Australian-made horror is flourishing. Late Night with the Devil, a new film about a possessed girl exorcised on live TV, joins a recent stable of terrifying horror movies made down under. Australia has long produced quality horrors, such as Wake in Fright and Wolf Creek, offering viewers uniquely unnerving stories. Some reveal the country’s outback as a terrifying place of dread, isolation, and hopelessness. Others show brutal creatures lurking sight unseen in the wild—and even sometimes close to home. Recent films, such as The Babadook and Talk to Me, put terror back in the suburbs, with unsettling accounts of paranormal forces that grip victims and won’t let go.

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Here are Australia’s 10 greatest horror films, from the 1970s to now. There are haunting psychological studies that mine obsession and paranoia, to infamous “true story” retellings that suggest the continent is a place skulking with far stranger creatures than just kangaroos and koalas. Dive in and prepare to face the Australian bushland, and the beasts therein, in all their evil.

Late Night with the Devil (2024)

Found-footage horror fans are in for a treat. Late Night with the Devil threads together satanic panic, bygone late-night TV, and the paranormal into one compellingly tense and nostalgic watch. It stars David Dastmalchian as a 1970s variety show host struggling with both poor ratings and heavy grief (after the death of his wife). When a questionable pitch lands his way for an segment with a girl from a former religious cult (à la Jim Jones and his Kool-Aid clan), he leaps at the chance to boost ratings—with dire consequences. Late Night shines with its inventive play on past social paranoias while playfully winking at viewers—as if TV audience members too—as we watch the chaos unfurl on screen. It’s all one slow, sinister burn that ultimately grips tight and won’t let go during its violent, crackling crescendo end. Stream on Shudder

Wolf Creek (2005)

The Australian outback is one scary place: lethal snakes, ravenous dingos and an unhinged serial killer or two. Inspired by the infamous backpacker murders in the early 2000s, Wolf Creek is a frightening tale about three young travellers entrapped by a demented bushman (John........

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