Year-round, though especially around Halloween, horror movies are incredibly popular. Casual fans love the thrills and the shared experience of jumping around as these movies push our buttons, and hardcore genre fanatics love these pictures for all kinds of reasons.
If you’re a Hulu subscriber, you’ve got access to tons of horror films, so many that it might be hard to choose which ones to watch. We’ve rounded up the 20 best for you. These aren’t ranked necessarily, but we’ve made sure to give you plenty of context with each entry, so you’ll have some idea of what to expect–and just how scary these movies are.
Here are the 20 best, scariest horror movies on Hulu right now.
Related: 20 Extremely Scary Horror Movies You Can Watch Right Now on Netflix
1. The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
The late 1960s through the 197os were a golden age for big-screen horror. The archaic censorship code had become defunct, and filmmakers had more freedom. What’s more, in some cases, international headlines inspired them to use horror for social commentary. So many movies from this era are iconic: Rosemary’s Baby, Night of the Living Dead, Jaws, Halloween and more. It’s important not to forget the early work of Wes Craven in this as well.
Following the success of his influential but tough-to-endure debut, The Last House on the Left, Craven made this thriller about a suburban family that’s targeted by a clan of cannibals in the Nevada desert. It’s his statement on what could push seemingly civilized people to become savagely violent, originally slapped with an X rating by the MPAA before getting a few edits.
The 2006 remake was a box-office success and has its defenders, but it’s a pale imitation, really. The narrative is slavishly adapted, but there’s more focus on the carnage than on character-building, and sorely missing is the original’s black humor.
The Hills Have Eyes is the hard stuff, only for experienced horror fans. It’s an intensely stressful experience that holds up fearsomely well.
2. Child’s Play (1988)
Slasher movies come with a lot of baggage. Starting in the late 197os and early 80s, they were mass-produced, the bulk of them cynically made and unpleasant—in the wrong ways. Child’s Play is one of the best slashers ever, a highly commercial horror movie that balances its scary-to-fun ratio just right.
A gleefully unhinged Brad Dourif voices a serial killer who uses black magic to pass his murderous soul into a baby doll. The toy sets its sights on a young boy and his mother.
The bottom line: Despite its seemingly goofy subject matter, Child’s Play is a good film. It’s successful at what it sets out to do. Roger Ebert gave it a positive review, saying it’s “well made, contains effective performances, and has succeeded in creating a truly malevolent doll. Chucky is one mean SOB.”
3. The Others (2001)
The summer of 2001 was an eventful one for Nicole Kidman. Moulin Rouge! was released in June, and the actress scored her first Oscar nod for the musical smash. In August, this ghost story proved to be another huge hit, earning Kidman Golden Globe and BAFTA nods, and Best Actress wins from the Saturn Awards and London Film Critics.
Clearly inspired by Henry James‘ 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw, Alejandro Amenábar‘s chiller stars Kidman as a post-World War II-era mother living in a remote country house with two small children who are sensitive to sunlight.
More atmospheric and gripping than scary-as-all-get-out, The Others is a safe choice for casual horror fans—or anyone who loves a well-done period drama, for that matter.
4. 28 Weeks Later (2007)
Danny Boyle‘s gritty, ingenious, terrifying-as-hell 2003 British zombie flick 28 Days Later was credited with revitalizing the zombie genre. The sequel is even better, building upon the original’s groundwork with higher production values and terrific actors like Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, Idris Elba and Jeremy Renner. The follow-up focuses more on the military’s perspective as the “infected” cross barriers into London’s “safe zone” constructed following the events of the first film, and follows two young siblings as they defy protocol in trying to find their mother.
5. Let the Right One In (2008)
Rightfully considered one of the best horror movies of the century so far, this Swedish adaptation of the acclaimed novel came out when horror was at a low point stateside. The torture films made popular by Saw and Hostel were king. This was a welcome reminder that inspired, gifted filmmakers can actually tell rich and moving stories with violence and scariness. It’s no small feat that such a dark story, about a bullied boy who befriends a vampire child, features lead performances from two actors who were only 11 years old at the time of filming.
There was some initial uproar when when this was remade a mere two years later in America, as Let Me In. Surprisingly enough, Matt Reeves‘ remake is splendid in its own right, reinforcing his reputation as one of the best genre directors working today.
6. The Fly (1986)
Part gross-out sci-fi body horror, part genuinely touching romance, David Cronenberg‘s remake is actually dramatically better and far more popular today than the 1958 original (itself a loose adaptation of a 1957 short story), thanks in no small part to fantastic chemistry between Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis.
Goldblum plays an offbeat scientist who accidentally turns himself into a grotesque human-insect hybrid. There is a ton of good humor running throughout—and no shortage of chills and shocks. Surely you’ve heard this quote: “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” This is where that came from.
A midnight-movie staple, this stands tall as one of Cronenberg’s defining works. It’s the only one of the auteur’s pictures to win an Academy Award (for Best Makeup).
7. Signs (2002)
With a $408 million worldwide gross against a $72 million budget, this is M. Night Shyamalan‘s second highest-earning movie ever, behind only The Sixth Sense. Mel Gibson stars as a grief-stricken former priest who’s having a crisis of faith when mysterious crop circles appear on his farm and around the world.
Roger Ebert gave this his highest rating of four stars, saying, “Signs is the work of a born filmmaker, able to summon apprehension out of thin air.”
8. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Before the parodies and long before the found footage genre lost its novelty, Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick‘s micro-budgeted The Blair Witch Project, an innovative work of wondrous and horrid imagination, was one of the most frightening motion pictures of all time. Heather Donahue, Michael Williams and Joshua Leonard star as student filmmakers who disappeared in the woods of Burkittsville, Maryland, in 1994.
A lot of horror filmmakers have created some terrifying visuals before, sure, but no scene in a movie will ever be as scary as what we can create in our heads with our own imaginations. The Blair Witch Project knows that, and it preys on that.
Turn off the lights. Turn off your phone. Immerse yourself in this movie. By the end of it, you’ll just want to cover yourself with a blanket, perhaps paralyzed with fear. It’s the kind of scary that stays with you for days, maybe forever.
Both Blair Witch sequels—2000’s Book of Shadows and 2016’s Blair Witch—are hilarious, unfortunately.
Related: The Best Movies Set Each of the 50 States
10. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)
Produced by the notorious Cannon Films, Tobe Hooper‘s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 was released a full 12 years after his landmark 1974 masterwork of pure terror. In the sequel, Hooper amped up the comedy as well as the gore. There was some black humor in the original, but it was hard for most audiences to notice it when they were, you know, having the living daylights scared out of them.
Dennis Hopper joins part two as a Texas lawman who teams up with a pretty disc jockey (Caroline Williams) to square off against the cannibalistic Sawyer clan. There’s some fun and some frights to be had here, and Hopper’s presence does the flick wonders; though this doesn’t measure up to the original in any way, it’s become a cult film in the years since its poor initial reception.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is back in current horror movie conversations, because its climactic chainsaw-on-chainsaw fight is echoed in the surprisingly successful, critically adored indie Mandy starring Nicolas Cage. Mandy is an all-time great horror movie; The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is merely a memorable one.
Review: Mandy Is Nicolas Cage at His Very Best
11. The Amityville Horror (1979)
Based on Jay Anson‘s 1977 book of the same name, Stuart Rosenberg‘s chiller stars James Brolin and Margot Kidder as a young couple who combat supernatural forces in their new home. Initially conceived as a made-for-television film, The Amityville Horror‘s big marketing hook was that it was “based on true events.”
The Amityville Horror received negative-to-mixed reviews upon release, but was a huge box office success ($86.4 million in domestic receipts against a $4.7 million budget, the second highest-grossing film in the U.S of the year). Today, some consider it a horror classic. It was nominated for one Academy Award, for Best Original Score.
12. I Saw the Devil (2010)
From the operatic demonic horror of The Wailing to the sumptuous surprises of The Handmaiden, some of the best genre films of recent years have come from South Korea.
I Saw the Devil has attracted quite a cult following since its release in 2010. Director and co-writer Kim Jee-Woon‘s graphically violent chiller follows a National Intelligence Service (NIS) agent’s quest for vengeance after a serial-killing bus driver murders his fiancée. If you can believe it, this thriller is easily more gruesome than any of the Saw movies, but the elegant filmmaking craft is superior by lightyears. And unlike the torture films that were so popular in the U.S. about a decade ago, there’s a point, smart humor and real, deep emotions. It runs nearly two and a half hours, which just evaporate.
Rolling Stone included I Saw the Devil in their countdown of the “20 Scariest Movies You’ve Never Seen.”
13. mother! (2017)
Darren Aronofsky‘s slow-burn freakout features Jennifer Lawrence walking around in a big farmhouse for two hours, and it’s a metaphor for Mother Earth and the Book of Genesis. This was the most divisive movie of 2017, which is saying something: mother! received mostly positive reviews, it tanked at the box office, some critics called it a masterpiece, others hated it, mostly everyone agreed it’s deeply disturbing–but A.O. Scott of The New York Times called it “a hoot!”
mother! is not as profound as it thinks it is, but Aronofsky can stage escalating set pieces better than just about anyone working today, and you simply must hand it to him–few contemporary auteurs, if any, can get that kind of all-over-the-map public response from a single flick.
Related: Why Mother! Failed at the Box Office
14. Paranormal Activity (2009)
By the time we got to The Ghost Dimension, the Paranormal Activity series was about as scary as a peanut butter sandwich–but the patient original holds up fairly well. Co-produced, written, directed, photographed and edited by Oren Peli, the found-footage supernatural thriller about a young couple documenting strange occurrences in their home is the most profitable film ever made based on return-on-investment. It cost $15,000 to produce and grossed $193 million worldwide.
The borderline-goofy theatrical ending is nowhere near as frightening as the one that played in festivals before the film’s wide release. Seek out the alternate cut (it’s on the Blu-Ray) for a less conventional, far more unsettling experience.
Related: Micah Sloat Discusses the Alternate Endings Moviegoers Didn’t Get to See
15. Hellraiser (1987)
How is this movie already 30 years old?! Perhaps the most notorious horror movie to come out of Britain since Michael Powell‘s Peeping Tom, Clive Barker‘s body horror tale of resurrection initially received the X rating from the MPAA before getting a few cuts–or, shall we say, slices.
Hellraiser received wildly mixed reviews upon release, but everyone agreed the film’s unyieldingly serious tone was unlike anything in popular horror at the time, as the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th series were getting increasingly goofier.
The practical effects still dazzle and the phantasmagorically gory violence still shocks today. That relentlessly serious tone has rendered the film a bit campy at times, though if anything that adds to the charm and just makes it an even more enjoyable enterprise overall. Hellraiser has earned its place in the pantheon of horror, and it will definitely freak you out.
Check out BBC film critic Mark Kermode‘s 30th anniversary re-assessment of Hellraiser below.
16. V/H/S (2012)
Created by Brad Miska and Bloody Disgusting, V/H/S is an anthology picture comprised of short horror films by several directors including Adam Wingard (You’re Next) and Ti West (The House of the Devil). The central conceit is that four thugs are hired to steal a VHS tape from a house they’ve broken into, where they discover disturbing found-footage shorts on tape—and frightening disturbances within the house as well.
As is inevitably the case with any anthology film, V/H/S is a mixed bag. It runs nearly a full two hours, and one of these shorts probably should have been a DVD extra. There’s some talent behind the camera here though, and V/H/S definitely offers enough chills and bona fide scares to warrant a viewing.
You can also stream the sequel, 2013’s V/H/S 2, on Hulu.
17. American Psycho (2000)
More incisive and freaky than spooky or chilling, this darkly satiric adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis‘ 1991 novel was in development hell for nearly a decade. Christian Bale had his heart set on the role of narcissistic Wall Street homicidal maniac Patrick Bateman, but Lionsgate wanted Leonardo DiCaprio.
David Cronenberg, Oliver Stone, Martin Scorsese and Danny Boyle were all in the running to direct at some point, but Mary Harron was the right choice. She milked the material for maximum black humor, and she insisted on Bale, who is perfect in the lead role. Now widely considered one of our most prominent method actors, Bale spoke in an American accent throughout filming. When he spoke in his native Welsh accent at the wrap party, everyone thought he was prepping for a different role.
Another touch Harron brought to the film, and one of several reasons this movie is appreciated by women as well as men, is the way she flips the male gaze, even as she explores a male-centric narrative. It’s no secret that many horror films throughout history have been problematic in their objectification of women. In American Psycho, Bale’s Patrick Bateman is obsessed with his looks—often onscreen in some state of undress—and Harron’s camera makes the most of this.
Related: 5 Must-Watch Horror Movies Directed by Women
18. The ABCs of Death (2012)
Here’s another anthology film, one that’s even more uneven than V/H/S. That film was comprised of five shorts, The ABCs of Death is made up of 26, one for each letter of the alphabet. Marcel Sarmiento‘s slow motion-heavy D is for Dogfight segment and the Serbian R is for Removed are downright brilliant, and they’re mostly entertaining and spooky enough—but a few on the lower end are middling to straight-up lazy.
19 Children of the Corn (1984)
Filmed mostly in Iowa, Fritz Kiersch‘s slasher feature is based on Stephen King‘s 1977 short story of the same name. Peter Horton and a pre-Terminator Linda Hamilton star as a couple traveling through the Midwest when they stumble upon an eery town occupied entirely by children. Children of the Corn was not received well by critics upon release (Roger Ebert awarded it one star), but it was a financial success that spawned a whopping eight sequels. It’s been referenced all over pop culture from South Park to Wreck-It Ralph to Family Guy. The 2015 slasher sequel Sinister 2 borrows heavily from the plot.
20. Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010)
We’ll top this list off with a horror comedy that doesn’t skimp on the blood, guts and jolts. Tyler Labine and Rogue One‘s Alan Tudyk star as two affable pals who are mistaken for murderous hillbillies (a tired genre trope) by a group of clueless college kids, leading to an all-out bloodbath. Tucker & Dale vs. Evil has an infectious blast upending what we’ve come to expect from decades of slashers.
Related: 20 Extremely Scary Horror Movies You Can Watch Right Now on Amazon Prime Video
Is your favorite horror movie on this list? What’s the scariest movie you’ve ever seen? Sound off in the comments and let us know!
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