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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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 se