAL.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFrank and Penelope (2022)
A tale of love and violence when a man on his emotional last legs finds a savior seductively dancing in a run-down strip club. And a life most certainly headed off a cliff suddenly becomes redirected - as everything is now worth dying for.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Inhabitant (2022)
Like any other teenage girl, Tara is just surviving high school — yet her father and mother seem strangely distant. Amidst a nearby spree of gruesome ax murders, Tara has sightings of terrifying entities, forcing her to question her own sanity and shocking ancestry.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisReborn (2018)
A stillborn baby girl is abducted by a deranged morgue attendant and brought back to life by electro-kinetic power. On her sixteenth birthday, traumatized Tess escapes captivity and sets out to find her birth mother leaving a trail of horrifying violent destruction and chilling chaos behind her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDon't Move (2024)
A grieving woman in a secluded forest encounters a killer who injects her with a paralytic drug. As her body shuts down, her fight for survival begins.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Devil Comes at Night (2023)
A washed up boxer searching for his inheritance must fight for his life when he is trapped in his deceased father's farmhouse by a local cannibal cult.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Haunting of Alcatraz (2020)
Alcatraz. 1937. A young prison guard working the night shift experiences a string of chilling disturbances culminating in the bizarre death of an inmate at the most famous prison in the world
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRest Stop: Don't Look Back (2008)
One year after running away from home, Nicole and Jesse are still missing. When Jesse's brother, Tom, returns home from active duty, he sets out with his friends Marilyn and Jared to locate the lost couple. Their search leads them to the stretch of old highway with a mysterious Rest Stop, where they find themselves in the same predicament as Nicole and Jesse: confronting a madman.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFriendly Beast (2018)
A restaurant owner going over the edge when an armed robbery is attempted at his establishment. He holds everyone captive at gunpoint – criminals and customers alike – and situations corrode into a nightmare state, guided by manipulation and raw compulsion.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTogether (2025)
Years into their relationship, Tim and Millie find themselves at a crossroads as they move to the country, abandoning all that is familiar in their lives except each other. With tensions already flaring, a nightmarish encounter with a mysterious, unnatural force threatens to corrupt their lives, their love, and their flesh.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEden Lake (2008)
When a young couple goes to a remote wooded lake for a romantic getaway, their quiet weekend is shattered by an aggressive group of local kids. Rowdiness quickly turns to rage as the teens terrorize the couple in unimaginable ways, and a weekend outing becomes a bloody battle for survival.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhat Lies Beneath (2000)
Norman and Claire Spencer are a seemingly happily married couple who uncover a terrible secret… a secret so disturbing it threatens to destroy them.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Ninth Configuration (1980)
Army psychiatrist Colonel Kane is posted to a secluded gothic castle housing a military asylum. With a reserved calm, he indulges the inmates' delusions, allowing them free rein to express their fantasies.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAn American Werewolf in London (1981)
American tourists David and Jack are savagely attacked by an unidentified animal while hiking on the Yorkshire Moors. After retiring to the home of a beautiful nurse to recuperate, David soon begins experiencing disturbing changes to his body and mind.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Worth the HypeMovies like thisVal (2021)
Fin is a criminal on the run, wanted for the murder of his boss and the accidental shooting of an officer. He breaks into the home of a high-class escort, only to discover that you get more than you bargain for with Val, short for "Valefar" – a demon who offers to make all his problems disappear if he agrees to follow her rules. But in Val's world there are no accidents, and as Fin meets her other "customers", he learns that Val was expecting him all along, and it isn’t easy to escape Val's dungeon.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
Rings (2017)
Julia becomes worried about her boyfriend Holt when he explores the dark urban legend of a mysterious videotape said to kill the watcher seven days after viewing. She sacrifices herself to save her boyfriend and in doing so makes a horrifying discovery: there is a "movie within the movie" that no one has ever seen before.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Grudge 2 (2006)
A young woman encounters a malevolent supernatural force while searching for her missing sister in Tokyo, a mean high school prank goes horribly wrong, and strange things begin happening in a Chicago apartment building.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisMidnighters (2018)
Midnight, New Year’s Eve: when all the hopes of new beginnings come to life – except for Lindsey and Jeff Pittman, whose strained marriage faces the ultimate test after they cover up a terrible crime and find themselves entangled in a Hitchcockian web of deceit and madness.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror
SnoozefestMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like What Lurks In the Shadows?
The closest matches to What Lurks In the Shadows are The Boy Behind the Door (2020), Whisper (2007) and Vicious (2025). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after What Lurks In the Shadows?
Start with The Boy Behind the Door (2020), the closest match to What Lurks In the Shadows.
What is the highest-rated movie like What Lurks In the Shadows?
Ghostland (2018), rated 7.4/10 by 2,789 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like What Lurks In the Shadows?
Monkey’s Magic Merry Go Round (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like What Lurks In the Shadows?
Yes: The Boy Behind the Door (2020), Whisper (2007) and Vicious (2025).
How are movies similar to What Lurks In the Shadows chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside What Lurks In the Shadows, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.