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Did you spend all weekend celebrating Halloween, and find it a bit startling that the actual holiday isn’t until… Thursday? Spend the remaining days of spooky season eating trick-or-treat candy and streaming horror movies, including these 10 spooky picks from Hulu via Disney+.
Us
Lupita Nyong’o is currently charming audiences in The Wild Robot—but her powerful horror filmography cannot be overstated. While this year’s A Quiet Place: Day One unfortunately didn’t make much impact, her dual performance in Jordan Peele’s unnerving tale of secret doppelgängers is just as impressive (and terrifying) as it was back in 2019.
When Evil Lurks
Horrific, haunting imagery and a possession plot that sets its own rules elevate this 2023 release from Argentine writer-director Demián Rugna. Whatever he’s working on next (he also made 2017’s Terrified, and had a segment in 2022 anthology Satanic Hispanics) is already at the top of our must-see list.
Barbarian
You know how horror movies are always telling you not to go in the basement? Never was that warning more true than in writer-director Zach Cregger’s 2022 slice of Airbnb horror—which despite using one of the genre’s oldest tropes as a leaping-off point, never goes the direction you think it will. Georgina Campbell is great as the tenacious lead, but extra points also go to Bill Skarsgård and Justin Long for their left-turn supporting performances.
The Fly
David Cronenberg’s 1986 ode to gooey body horror, eccentric genius, the chemistry between Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, and cheeseburgers is sci-fi horror at its finest, adapting and updating the 1950s classic in all the right ways.
The Mist
Lists of “best Stephen King adaptations” sometimes overlook this 2007 release from writer-director Frank Darabont, which changes the ending of King’s original story with absolutely devastating results. (Unlike, say, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, King actually approved of the alteration.) Thomas Jane leads an ensemble cast in this harrowing survival tale set in (where else?) a small Maine town that’s suddenly encased in a fog filled with malevolent creatures.
The Omen (and The First Omen, and Damien – Omen II)
The Antichrist is having a banner 2024, with The First Omen proving that horror prequels can feel original and shocking—even when leading into one of the genre’s most-watched classics. Go back to the beginning with the 1976 original Omen, then learn what happened just before in The First Omen. For additional devilish entertainment, Hulu also has the very best Omen sequel (two words: military school) as part of its library too.
Skinamarink
Now that lo-fi nightmare-weaver Kyle Edward Ball has announced his second film (no details yet, other than it’ll be with A24 and is titled The Land of Nod), it’s a good moment to revisit his 2023 ultra low-budget debut, which may have polarized audiences (some were freaked out, others fell asleep), but absolutely signaled the arrival of an intriguing new creator.
Handling the Undead
The author of Let the Right One In provides the source material for this somber zombie movie, which is set in Norway and follows different people whose grief over losing a loved one becomes complicated when, well, the dead start waking up.
Smile
With Smile 2 currently raking it in at the box office, will Smile 3 be far behind? Parker Finn’s 2022 original kicks off a series that could perhaps go on forever, spreading grinning ghouls across movie theaters and viral social media posts until the end of time.
Hold Your Breath
In this new-to-Hulu 2024 release set in oppressively dusty 1930s Oklahoma, Sarah Paulson plays an emotionally fragile mother who starts to believe a drifter (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) may actually be a malevolent supernatural entity—in a film that convincingly walks the line between “is it real?” and “wait… is she losing her mind?”
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