The Best Fantasy Horror Movie of the 2000s Officially Hits HBO Max

Image via HBO Published Sep 25, 2026, 10:22 PM EDT Ryan O'Rourke is a Senior News Writer at Collider with a specific interest in all things adult animation, video game adaptations, and the work of Mike Flanagan. He is also an experienced baseball writer with over six years of articles between multiple outlets, most notably FanSided's CubbiesCrib. Whether it's taking in a baseball game, a new season of Futurama or Castlevania: Nocturne, or playing the latest From Software title, he is always finding ways to show his fandom. When it comes to gaming and anything that takes inspiration from it, he is deeply opinionated on what's going on. Outside of entertainment, he's a graduate of Eureka College with a Bachelor's in Communication where he honed his craft as a writer. Between The IV Leader at Illinois Valley Community College and The Pegasus at Eureka, he spent the majority of his college career publishing articles on everything from politics to campus happenings and, of course, entertainment for the student body. Those principles he learned covering the 2020 election, Palestine, and so much more are brought here to Collider, where he has gleefully written on everything from the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes to Nathan Lane baby-birding sewer boys. Sign in to your Collider account While the 2000s saw the rise of fantasy blockbusters like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, it was also a great time for stories that wove more darkness into the genre. The decade marked the rise of Guillermo del Toro as one of the world's most prestigious directors, in part thanks to his Oscar-winning Pan's Labyrinth, which intertwined the real and mythical in horrific and beautiful ways. Sweden's haunting coming-of-age vampire flick Let the Right One In and the Keanu Reeves-led DC-inspired Constantine also possessed the screen, the former being hailed by Roger Ebert as "the best modern vampire movie" at the time and the latter becoming a beloved macabre cult classic with a sequel on the way. Among the best dark fantasies of the era, however, were not just live-action productions, but painstaking and chilling stop-motion animation that launched a prestigious studio. In 2009, Coraline premiered in theaters and introduced the world to Laika Studios with a fright. The film was based on Neil Gaiman's novella of the same name and delivered a horror-fantasy experience that, while made for the whole family, wasn't afraid to expose younger audiences to true fear through its haunting atmosphere and imagery that ranged from beautiful to nightmare-inducing. Its willingness to respect its viewers and show that being afraid in the face of real danger is not only natural but necessary for true courage to shine through is part of why the story is so highly regarded by both critics and audiences alike. Ahead of Halloween, HBO Max will soon call the modern classic home at least throughout the spooky season. Coraline will be one of several horror titles arriving on the streaming platform starting on October 1. With that, viewers will be able to venture back to the Other World for another meeting with the button-eyed "Other Mother" for a holiday rewatch. The stop-motion masterpiece follows the titular young girl after her family moves to a new home. While her parents are busy, she takes the opportunity to explore the house, finding something altogether unexpected when she opens a secret door to an alternate reality. This Other World at first appears to be a better mirror of her own and everything she could ask for, until her other family reveals their true colors and tries to keep her there forever. A Nightmare Before Christmas director Henry Selick helmed the project, with Dakota Fanning leading a cast including Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, and Ian McShane. Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes What Is Your Biggest Horror Nightmare? Elm Street · Chucky · Scream · The Conjuring Four horror franchises. Four completely different ways of scaring you. One waits until you fall asleep. One makes sure nobody believes you. One is already in your group of friends. And one is in the house with your family. Answer eight quick questions about how you actually watch horror, and find out which nightmare was built for you. 😴Elm Street(Freddy Krueger) 🧸Chucky(Child's Play) 📞Scream(Ghostface) 🕯️The Conjuring(The Warren Files) FIND YOUR NIGHTMARE → 01 Which horror scene makes you cover your eyes? Four classic images. One of them is worse than the others for you. ASomebody falling asleep when they really should not. BA toy that has moved, and nobody touched it. CA phone ringing in an empty house. DA child talking to somebody who is not there. NEXT QUESTION → 02 You are home alone and you hear a noise. First thought? Everybody has one. It arrives before you have decided anything. AI am exhausted and my mind is playing tricks on me. BSomething in this room is not where I left it. CSomebody is in here with me. DThis house has never felt entirely right. NEXT QUESTION → 03 Which horror movie rule would you break first? Everybody thinks they would survive. Almost nobody actually does. ANever fall asleep. BNever leave it out of your sight. CNever answer the phone. DNever go down to the basement. NEXT QUESTION → 04 Something genuinely frightening happens. What do you do? Not in a film. In your actual living room, tonight. AConvince myself I imagined the whole thing. BTell someone, and brace for them not believing me. CWork out which person I know could be behind it. DGet everybody in the house into one room. NEXT QUESTION → 05 How do you actually watch a horror film? Be honest about this one. Nobody is checking. AFine during. Wide awake at two in the morning. BShouting at the screen that nobody is listening. CCalling the twist out loud before it lands. DThrough my fingers, holding on to something. NEXT QUESTION → 06 Somebody offers you serious money. Which do you still refuse? The amount does not matter. There is one on this list you are not doing. AFall asleep in a room I have never been in before. BKeep an old doll on the shelf facing my bed. CAnswer every unknown number that calls after midnight. DSpend one night alone in a house with a history. NEXT QUESTION → 07 Which feeling stays with you a week after the film? Good horror does not stop when the credits do. ANot wanting to turn the bedroom light off. BNot trusting one particular object in my house. CLooking twice at people I have known for years. DFeeling like something came home with me. NEXT QUESTION → 08 Something wakes you at 3am. What is the worst possibility? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your nightmare. AThat I am still asleep, and it knows it. BThat the thing nobody believed me about is here. CThat somebody with a key is downstairs. DThat something is in the doorway, watching us sleep. REVEAL MY NIGHTMARE → The Lights Just Went Out Your Nightmare Is…Four franchises, four completely different ways of getting underneath your skin. This is the one built out of your particular fear, why it works so well on you, and what it would leave behind. Elm StreetYour nightmare does not wait outside the door. It waits for you to close your eyes, which you are going to have to do eventually, because nobody has ever won that particular argument. Freddy is horror's cruellest idea: a threat that lives in the one place you cannot guard, cannot lock, and cannot avoid forever. You are the one who is fine during the film and wide awake at two in the morning. Your own head is where this does its damage. These films understood exhaustion as a horror engine. The kids on Elm Street do not lose because they are weak. They lose because they are tired. You can lock every door in the house. You still have to sleep. ChuckyYour nightmare is not really the doll. It is the face of the person you tell, and the way they decide, very kindly, that you have imagined all of it. Chucky works precisely because he is absurd. That is the trap: the more accurately you describe him, the less anybody is going to believe you. You are the one shouting at the screen because the characters are not listening. You know that feeling from real life too. The franchise is at its best when the adults in the room are the real obstacle, and you have met those adults. By the time somebody finally believes you, you will have handled most of it on your own. ScreamYour nightmare has your number, knows your name, and has almost certainly been inside your house before. The worst part is that you already know them. Scream is the only one of these where the killer takes the mask off and turns out to be somebody who was at the party. You are the person who calls the twist out loud before it lands. You watch people the same way you watch films. The franchise made the rules of horror part of the plot, which means the survivors are the ones paying attention. You would be paying attention. Everybody is a suspect, including the person who just offered to walk you home. The ConjuringYour nightmare is not really about you. It is about the people asleep down the hall, and the feeling that whatever is here is not interested in leaving. The Conjuring films are domestic horror. The house, the family, the perfectly ordinary room that quietly stops feeling ordinary. Your instinct is to get everybody into one room. Your fear is protective rather than personal, which is rarer than it sounds. This is the one franchise where belief is the weapon. The people who come through it are the ones who are not alone and refuse to be. Whatever is here did not come for you. It came for the household, and you are the one standing in the hallway. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ Laika Is About to Return to Theaters With Their New Fantasy Epic The addition of Laika's first acclaimed feature to the HBO Max catalog comes as the studio prepares to launch its new feature — Wildwood. The stop-motion giant has been trying to get an adaptation of Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis' book off the ground for some time now, beginning development back in 2011. After several delays, though, it's finally coming to life in theaters on October 23 with a gorgeous, lush style directed by Travis Knight and a star-studded cast including Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Jacob Tremblay, Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali, Awkwafina, Angela Bassett, Jake Johnson, and more. At the center of it all is Prue McKeel (Lee), a girl who enters the fantastical, dangerously alive world in the woods outside of Portland to save her baby brother after he's kidnapped by crows, only to find herself in the middle of a brewing war between the inhabitants and navigating factions of creatures that range from kind to formidable and cruel. Coraline arrives on HBO Max starting October 1. Stay tuned here at Collider for more on all the biggest films coming to streaming throughout the year. Release Date February 6, 2009 Runtime 100 minutes Director Henry Selick Cast Teri Hatcher Mel Jones / Other Mother (voice)