Spooky season is in full swing, and that means it's time for any number of spooky activities--like corn mazes, haunted hay rides, trick or treating, parties. Oh, and also spooky movies! While just about every streaming service has plenty of horror movie options, Hulu has one of the better selections of fright flicks for you to peruse, and that's not counting the stuff that comes with premium add-ons like HBO or live TV.
Hulu's selection of horror isn't just vast--it also covers the full spectrum of scary pictures from the super serious and heavy type of stuff to camp classics and everything in between. There's the action horror of Blade and Prey. There's Steven Soderbergh's astonishingly unsettling Unsane, and classier fare like Nightmare Alley and Kenneth Branagh's Frankenstein. They've got the original found footage flick, The Blair Witch Project, and most of the beloved horror-comedy Child's Play franchise. And, of course, there's plenty of low-budget indie horror that'll really creep you out. If you can't find something to watch on Hulu this October, then you don't like horror movies.
But you don't simply have to take our word for it. Below, you'll find our hand-picked selection of the best horror movies that Hulu has to offer on its basic service. We've got something for everyone here, even if you don't normally like scary movies that much.
1. AVP: Aliens vs Predator
What makes Paul WS Anderson a solid director is that he always knows what kind of movies he's making, and he never takes things too seriously. And that's why, despite the tame PG-13 rating, that first Aliens vs Predator is such a blast.
2. As Above So Below
Honestly, there aren't enough cave-based horror movies out there. And so this little found footage flick about a group of folks who get lost in the Paris catacombs and end up going a little bit too deep really hits the spot.
3. Black Death
A tiny village in medieval England has been spared of any Bubonic Plague infections, and Sean Bean wants to know why. It's absolutely disgusting, and a great little under-the-radar bit of religious horror.
4. Blade
The horror-action movie trend that began with this film may have waned a bit in recent years, but this Blade is still as sharp as it ever was. There's a reason this is the movie that everybody thinks of when they think of Wesley Snipes.
5. Blair Witch Project
The movie that started the found footage craze two decades ago follows a group of film students trying to shoot a documentary about an urban legend-style small town murderer. That first film is seen as a little bit of a relic these days. But how many of those that followed in the Blair Witch Project's footsteps have actually improved upon it? Not many.
6. Child's Play series
Somehow, this franchise has consistently persisted for more than three decades, giving it nearly unmatched longevity for a horror franchise. And with the series creator, Don Mancini, involved for nearly all of it, that quality has rarely taken any meaningful dips.
7. Evil Dead remake
Swapping the campiness of Sam Raimi's original trilogy for a more earnestly violent remake seemed like an odd path to take, but director Fede Alvarez makes it work by making it as seriously messed up as they could get away with and keep that R rating.
8. Fresh
It starts out like an episode of Modern Love--starring the Winter Soldier himself, Sebastian Stan!--and then turns into a surprisingly breezy cannibal movie. For when you need a horror flick that's less likely to give you any serious emotional trauma.
9. Friend Request
A young woman in college befriends a weirdo outcast girl, but it turns out this outcast is an outcast for a reason and the friendship quickly turns sour in a way that is probably surprising for everyone involved. We shouldn't say too much more than that--the ride is more fun if you have no idea where it goes from there. Be warned, this movie does include a suicide.
10. The Gallows
A student is killed during a performance of a high school play, and 20 years later, another group of students at the school want to put on that same play. And, uh, maybe that wasn't a great idea. Critics hated this found footage movie when it came out, and its internal logic is definitely more than a little hinky. But it's a lot of fun.
11. Hostel 1 and 2
This sort of "torture porn" isn't all that popular anymore, but stories about the extreme depravity of rich people--in this case, paying exorbitant amounts of money to torture random kidnapped tourists in eastern Europe--never get old. The second film in particular, which focuses on a trio of young American women, is on point.
12. It Came From Outer Space
A legitimate classic--and not of the camp variety--this 1953 story about aliens who pretend to be humans after their ship crashes on Earth holds up shockingly well. That's thanks in no small part to the fact that this is a rare older film that's actually overtly against xenophobia.
13. Lights Out
The first film from Shazam! director David F Sandberg is about a young woman who does her best to protect her little brother from a malevolent ghost who can only be seen in the dark--and who's grown a little bit attached to their mom. It's only 80 minutes long, and it's the rare movie where that actually feels like just the right length.
14. Kenneth Branagh's Frankenstein
It's actually called Mary Shelley's Frankenstein after the author of the original novel, but this delightfully pretentious '90s classic is too well defined by its director and star, Kenneth Branagh. That said, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention that Robert freaking De Niro played the monster in this adaptation.
15. Nightmare Alley
Guillermo Del Toro is at his best when he leans into cynicism, and this horrifying epic tale about the rise and fall of a carnival grifter (Bradley Cooper) is very, very cynical. Technically, this is probably more of a drama, but it wallows in the mud as much as most horror movies do.
16. Nurse 3D
A sexy serial killer finds men who cheat on their wives or girlfriends, then seduces and murders them. Also, she's a nurse. What else needs to be said?
17. Oculus
Most folks are more familiar with Mike Flanagan's more recent work on Netflix like Midnight Mass and The Haunting of Bly Manor, but his breakout, this super clever and trippy 2013 haunted house movie starring Karen Gillen, might still be his best work. And if you don't agree you can go eat a light bulb.
18. Prey
No disrespect to the other Predator movies, which are mostly a lot of fun, but Prey, which takes us back to an encounter between a Predator and members of a Comanche tribe in the early 18th century, is clearly the best of the franchise. Director Dan Trachtenberg (he also did 10 Cloverfield Lane) is a treasure.
19. The Sixth Sense
M. Night Shyamalan movies that had a twist ending have usually aged very poorly. But the very first one, about a kid who can't stop seeing ghosts, is still extremely watchable all these years later. It's also much more self-assured than most of his films that came after--unsurprising since he hadn't yet had to wrestle with the weight of everybody expecting him to churn out one crazy twist after another.
20. Unsane
Being involuntarily committed isn't the best experience when you need it--and it's even less of a great experience when you actually don't need it at all. And when that scenario is in a movie directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Claire Foy, you're in for a truly upsetting night of movie-watching.
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