Feel like a good jump scare or two? Hulu has plenty of content that can rattle your nerves. Check out eight of the best horror movies currently streaming on the service.
Set in England in the 1980s, film censor Enid (Niamh Algar) recommends trims to make “video nasties” more palatable for a wide audience. But when Enid sees a film that seems to hold a connection to her missing sister, she finds herself immersed in a horror movie of her own. Director Prano Bailey-Bond said one of her influences for scenes set in the censor’s office was Watership Down and “this strange underground warren of the censors … In Watership Down, you have the whispers of rabbits going through tunnels and in the censor’s office, we have the screams of people being murdered in films in the next room.”
A runaway from a drug treatment center finds herself snowbound at a rest area with a small group of peculiar people—and one young girl kidnapped in a van outside. The film is based on a 2017 novel by Taylor Adams.
Sebastian Stan and Daisy Edgar-Jones meet through an online dating app, only for Edgar-Jones to discover that her date’s interests include a very unhealthy appetite. Stan, not knowing he already had the role, sent director Mimi Cave a video of himself dancing to ease her concerns about a specific scene in the film.
Mike Flanagan directs this story about siblings (Karen Gillan and Brenton Thwaites) struggling to cope with a haunted mirror that has plagued their family for decades. Flanagan based the film on his own 2005 short of the same name, though he had to push back against suggestions that he turn it into a found footage feature.
While no shark movie may ever equal the thrills of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, the genre can still surprise audiences. In 47 Meters Down, two sisters on vacation find themselves in the ultimate “bottle” predicament after being trapped in a shark cage with little oxygen left and a swarm of sharks circling. Co-stars Mandy Moore and Claire Holt shot much of the movie in London, with some exterior surface shots in the Dominican Republic.
Nicolas Cage brings his singular style to this frenzied tale of a drifter who agrees to clean up a Chuck E. Cheese-style attraction overnight but instead finds himself facing off against its murderous animatronic occupants. Director Kevin Lewis said he and Cage discussed how to frame scenes in the movie using comic book panels they both knew as a reference.
This horror anthology uses the static-laden video cassette aesthetic to create scares throughout five short films by directors (Ti West, Joe Swanberg, and Adam Wingard among them) who all went on to great acclaim. A number of sequels followed, including the recently-released V/H/S/99.
The body horror franchise got its start with this grimy but effective first chapter. Vengeful killer Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) forces his captives to choose between freedom and self-inflicted violence in a series of elaborate traps. Filmmakers James Wan and Leigh Whannell made a five-minute short film to entice studios, with the two insisting Wan would direct and Whannell would co-star. Lionsgate agreed. It was a good deal: a 10th movie is due in 2023.
This story was originally published in 2019; it has been updated for 2023.
Jake Rossen
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