Lower the lights, put out the candles, crank up the volume, and sit down for an evening of terror. Sure, not everyone likes watching horror movies — but you do. We here at Digital Trends are big fans of the genre too, and we pride ourselves as experts on all of the streaming platforms to catch them on. Our focus today is Hulu. With a selection packed to the brim with chilling entries from the early days of cinema all the way up to modern times, there’s plenty to choose from. To make the digging a little easier, we’ve put together this monthly roundup of all the best horror movies on Hulu right now.
Needless to say, Hulu isn’t the only streaming platform with horror titles on demand. We’ve also put together guides to the best horror movies on Netflix and the best horror movies on Amazon Prime Video.
The Night (2021) new
The Night stars Shahab Hosseini and Niousha Noor as Babak and Neba, a married couple that rests their heads at the Hotel Normandie for an evening with their infant child. Sure, it’s a little creepy, but the husband and wife are tired. Well, it turns out sleep isn’t in the cards for them as a series of supernatural forces begin preying upon the family. A film about our inner demons boiling over and consuming us whole, The Night is built on a sordid atmosphere, arresting performances, and effective chills from start to finish.
The Fly (1986) new
A remake of the 1958 film of the same, David Cronenberg’s take on this B-movie concept is more body horror than camp-fest — but don’t worry, it’s still pretty campy. It stars Jeff Goldblum as scientist Seth Brundle, who, after completing a teleportation device, decides to test the machine on himself. Lo and behold, a common housefly crept into the device alongside him. After running the teleporter, Seth inadvertently splits his DNA with the insect, which results in him literally coming undone as he loses his humanity and slowly becomes a disgusting bug. The Fly is sci-fi/horror at its finest, but do be warned, it’s not for those of us with weak bellies.
Censor (2021) new
Enid (Niamh Algar), a film censor, protects the moviegoing public from the exploits of the “nasties” of the day. When the dutiful anti-cinephile is assigned a new disturbing film, it’s nothing but work as usual until Enid starts tracing parts of the violent picture back to a series of traumatic events that occurred in her youth — horrid acts that may have had something to do with the disappearance of her sister. An indie gem for sure, Censor may skip the radar of most Hulu-watchers of today, but we loved its performances and captivating take on the infamous phenomena that was England’s “video nasty” era.
Unsane (2018) new
Sawyer Valentini (Claire Foy) has had a horrific two years. After the young woman relocates to Pennsylvania from Boston to escape a relentless stalker, the trauma leads her to a psychiatric center. When she signs a release form, what she doesn’t realize is that her signature has given the institution permission to keep her for 24 hours. After she lashes out at the staff, the physicians decide to extend Sawyer’s stay. As her madness and fright grow, Sawyer discovers that her stalker may be one of the orderlies walking the halls. An homage to B-movie thrills, Steven Soderbergh’s Unsane shows the maestro director experimenting with the confines of a genre he hasn’t spent much time with, along with shooting technology that many of us have right in our pockets (the entire film was shot using an iPhone 7 Plus).
Black Swan (2010)
The arts are essential, but an overindulgence in the craft may lead to things we would have preferred avoiding. Such is the case in writer-director Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan. The film stars Natalie Portman as Nina Sayers, an aspiring ballerina belonging to a prestigious New York company. The timid but dedicated artisan is given the lead role in the upcoming production of Swan Lake. Her celebration is short-lived, however, when newcomer Lily (Mila Kunis) arrives. Thomas (Vincent Cassel), the director, decides to cast Lily as the Black Swan, stripping one-half of Nina’s role away from her. Psychosis and disturbing events ensue as Nina and Lily’s initial friendship starts disintegrating into an all-out nightmare.
Spontaneous (2020)
High school life is tough enough when your peers aren’t spontaneously exploding all around you. But such is the case in writer-director Brian Duffield’s Spontaneous. When the horrific phenomena descends on the halls of their public-learning space, seniors Mara (Katherine Langford) and Dylan (Charlie Plummer) decide to live their lives to the fullest as more individuals begin exploding into bloody messes around them. A riotous blend of horror and comedy, Spontaneous puts an all-original spin on the coming-of-age teen film by way of gory conflagration. It’s one you don’t want to miss.
Amulet (2020)
When Tomaz (Alec Secareanu), an ex-soldier living in London, is forced to flee the dilapidated compound he shares with other refugees, a benevolent nun finds employment for him with a woman named Magda (Carla Juri). Caring for her ailing mother, Magda needs help with home repairs and upkeep. As Tomaz begins servicing the home, a series of strange events start unfolding, leading Tomaz to believe that there’s something sinister living all-too-close to him and his employers. A cerebral creeper with excellent character work and original storytelling, Amulet summons the demons we thought we banished to our pasts, placing these unforgiving monsters front-and-center.
Signs (2002)
In M. Night Shyamalan’s second genre outing, Signs, UFOs, crop circles, crazed animals, and worldwide hysteria are the polarizing events affecting the globe. Our story follows Graham Hess (Mel Gibson), his brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix), and two children — Morgan (Rory Culkin) and Bo (Abigail Breslin). Living in agricultural Pennsylvania, extraterrestrials begin dropping in on the Hess clan, forcing the family to respond to the phenomena with what little means (and lack of faith) they have. A powerful film with effective jump-scares, emotional themes, and some of M. Night’s best writing, Signs still delivers the goods almost 20 years after its original release.
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She Dies Tomorrow (2020)
When Amy (Kate Lyn Sheil) starts believing that her untimely death is just around the corner, her paranoia starts spreading like a literal plague — first to her family and friends, and then to the community at large. An existential horror masterpiece from indie stalwart Amy Seimetz, She Dies Tomorrow takes the idea of chain-mail, email blasts, and social media bloat and turns these mundane addictions into a spreadable psychosis that catches everyone off guard. Hallucinatory, disorienting, and packed with big ideas and mighty deliverables, She Dies Tomorrow is one you don’t want to miss.
Crawl (2019)
As a devastating hurricane wreaks havoc on her Florida town, Haley (Kaya Scodelario) takes to the flooding streets to check on her father, Dave (Barry Pepper). It takes some work to locate her dad, and what Haley finds is horrific — a pack of massive, blood-hungry alligators that will stop at nothing in their conquest for food. As the floodwaters rise and the gators gain strength in numbers, Haley’s samaritan gesture becomes an all-out fight for survival against an unending reptilian foe.
The Clovehitch Killer (2018)
Tyler Burnside (Charlie Plummer) lives in Clarksville, Kentucky, with his mother and father, a town plagued by the horrid memories of the Clovehitch Killer, a serial murderer who took the lives of 10 women and fled without a trace. One night, Tyler borrows his father’s truck to visit a friend, only to discover an incriminating photo lodged between the seats — a picture that could link Tyler’s own family with the morbid acts of the Clovehitch slayer. A film built on slow-burn chills and an uncomfortable yet oddly disarming performance from Dylan McDermott, The Clovehitch Killer will chill you to the core.
Children of the Corn (1984)
It’s every man and woman for themselves in Fritz Kiersch’s adaptation of Stephen King’s 1977 short story Children of the Corn. After a traumatizing opening sequence, our story, in earnest, begins with Burt and Vicky (Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton) traveling across the Midwest for Burt’s new j0b. When the couple discovers a dead boy in the road, they venture into a neighboring community in search of help. Unfortunately for them, the near-deserted town is the disturbed home of a murderous cult of children that plan on making Burt and Vicky their latest victims. Say what you will about some of the acting and narrative threads (the Rotten Tomatoes score will reflect these misses), but there’s still plenty of B-movie goodness in every frame of Children of the Corn. Beware of He Who Walks Behind the Rows…
Lights Out (2016)
Before creeping out audiences across the globe as a feature endeavor, writer-director David F. Sandberg’s Lights Out began as a popular short film that terrorized the Internet. In this long-form adaptation, Teresa Palmer stars as Rebecca, a young woman reeling from a disturbed childhood in which a horrific entity ceaselessly stalked and terrorized her from the shadows. Now, her younger brother Martin (Gabriel Bateman) is contending with the same night-clad foe, a being that may be supernaturally tied to Teresa and Martin’s mother (Maria Bello). A solid horror flick through and through, Lights Out doesn’t exactly reinvent the genre but adds a satiating, trope-laden entry to the annals of terror that grossed close to $150 million against a $5 million budget.
Carnage Park (2016)
In the wake of a botched bank robbery, Scorpion Joe (James Landry Hébert) and his partner Lenny (Michael Villar) escape to the desert with a hostage named Vivian (Ashley Bell). After Lenny dies from a gunshot wound, Joe demands that Vivian help him dispose of the body. Things take a turn for the convict though when an unseen assailant snipes Joe dead, leaving Vivian in the clutches of a new psychopath named Wyatt. Inspired by campy ’70s schlock cinema, Carnage Park is a thrilling gore-fest that doesn’t relent in the slightest from the moment the opening titles hit.
The House That Jack Built (2018)
Charming by turns, but only enough to entrap, Jack (Matt Dillon) is a notorious serial killer who must answer for his reign of terror when a hell-bound guide named Verge (Bruno Ganz) is sent to collect the deviant. On their way to the underworld, Jack and Verge converse over the nature of Jack’s vicious killings, dividing the film into five distinct sections where Jack recounts his victims and his bloody intentions for their respective demises. Not for the faint of heart, The House That Jack Built is an unrelenting dive into the mind of a true sociopath, led by a haunting central performance from Matt Dillon.
Shortcut (2020)
In director Alessio Liguori’s Shortcut, a group of five youths is stranded on a desolate road when their bus driver attempts to take a shortcut back into civilization. The cause of the stranding? A shadow-cloaked creature that claims the desolate country road as its own, terrorizing and stalking the teens. As the night wears on, tensions continue mounting as the kids attempt to get away from the vicious being. A campy but spirited throwback to heightened monster movies, Shortcut may not bring complete originality to the table, but the homages to ’80s chillers are enough to keep us plugged in and asking for more.
The Owners (2020)
Adapted from the Hermann and Yves H. graphic novel Une Nuit de Pleine Lune, The Owners follows Gaz, Nathan, and Terry (Jake Curran, Ian Kenny, and Andrew Ellis), a band of wannabe thieves that has big plans to break into the local country manor of Dr. Huggins and his wife, Ellen. Hoping to secure a major cash haul from a hidden safe in the house, what the band of youths didn’t anticipate was a turning of the tables by the seemingly elderly homeowners, a couple with more bite than they let show on the surface. A gruesome but thrilling addition to the home invasion subgenre, The Owners places great emphasis on the talented ensemble cast, particularly Sylvester McCoy and Rita Tushingham as the tantalizing septuagenarians.
Shadow in the Cloud (2021)
Set during World War II, Shadow in the Cloud stars Chloë Grace Moretz as Maude Garrett, a flight officer assigned to a B-17 bomber crew. Entrusted with a series of top-secret documents, the all-male crew initially goes out of their way to prove troublesome to the squad’s female addition — that is, until a malevolent being starts destroying their aircraft as the crew enters a sky-set ambush. It’s up to Maude to overcome the monster on board the flight before the creature triggers a nose-dive ending for the hapless brigade. A satisfying blend of action and horror dressed in the threads of a period drama, Shadow in the Cloud serves up plenty of thrills through its hour-plus runtime.
Bad Hair (2021)
Anna (Elle Lorraine) is a go-getting assistant at Culture, a music network for Black artists. Hoping to climb the ranks of the corporate ladder, Anna’s big break arrives when she pitches Zora (Vanessa Williams), the new head of station programming, on a new kind of video countdown show. Impressed with her idea, Zora asks Anna to lose her Afro in favor of a weave, in keeping with the network’s modern image. But as it turns out, Anna’s new hair-do is cursed and hungry for blood. An incredible mashup of camp and satirical commentary, Bad Hair is a fun-loving ’80s horror throwback that’s dying to meet you.
Villains (2019)
Mickey (Bill Skarsgård) and Jules (Maika Monroe) are criminals and lovers who have plans of packing up and heading south for Florida. After a final gas station robbery, the couple hit the road, only to run out of gas soon after. Venturing up a winding path to an isolated house, Mickey and Jules break in but are shocked to discover a child chained up in the basement. George (Jeffrey Donovan) and Gloria (Kyra Sedgwick), the homeowners, are beyond surprised when Mickey and Jules emerge upstairs. As the couple-on-the-run takes in their surroundings and potential new victims, a sinister turn of events begins unfolding. Long story short, Mickey and Jules picked the wrong house. A riveting blend of horror and comedy, Villains is a blast from start to finish.
Sputnik (2020)
The U.S. may have won the Space Race, but in the sci-fi horror flick Sputnik, it’s Russian cosmonaut Konstantin (Pyotr Fedorov) who makes history by bringing back the first alien visitor, and he does it without even knowing. Judging it by its plot alone, there isn’t a lot about Sputnik that sounds unique — after all, stories of humans acting as unwilling hosts to aliens are as old as moon craters. What makes Sputnik stand out is how the story is told. Yes, it has its moments of CGI grandeur and monstrous gore, but for much of the story, you don’t know exactly what kind of film you’re watching or who the real villains are. Almost everyone in the movie is hiding something, from the possessed Konstantin to the psychiatrist Tatyana (Oksana Akinshina) who interrogates him, and the military commanders overseeing it all. The result is a more intelligent and compelling horror than you’re expecting.
The Host (2006)
A couple of years before the first of many Cloverfield films, Oscar alum Bong Joon Ho’s The Host fed some much-needed life into the neglected monster genre. Our story follows a desperate family, led by patriarch Hee-bong (Byun Hee-bong) and his son, Park Gang-du (Song Kang-ho). When a vicious underwater creature emerges from the Han River, the monster snatches Gang-du’s daughter and flees, but only after unleashing a massive rampage, attacking and killing many. As both American and Korean government forces start pushing in on the monster and the family, Gang-du’s clan must defend themselves from the creature’s wrath in their quest to rescue Gang-du’s daughter. Bong Joon Ho made waves last year by winning Best Picture for his impressive social thriller Parasite. With The Host, it’s a blast to see Ho operating with white gloves off, paying homage to monster stalwarts like Godzilla while imbuing his narrative with rich characters and fun-as-hell visual effects that have stood the test of time.
The Houses October Built (2014)
Director Bobby Roe’s 2014 The Houses October Built is a semi-fictionalized retelling of his own 2011 documentary of the same name. The story will be familiar to most: Five friends are on a road trip to scour the best-haunted attractions across America. What they didn’t sign up for is a creepy cult of scare-hounds that decide to stalk the band of buddies. The found footage genre has been done to death, but there’s something exciting and enticing about the way that Roe and his team breathe new life into this strange hybrid of faux-documentary-meets-narrative tropes. Until true evil rears its several ugly heads, it actually feels like you could be watching an authentic, if not slightly demented, low-budget doc about Halloween haunted attractions. For those left wanting more when the credits roll, the film spawned a sequel, The Houses October Built 2 (also available on Hulu), that picks up where the first film strands us.
Let the Right One In (2008)
Vampires have seen their fair share of cinema, both good and bad. Over a decade ago, there was Let the Right One In (based on the Swedish novel of the same name by John Ajvide Lindqvist), an ultra-compelling, air-brushed interpretation of classic vampiric lore. Set in Stockholm in the early 80s, we follow Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) through his everyday tribulations as a bullied adolescent. When a quiet, pale-faced girl named Eli (Lina Leandersson) moves in next door to him, the two youths foster a friendship. Unbeknownst to Oskar, Eli is actually a budding vampiress living under the watchful eye of Håkan, her late-aged guardian and keeper. Foregoing tropes and easy scares, Let the Right One In instead focuses on the emotional connection between the film’s two fragile youths, an impressive character study set against the moody nighttime exteriors of a snowy Stockholm. Critics raved that Let the Right One In pumped new life into the overly trod vampire genre. Now, you be the judge.
The Lodge (2020)
Nothing says “bad times for all” like a traumatized stepmom-to-be getting snowed in with her embittered and equally traumatized stepchildren — in the middle of nowhere. From the malicious minds that brought us 2014’s Goodnight Mommy, The Lodge is a discomforting blend of close-quarters madness, familial frailty, and religious insanity. Indie stalwart Riley Keough delivers a restrained but haunting performance as the rattled stepmother. As strange events begin piling up at the remote cabin, the stepchildren (played by Jaeden Martell and Lia McHugh) do a little digging and discover their new mom is the single escapee of a very dark past. Intense, lurking visuals, oppressively dim lighting, and a dooming score are the backbone to this tale of winter woe that will keep you guessing from start to finish. Think The Shining, but on a painfully microcosmic scale.
My Friend Dahmer (2017)
This isn’t the first origin film to explore the dark and twisted roots of Jeffrey Dahmer’s psyche, but it’s one of the most compelling explorations of the butcher that shook the world. Adapted from a 2012 graphic novel of the same name by Dahmer’s high school friend John “Derf” Backderf, writer/director Marc Meyers’s visually stunning film gets us uncomfortably close and personal with Dahmer and Derf during their teen years. Inspired by Dahmer’s already-maudlin idiosyncrasies, Derf and his posse of friends invite Dahmer into their inner circle for a number of staged pranks and rebellious hijinks. As Dahmer’s home life starts to crumble, his behavior becomes increasingly grim and disturbed. Is it the dissolution of the nuclear household that unleashes Dahmer’s inner demons? Or would his evil ways have surfaced regardless of stimuli? Meyers’ film poses these heavy questions for the viewer, who gets to decide how much empathy Dahmer’s history truly deserves. Next to none, if you ask us.
Shirley (2020)
Elisabeth Moss is mesmerizing as the titular Shirley Jackson, the famed horror novelist behind such books as The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Director Josephine Decker’s film is an adaptation of Susan Scarff Merrell’s 2014 novel of the same name, about a young couple, Fred and Rose (Logan Lerman and Odessa Young), who moves in with Shirley Jackson and her husband, Stanley Hyman (Michael Stuhlbarg). As Rose starts to befriend Shirley, a series of unusual events and increasing psychological duress morphs a once-promising living situation into a perplexing nightmare for all involved. The entire cast is on fire in Decker’s film, creating a tormented stage of performances not unlike the battered and belligerent souls of Edward Albee’s famous 1962 play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? While less an outright horror film, Shirley effectively builds its terror-laced atmosphere through a slow burn of rich little oddities and uncanny phenomena. Regardless of its exact genre pinnings, we highly recommend it.
Southbound (2015)
There are a number of words we can use to describe the hellish anthology-film-meets-road-picture mashup, Southbound. It’s unpredictable, chaotic, perplexing, and, above all, relentless. To put things into perspective, our story begins on a stretch of desolate highway. Two men, Mitch (Chad Villela) and Jack (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin), speed down a barren desert interstate, trying to outrun an onslaught of winged demon creatures. Disturbing events transpire, which eventually leads us to a motel. Just as we’re starting to piece together who these guys are, where they’ve come from, and what’s up with the demons, the film forcibly shifts perspective from Mitch and Jack’s tale to three new characters, Sadie, Ava, and Kim, all lodged in the same motel. Then, after we spend time with the girls, another three stories unfold. Players from previous stories repeat, along with the aforementioned demons of flight. With the segments filmed collaboratively by the horror filmmaking trio known as Radio Silence (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, and Chad Villella) and three other directors, Southbound is a non-stop thrill ride, with a foreboding through-line of recurring motifs, disturbing imagery, and plenty of gore.
Wrinkles the Clown (2019)
Is your child misbehaving? For a nominal fee, Florida residents can call in Wrinkles, a professional creeper clown, to scare the kiddies straight. Wrinkles the Clown is a multilayered documentary about the very real clown for hire, focusing on the man behind the mask, the communities he serves, the families that call upon his services, and the internet-obsessed teens who use his phone number as a thrilling rite of passage. Wrinkles the Clown is sincerely uncomfortable but also utterly fascinating. Just as we begin to get used to the film’s odd cast of characters, the doc does a complete 180, unfolding an entirely new layer to the Wrinkles mythos. What new layer, exactly? You’ll just have to see for yourself.
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