The Best Horror Movies on Hulu Right Now (August 2021)
Unearthing new terrors is always best when approaching the grim and macabre from the safety of your living room couch. We’re talking, of course, about horror movies. Dating back to the dawn of cinema with black and white films like Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the horror genre has grown new limbs over the years, now comprising every sub-category one can think of, from scary Westerns to creepy comedies. Home to hundreds of horror titles, Hulu is a perfect place to satiate your burning need for ghoulishness. Here’s our 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. Lucky for you, we’ve also put together guides to the best horror movies on Netflix and the best horror movies on Amazon Prime Video.
Saint Maud (2019)
Writer-director Rose Glass is a certain filmmaking force to be reckoned with, hitting the scene with a slow-burning descent into madness like no other: Saint Maud. Morfydd Clark stars as the titular character, a hospice nurse and born-again with a penchant for sharing her newfound faith. When Maud is assigned to care for an ailing American dancer and choreographer named Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), Maud’s religious leanings are awoken full-force as she attempts to save the soul of her new patient. A harrowing character study with a tour-de-force performance from Clark at its center, Saint Maud will rattle you in more ways than one.
Rotten Tomatoes: 93%
Stars: Morfydd Clark, Jennifer Ehle, Lily Fraser
Director: Rose Glass
Rated: R
Runtime: 84 minutes
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…
Rotten Tomatoes: 35%
Stars: Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton, R.G. Armstrong
Director: Fritz Kiersch
Rated: R
Runtime: 93 minutes
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.
Rotten Tomatoes: 76%
Stars: Teresa Palmer, Maria Bello, Gabriel Bateman
Director: David F. Sandberg
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 77 minutes
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.
Rotten Tomatoes: 61%
Stars: Ashley Bell, Pat Healy, Alan Ruck
Director: Mickey Keating
Rated: R
Runtime: 80 minutes
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.
Rotten Tomatoes: 59%
Stars: Matt Dillon, Bruno Ganz, Uma Thurman
Director: Lars Von Trier
Rated: R
Runtime: 151 minutes
Jennifer’s Body (2009)
Making friends is hard enough for high schoolers. Compound that with the fact that your cheerleading pal is a demonic murderer who wants to literally consume all the boys she can get her fangs into, and you’ve got one hell of a freshman year on your plate. Once the bodies start piling up, Needy (Amanda Seyfried) must contend with the aforementioned blood-hungry actions of Jennifer (Megan Fox), the serial succubus in question. Writer-director Karyn Kusama’s Jennifer’s Body is a bloody and bold addition to Kusama’s horror-laden career and a more than fitting addition to Hulu’s annal of horror entries.
Rotten Tomatoes: 45%
Stars: Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried, Adam Brody
Director: Karyn Kusama
Rated: R
Runtime: 102 minutes
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.
Rotten Tomatoes: 59%
Stars: Jack Kane, Zak Sutcliffe, Sophie Jane Oliver
Director: Alessio Liguori
Rated: R
Runtime: 80 minutes
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.
Rotten Tomatoes: 63%
Stars: Maisie Williams, Sylvester McCoy, Rita Tushingham
Director: Julius Berg
Rated: NR
Runtime: 92 minutes
Shadow in the Cloud (2020)
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.
Rotten Tomatoes: 78%
Stars: Chloë Grace Moretz, Nick Robinson, Taylor John Smith
Director: Roseanna Liang
Rated: R
Runtime: 83 minutes
Bad Hair (2020)
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.
Rotten Tomatoes: 62%
Stars: Elle Lorraine, Jay Pharaoh, Lena Waithe
Director: Justin Simien
Rated: TV-MA
Runtime: 102 minutes
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.
Rotten Tomatoes: 85%
Stars: Bill Skarsgård, Maika Monroe, Jeffrey Donovan
Director: Dan Berk, Robert Olsen
Rated: TV-MA
Runtime: 102 minutes
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.
Rotten Tomatoes: 89%
Stars: Oksana Akinshina, Fedor Bondarchuk, Pyotr Fedorov
Director: Egor Abramenko
Rated: NR
Runtime: 113 minutes
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.
Rotten Tomatoes: 93%
Stars: Song Kang-ho, Byun Hee-bong, Park Hae-il
Director: Bong Joon Ho
Rated: R
Runtime: 119 minutes
Ghost Stories (2017)
Adapted from their 2010 play of the same name, British writer/director duo Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman deliver a faithful and fresh stage-to-screen transfer of their esteemed production. Operating in the anthology tradition, Ghost Stories places viewers in the shoes of professor and television host Philip Goodman (Andy Nyman), who has made it his life’s work to blow the whistle on psychic hoaxes. After receiving an invitation from a well-known paranormal researcher (Leonard Byrne) to investigate three proclaimed cases of the supernatural, Goodman takes us on a dread-filled journey, one where we’re treated to three wholly unique, synaptically linked tales of terror, experienced through the eyes of each case’s respective person of interest. Featuring stellar performances from a gripping ensemble cast of British talents, including the almighty Martin Freeman, Ghost Stories moves nimbly through each of its three terrors, delivering wholly original twists and turns while paying homage to the play’s portmanteau roots.
Rotten Tomatoes: 84%
Stars: Andy Nyman, Paul Whitehouse, Alex Lawther, Martin Freeman
Directors: Jeremy Dyson, Andy Nyman
Rated: R
Runtime: 98 minutes
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.
Rotten Tomatoes: 60%
Stars: Brandy Schaefer, Zack Andrews, Mikey Roe
Director: Bobby Roe
Rated: R
Runtime: 91 minutes
Hounds of Love (2019)
There’s something about Aussie filmmaking that is just so unsettling. For those who enjoy walking away from the likes of Wolf Creek and Lake Mungo feeling happily winded, give Hounds of Love a spin. From writer/director Ben Young, Hounds of Love follows Vicki (Ashleigh Cummings), a kidnapped suburban girl, and her captors, John and Evelyn (Stephen Curry and Emma Booth). The couple takes Vicki back to their home, where all her worst nightmares come true. But, resilient and conniving, Vicki begins to exploit the deranged couple’s emotional vulnerabilities, pitting them against each other. This is a cunning film from start to finish and a beautiful first feature from its breakout genre-auteur. Hounds of Love doesn’t want to be your friend, so if you like your horror films a bit lighter, it’s best to stray away from this one.
Rotten Tomatoes: 88%
Stars: Ashleigh Cummings, Emma Booth, Stephen Curry
Director: Ben Young
Rated: NR
Runtime: 108 minutes
Pet Sematary (2019)
Sometimes, dead is better — especially for the Creed family. After a string of tragic misfortunes befalls the aforementioned clan, a local friend shows Louis Creed (Jason Clarke) an ancient burial ground, one with “life-giving” properties in its folkloric soil. What follows is nothing short of pure hell. Remakes can be pretty hit or miss, but last year’s reimagining of Pet Sematary is more than worthy. There are necessary callbacks to Stephen King’s source novel, as well as the 1989 original film, but writer/director team Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer put their own unique spin on this twisted reincarnation story. With grounded performances from Clarke, Amy Seimetz, and John Lithgow, this version of Pet Sematary feels more naturalistic than its predecessor. While the late-’80s film is hard to replace, we can’t imagine another stab at King’s text being better than this 2019 attempt.
Rotten Tomatoes: 58%
Stars: Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, John Lithgow
Directors: Kevin Kölsh, Dennis Widmyer
Rated: R
Runtime: 101 minutes
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.
Rotten Tomatoes: 98%
Stars: Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar
Director: Tomas Alfredson
Rated: R
Runtime: 114 minutes
The Lodge (2019)
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.
Rotten Tomatoes: 74%
Stars: Riley Keough, Jaeden Martell, Lia McHugh
Directors: Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz
Rating: R
Runtime: 108 minutes
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.
Rotten Tomatoes: 87%
Stars: Ross Lynch, Anne Heche, Alex Wolff
Director: Marc Meyers
Rated: R
Runtime: 107 minutes
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.
Rotten Tomatoes: 87%
Stars: Elisabeth Moss, Michael Stuhlbarg, Odessa Young
Director: Josephine Decker
Rated: R
Runtime: 107 minutes
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.
Rotten Tomatoes: 80%
Stars: Chad Villela, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Fabianne Therese, Hannah Marks
Directors: Radio Silence, Roxanne Benjamin, David Bruckner, Patrick Horvath
Rated: R
Runtime: 89 minutes
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.
Rotten Tomatoes: 71%
Stars: Wrinkles the Clown
Director: Michael Beach Nichols
Rated: R
Runtime: 75 minutes
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