Sometimes all one wants is the thrill of the jump scares that horror movies give. Hulu brings to its audience some of the best horror movies, starting from classics to current hits. So here are some nightmare catching, terrifying and thrill seeking best horror movies on Hulu.
1. Tragedy Girls (2017)
- Direction: Tyler MacIntyre
- Screenplay: Chris lee Hill and Tyler MacIntyre
- Cast: Brianna Hildebrand, Alexandra Shipp, Kevin Durand, Craig Robinson, Jack Quaid, Josh Hutcherson and Kevin Drand
- IMDb rating: 6/10
The movie revolves around two high school teenage crime reporters who are obsessed with social media. The kick starts when the girls after capturing a serial killer boost their social media stardom by staring to commit the murders themselves. Tragedy Girls is a super twisted murder horror movie. It is definitely one of the most unique horror movies on hulu.
Pat Padua of The Washington Post in a review said, “The film’s young slashers are irredeemably smug and obnoxious, and their bloodthirsty craving for social media likes, represented by heart icons that float out of their cell phones after each murder that they document — without implicating themselves — fuels a vicious satire.”
2. Mom and Dad (2017)
- Direction and Screenplay: Brian Taylor
- Cast: Nicolas Cage, Selma Blair, Anne Winters, Zackary Arthur and Robert T. Cunningham
- IMDb rating: 5.5/10
Mom and Dad is a pitch black horror comedy. The story kicks start when an unexplained transmission makes all the parents go crazy to want to kill their children. The movie goes on to see how two children Carly and Josh survive from their parents. The movie has a cold open end that leaves the audience wondering for more.
Mom and Dad stars Nicolas Cage and Selma Blair who play the murderous parents Brent and Kendall Ryan. Their acting is on point which takes the audience through a wild ride. Cage singing the hokey pokey while destroying a pool table a scene one does not want to miss.
3. The Cabin in the Woods (2011)
- Direction: Drew Goddard
- Screenplay: Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon
- Cast: Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchinson, Fran Kranz, Jessie Williams, Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford
- IMDb rating: 7/10
It is a classic stereotypical horror movie where the plot revolves around a bunch of college students stuck in a forest cabin. Here they become victims of zombies in the woods, while technicians manipulate events from an underground facility. Each of the college kids represent the stereotypes one would expect in a horror film. However, the movie takes all those clichéd features and turns it into a gory adventurous scary thriller. The Cabin in the Woods stars Chris Hemsworth freshly out from playing Thor is an extra add on to what already is one of the best horror movie on hulu.
Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post in a review wrote, “A fiendishly clever brand of meta-level genius propels The Cabin in the Woods, a pulpy, deceivingly insightful send-up of horror movies that elicits just as many knowing chuckles as horrified gasps. [It] comes not only to praise the slasher-, zombie- and gore-fests of yore but to critique them, elaborating on their grammatical elements and archetypal figures even while searching for ways to put them to novel use. The danger in such a loftily ironic approach is that everything in the film appears with ready-made quotation marks around it… But by then, the audience will have picked up on the infectiously goofy vibe of an enterprise that, from its first sprightly moments, clearly has no intention of taking itself too seriously.”
3. Children of the Corn (1984)
- Direction: Fritz Kiersch
- Screenplay: Stephen King, George Goldsmith and Donald P. Borchers
- Cast: Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton, Issac Chroner and Courtney Gains
- IMDb rating: 5.7/10
Based on a Stephen King’s short story, the movie Children of the Corn is set in the fictitious rural town of Gatlin in Nebraska. The plot goes on to tell the story of the children living here who are enticed by an entity referred to as “He Who Walks Behind the Rows” to rituallu murder all the adults for a successful corn harvest. Over the years this movie has gained a cult following.
4. Crawl (2019)
- Direction: Alexandre Aja
- Screenplay: Alexandre Aja, Shawn Rasmussen, Michael Rasmussen
- Cast: Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper
- IMDb rating: 6.2/10
Crawl features Barry Pepper and Kaya Scodelario as a father-daughter duo, who along with their dog are on a quest of survival after being trapped in their home during a Category 5 hurricane in Florida, all the while being hunted by alligators. This is a very balanced disaster horror film as director Aje puts in the right amount of jump scares and gore.
Even after being under promoted by Paramount, the movie was a huge success with a total worldwide gross of $91.5 million against a production budget of $13.5 million. Angelica Jade Bastien of New York praised the film, saying, “Crawl is a great example of a simple story exceedingly well-told. It’s a bloody adventure full of teeth-gnawing turns of fortune, mordant wit, vicious gator kills, and surprising tenderness — that clocks in at a blessedly fleet 87 minutes. It’s a perfect horror film for the summer, as much an ode to the cataclysmic, humbling aspects of Mother Nature as it is a love letter to father-daughter relationships.”
5. Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)
- Direction: Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman
- Screenplay: Christopher Landon
- Cast: Lauren Bittner, Chris Smith, Chloe Csengery and Jessica Tyler Brown
- IMDb rating: 5.8/10
Paranormal Activity 3 delivered the best film of the franchise, just when the fans thought things were getting predictable. The story follows siblings Katie and Kristi as paranormal situations start occurring in their house when the two girls become friend with an invisible entity called Toby. This movie serves as a prequel set 18 years before the vents of the first two films.
The film set a new record for a midnight horror film opening at $8 million and the best opening day for a horror film in the United States at $26.2 million.
6. The Host (2006)
- Director: Bong Joon-ho
- Screenplay: Baek Chul-hyun and Bong Joon-ho
- Cast: Song Kang-ho, Byun Hee-bong, Park Hae-II, Bae Doona and Go- Ah-sung
- IMDb rating: 7.1/10
Oscar winning director Bong Joon-ho’s movies are always genre defying. But his movie The Host is definitely one that fits the category of what can be called “scary movies” and “monster movies”, but like all Joon-ho movies it defies any set standard one might expect from a horror film. The movie kicks starts as a monster appears from the Han River in Seoul, killing hundreds and capturing a young woman named Hyun-seo. The plot revolves around her family as they resolve to save her from the grasp of the monster. The movie has an all in one experience of being intense, funny, terrifying and sad.
In a critical response, Manohla Dargis of The New York Times wrote “The Host is a loopy, feverishly imaginative genre hybrid about the demons that haunt us from without and within.” Oscar winning filmmaker Quentin Tarantino included the movie in his list of top 20 films released since 1992. The film was also listed at #81 on Empire‘s list of The 100 Best Films of World Cinema.
7. Hounds of Love (2016)
- Direction and Screenplay: Ben Young
- Cast: Emma Booth, Ashleigh Cummings and Stephen Curry
- IMDb rating: 6.5/10
The movie stars Ashleigh Cummings in a breakout performance as Vicki Maloney, a teenager captured by a serial killer couple. The story unfolds as she watched the toxic relationship of the couple and cracks in their bond and uses it to her advantage to survive. The film is loosely based on the crimes of David and Catherine Birnie. The movie holds phenomenal award winning acting by the actors. Kim Newman of Empire in a review about the movie said, “Deliberately uncomfortable viewing, this is nevertheless a compelling exercise in gritty psycho-noir with outstanding performances and real dramatic weight. Director Ben Young is a name to watch.”
8. Little Monsters (2019)
- Direction and Screenplay: Abe Forsythe
- Cast: Lupita Nyong’o, Alexander England, Kat Stewart, Diesel La Torraca and Josh Gad
- IMDb rating: 6.3/10
Little Monsters is a perfect horror comedy must watch Halloween special. The movie gives us the most random team up, an ass-kicking kinder garden teacher, a washed up musician and an egomaniac kids’ show personality who are caught up amidst a sudden zombie outbreak with a school full of children to protect. In between all the delightful crudes and a few rounds of Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off”, the movie also delivers one of the best Star War references ever seen on screen.
While reviewing the movie Chris Hewitt of Empire writes, “Little Monsters is an object lesson in how to pull off edgy comedy. Throughout this surprisingly excellent Australian zombie flick, writer-director Abe Forsythe flirts with bad taste and beyond. One joke, involving onanism and a photograph, is at once of they can’t believe they went there and has to be seen to be believed schools. Yet there’s a sweetness here that tempers the outrageousness. At heart, Little Monsters has a lot of heart.”
9. Goodnight Mommy (2014)
- Direction and Screenplay: Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala
- Cast: Susanne Wuest, Elias Schwarz and Lukas Schwarz
- IMDb rating: 6.7/10
This Austrian German language horror flick will give you one hell of a ride. The story is about 10 years old identical twin boys whose mother return after a mysterious cosmetic surgery with bandages wrapped around her face and the boys slowly start to grow suspicious of her real identity due to her distant demeanor. The movie is full of terrifying suspense and makes you hold your breath till the last act.
In a review Peter Debruge of Variety wrote, “Shooting in sleek 35mm, Franz and Fiala have dreamt up a home-invasion scenario where the aggressors lived there all along, like the children in Ray Bradbury’s “The Veldt,” who lock their parents to their playroom to be devoured by lions.” He also said that the movie is “a fairytale for ‘Dogtooth’ enthusiasts”. The National Board of Review of US named Goodnight Mommy one of the Top 5 Foreign Language films of 2015.
10. Pet Sematary (2019)
- Direction: Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer
- Screenplay: Jeff Buhler, David Kajganich and Matt Greenberg
- Cast: Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz and John Lithgow
- IMDb rating: 5.7/10
Pet Sematary is an American supernatural horror film based on a one of the darkest books by the supernatural sci-fi horror genre expert Stephen King. The movie is about the Creed family whose cat dies in a tragic accident shortly after the family moves to the small town of Ludlow Maine. When they bury the cat in a nearby mysterious cemetery it returns back alive, but its just the start of terrifying occurrences for the family. The movie delves into the terror of mortality and the madness of denying it with the help of outstanding performances from its stars.
Glenn Kenny of The New York Times writes in a review, “King’s novel was adapted for the screen in 1989. Directed by Mary Lambert, that ‘Pet Sematary’ was a squirrelly, wild-eyed movie. This version is more Hollywood smooth…Directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer, showing puzzling distrust of their strong source material, overloads the movie with arbitrary jump scares. And they replace King’s despairing, tragic denouement with something altogether more glib.”
11. Hellraiser (1987)
- Direction and Screenplay: Clive Barker
- Cast: Andrew Robinson, Clare Higgins and Ashley Laurence
- IMDb rating: 7/10
The plot revolves around a young couple as they move into an old house to find the woman’s former lover turned into a ‘Frankenstein like’ beast. The movie and the franchise focuses on a puzzle box that can summon a murderous group called the Cenobites. Along with its sequels, it makes a franchise of scary movies that has gained a cult stature. This is also the series which gives birth to the iconic character Pinhead played by Doug Bradley. This movie also happens to be Clive Barker’s directorial debut.
12. Ghost Stories (2017)
- Direction and Screenplay: Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson
- Cast: Andy Nyman, Paul Whitehouse, Alex Lawther and Martin Freeman
- IMDb rating: 6.4/10
The movie plot revolves around Professor Phillip Goodman who has devoted his life to exposing phony psychics and fraudulent supernatural shenanigans. However, his life is turned upside down and his beliefs questioned when he comes across three bone chilling extraordinary cases. These three cases, one of disturbing visions in an abandoned asylum, second of a car accident in deep woods and the last of the spirit of an unborn child seen to have a weird explainable connection to the professor’s life.
Alex Godfrey of Empire writes in a review of the film, “It’s at its most effective, though, when it plays it straight. Scares aside, Ghost Stories takes in religion, spirituality and psychological torment, sometimes sadistically. It would be surprising to hear that Nyman and Dyson believed in the supernatural themselves, but they certainly love the idea of it, and this film is an ode to not only horror as a genre, but to real human horror, trauma, and the ruinous damage wreaked by us all. What we’re left with is sadness.” The Guardian described Ghost Stories as “an anthology of creepy supernatural tales in the intensely English tradition of Amicus portmanteau movies from the 1960s.”
13. Bad Hair (2020)
- Direction and Screenplay: Justin Simien
- Cast: Elle Lorraine, Jay Pharoah, Lena Waithe, Kelly Rowland, Laverne Cox, Chanté Adams, James Van Der Beek, Usher Raymond IV, Blair Underwood and Vanessa Williams
- IMDb rating: 5.5/10
The plot is about an aspiring music artist named Anna to get a weave changing her natural afro-textured hair to fit into a music station’s new image. However, her hairdresser tell her to never get the weave wet and it helps Anna to succeed in her career. But in an unfortunate turn of events, when Anna’s landlord tries to rape her, she kills him and her surges into his wound sucking the blood out. Anna is terrified and the rest of the movie tells how Anna gets rid of this murderous hair.
In Bad Hair’s review, Teo Bugbee writes, “Horror provides a useful framework for Simien’s critical voice. Black women have been asked to compromise their identities to satisfy white people, and “Bad Hair” literalizes their sacrifices with blood, sweat and tears. The genre’s conventions — mythologies must be revealed and bloodlust sated — allow Simien to take aim at racism cinematically and without didacticism.”
14. The Lodge (2019)
- Direction: Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala
- Screenplay: Sergio Casci, Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala
- Cast: Riley Keough, Jaeden Martell, Lia McHugh, Alicia Silverstone and Richard Armitage
- IMDb rating: 6/10
The movie begins as six months after Aiden and Mia’s mother’s suicide, their father takes them to his girlfriend Grace’s lodge for family vacation. However, strange occurrences start in that even stranger lodge. As the story progresses horrible secrets are discovered and there is a list of nasty things in store of the audience’s eyes to watch.
Dennis Harvey of Variety writes, “The Lodge may be best taken on the same terms as ’60s/early ’70s Italian giallos, with their somewhat random manipulations of plot and character logic in service of atmospheric shocks. Genre homage does not appear to be an intention here, but the film is certainly at its best in fostering a sense of stylish dread and orchestrating some harrowing individual sequences.” Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times notes regarding the atmosphere of the film that its “so wintry in tone and setting that no movie-theater thermostat will banish its chill,” but ultimately felt that “despite its visual flair and unrelentingly taut atmosphere, The Lodge is more successful in sustaining unease… than in building a convincing narrative.”
15. Southbound (2015)
- Direction: Radio Silence (The Way Out & The Way In), Roxanne Benjamin (Siren), David Bruckner (The Accident) and Patrick Horvath (Jailbreak)
- Screenplay: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin (The Way Out & The Way In), Roxanne Benjamin (Siren), Susan Burke (Siren), David Bruckner (The Accident), Patrick Horvath (Jailbreak) and Dallas Hallam (Jailbreak)
- Cast: Chad Villella as Mitch, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin as Jack, Fabianne Therese as Sadie, Hannah Marks as Ava, Nathalie Love as Kim, Kate Beahan as Cait, Davey Johnson as Dale, Susan Burke as Betty, Tyler Tuione as Warren, Gerald Downey as Daryl. Larry Fessenden as The D.J. Dana Gould as Raymond Kensington, Anessa Ramsey as Betty Kensington, Hassie Harrison as Jem, Davey Johnson as Dale, Tipper Newton as Jesse, Maria Olsen as Sandy, Kristina Pesic as Sutter, Matt Peters as Al and David Yow as Danny
Southbound is an American anthology horror film. The story weaves together four terrifying tales of interlocking highways, one about a truck stop, another a mysterious traveller, third a car accident and last one about a home invasion. These four stories are divided into five segments and will the audience on fright stricken ride. The movie got loads of positive review film was included on numerous Best Horror Films of 2016 lists.
Giving the film a positive review Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times’ wrote, “Its five segments do what they’re supposed to do—unsettle you—but as a bonus, they also leave you wanting more. These are fragments more than complete stories, and the incompleteness is its own kind of creepiness. The filmmakers aren’t after tidy tales, neatly connected and concluded. They know that the human mind finds loose ends unnerving.” Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter also on a positive review writes, “The vignettes are cleverly interwoven by having situations or characters bleeding over from one to the next, and despite the multiple helmers and scripters involved the film boasts a strong stylistic consistency.”
