Best Halloween Movies on Hulu: 20 Scary Films to Watch in 2020

DESCRIPTION: When looking for a top-shelf British horror film, certain elements must be considered. Is it from either Hammer or Amicus Studios? Yes, it’s from the latter. Does it star either Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee? In fact, it starts both of those gentlemen. Does it feature Michael Gough in a supporting role? It sure does! Was it directed by Terence Fisher or Freddie Francis? Indeed, this is a Freddie Francis joint. At this point, the film’s plot, which revolves around a deadly curse tied to the skull of the Marquis de Sade is beside the point: it’s already a must-see.

CAST: Peter Cushing, Jill Bennett, Nigel Green, Christopher Lee

RATED: Not rated

Stream The Skull on Hulu

DESCRIPTION: This Hammer Studios production was the last film helmed by Terence Fisher, and it picks up more or less where Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed! wrapped up, with Baron Victor Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) continuing his experiments to create life within the walls of an insane asylum, as one does. It’s a dark flick, with the Baron effectively building a new creature (played by future Darth Vader actor David Prowse) out of the husk of an inmate, one which inevitably embarks on a killing rampage, which is to say that it’s pure Hammer from start to finish.

CAST: Peter Cushing, Shane Briant, Madeline Smith, David Prowse

RATED: R

Stream FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL on Hulu

DESCRIPTION: Any horror fan worth their salt knows about the genius of William Castle, the moviemaker whose gimmicks – like the electrically-charged seats for The Tingler – made him such a legend that he inspired a movie himself (Joe Dante’s Matinee). Castle teamed with novelist Thomas Page to co-write the screenplay for this film about a scientist who stumbles upon some mutant fire-starting cockroaches and successfully breeds them to produce intelligent, flying super-roaches. There’s probably a lesson to be learned from the film about how being able to create something doesn’t mean you should create it, but mostly it’s just good, creepy fun.

CAST: Bradford Dillman, Joanna Miles, Richard Gilliland, Patty McCormack

RATED: PG

Stream Bug (1975) on Hulu

DESCRIPTION: The titular “little girl” in this film was a young actress who did a whole lot of growing up in ’76, delivering a schizophrenic slate of films that ranged from Freaky Friday to Taxi Driver, but it’s arguable that Jodie Foster finds a happy medium – if you can really use the word “happy” here – wherein she plays a relatively normal teenage girl who has to deal with an all-too-plausible scenario: an adult male making sexual advances on a teenage girl. The film starts dark and only grows darker as it progresses, and it still holds up almost 45 years later.

CAST: Jodie Foster, Martin Sheen, Alexis Smith, Scott Jacoby

RATED: PG

Stream THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE on Hulu

DESCRIPTION: The final chapter in Roman Polanski’s so-called “Apartment Trilogy” (after Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby), the director opts to take the leading role as Treikovsky, a gentleman who rents a Paris apartment which was formerly occupied by an Egyptologist who tried to commit suicide by throwing herself out of the window. As he discovers more about the apartment, his new neighbors, and the former tenant, Treikovsky’s behavior becomes increasingly creepy, ultimately leading to a brain-twisting conclusion that may well make you want to watch it again…if you can handle it.

CAST: Roman Polanski, Isabelle Adjani, Melvyn Douglas, Shelley Winters

RATED: R

Stream THE TENANT on Hulu

DESCRIPTION: Never seen this cinematic adaptation of the story from Stephen King’s Night Shift? Here’s a tip: pretend there were never any sequels, as no good will come from going down that road. Taken as a standalone film, however, Children of the Corn thrives because of its cast. Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton play Burt and Vicki, a young couple driving through Nebraska on their way to their new home in Seattle, only to stumble upon a religious cult. Courtney Gains is particularly great as creepy cult member Malachai, and character actor R.G. Armstrong is also wonderful as a local mechanic.

CAST: Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton, R.G. Armstrong, Courtney Gains

RATED: R

Stream CHILDREN OF THE CORN on Hulu

DESCRIPTION: If the original Evil Dead was the most loveable Z-grade horror film in cinema history, Raimi upgraded to glorious, full-fledged B-status with the sequel, which is so cartoony, it makes Looney Tunes look like Holocaust documentaries. Evil Dead II is the perfect marriage of bloody ridiculousness and bloody bloodiness, and Raimi finds his true eye as a filmmaker with this gory gambol through many of the same maneuvers as the first, just better, funnier and more exhilarating in its visual dynamic. As reluctant hero-goof Ash, Bruce Campbell becomes the slapstick wiseass we love so unconditionally now — and you’ll be hard-pressed to determine whether he or Raimi’s supercharged camera is the true star here.

CAST: Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry

RATED: R

Stream EVIL DEAD II on Hulu

DESCRIPTION: Although this is another horror franchise that drifted into a series of sequels which resulted in increasingly lesser returns, there’s no question that the first Hellraiser is the best Hellraiser. Granted, that’s easily attributable to the fact that it was both written and directed by Clive Barker, a master of horror by any estimation. The film introduces all the crucial elements: the world’s deadliest puzzle box, the despicable creatures known as the Cenobites, who struggle to discern the difference between pleasure and pain but enjoy trying to work it out, and their leader, who we’ve lovingly come to call “Pinhead.”

CAST: Andrew Robinson, Clare Higgins, Ashley Laurence, Doug Bradley

RATED: R

Stream HELLRAISER on Hulu

DESCRIPTION: Ah, for the good old days when movies involving hypnotism had moments like, say, a post-hypnotic suggestion that made someone think they were a chicken. In this film, Kevin Bacon plays Tom Witzky, a guy who can’t be bothered to believe in the supernatural…until, that is, he’s put into a hypnotic trance by his sister-in-law and suddenly finds himself with both a psychic connection with his son and –  more importantly – a recurring tendency to see visions of his missing teenage neighbor, which convinces him that he can find the girl. Better than The Sixth Sense? It just might be.

CAST: Kevin Bacon, Kathryn Erbe, Ileana Douglas, Zachary David Cope

RATED: R

Stream STIR OF ECHOES on Hulu

DESCRIPTION: Whether or not the words “written and directed by Rob Zombie” are a mark of quality is unquestionably a matter of personal option, but this film absolutely confirms that, from the very beginning of his career as a writer-director, he’s a man who loves horror and gives his fans exactly what they want. Taking his inspiration from such ’70s gorefests as The Hills Have Eyes and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (and borrowing names from Groucho Marx characters), Zombie creates a grotesque world filled with serial killers, dysfunctional family dynamics, surreal roadside attractions, and oh so much blood. Good times!

CAST: Chad Bannon, William Bassett, Karen Black, Walton Goggins

RATED: R

Stream HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES on Hulu

DESCRIPTION: Much as Godzilla was created by the radiation from the atomic bomb, the creature in The Host comes into existence as a result of another American military action, in this case a military pathologist ordering the dumping of 200 bottles of formaldehyde into South Korea’s Han River. Over the course of the next half-dozen years, it slowly becomes evident that there’s a creature in the water, and it’s not happy. Directed by Bong Joon-ho, who co-wrote the screenplay with Baek Chul-hyun, this is arguably one of the best giant monster movies ever, and it’s filled with plenty of solid scares.

CAST: Kang-ho Song, Hee-Bong Byun, Hae-il Park, Doona Bae

RATED: R

Stream THE HOST on Hulu

DESCRIPTION: Released right before Twilight and True Blood led to full-fledged vampire fever in the US, this Swedish film is nonetheless right in the same wheelhouse as those two pop culture phenomena, although it throws in a left turn by focusing on the evolution of a friendship between a 12-year-old boy named Oskar and a female vampire named Eli. Although it was inevitably remade by Hollywood in order to bring the story to a larger global audience, with the resulting film, Let Me In, being a better-than-average adaptation, when given the choice, you should definitely stick with the original.

CAST: Kare Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar

RATED: R

Stream LET THE RIGHT ONE IN on Hulu

DESCRIPTION: Directed by Drew Goddard and co-written by Goddard and Joss Whedon, who’d bonded during their years of collaborating on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, this film takes the classic horror trope of college kids spending the weekend in a cabin in the woods and turns it on its ear by revealing that the titular cabin sits atop an underground laboratory where scientists perform pharmaceutical experiments on the kids and monitor their behavioral responses to such things as zombies, werewolves, and the like. It’s a clever concept delivered with humor, drama, and many moments to make you jump.

CAST: Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Richard Jenkins

RATED: R

Stream THE CABIN IN THE WOODS on Hulu

DESCRIPTION: While The Blair Witch Project might’ve kickstarted the whole found-footage genre of horror flicks, this is the franchise that’s proven to be the most successful from that realm. Not every sequel has been great, mind you, but this one, which is set in 1988 and focuses on the younger version of Katie, the character from the original film, gives the fans the back story they demanded, revealing how Katie first came in contact with the demon that terrorized her and her husband in the original film. If you see only one Paranormal Activity sequel, this is the one to see.

CAST: Lauren Bittner, Christopher Nicholas Smith, Chloe Csengery, Hallie Foote

RATED: R

Stream PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 on Hulu

DESCRIPTION: Finding the middle ground between comedy and horror is a tightrope that far too many filmmakers fail to traverse successfully, but Tyler McIntyre and Chris Lee Hill manage to pull it off with Tragedy Girls, which McIntyre also directed. Brianna Hildebrand and Alexandra Shipp play Sadie and McKayla, besties who decide to kick their social media following up a few notches by – how else? – becoming amateur crime reporters and finding the serial killer terrorizing their town. Once they find and capture him, however, they decide that the best way to keep getting scoops is to kill people themselves. Seems reasonable.

CAST: Brianna Hildebrand, Alexandra Shipp, Jack Quaid, Kevin Durand

RATED: R

Stream TRAGEDY GIRLS on Hulu

DESCRIPTION: While not a horror anthology in the traditional sense, there’s little question that co-writers/co-directors Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson were inspired by the sorts of films that Hammer and Amicus Studios used to release in ’60s and ’70s. Nyman plays Phillip Goodman, a professor who’s found fame hosting a TV show that debunks fake psychics and paranormal events. After receiving an invitation from the paranormal investigator who inspired him, Goodman embarks on an investigation of three supposedly real supernatural events, but while he believes he’s explained them all away, he soon finds himself beginning to question his judgement.

CAST: Andy Nyman, Martin Freeman, Paul Whitehouse, Alex Lawther

RATED: Not rated

Stream GHOST STORIES on Hulu

DESCRIPTION: Nicolas Cage is an actor who, no matter how bad a film may be, always manages to make an impression with his performance. Unfortunately, he’s proven it way too many times, but this is an example of Cage giving it his all in the midst of a legitimately great film, one which utilizes him perfectly. Cage and Selma Blair are parents with a teenage daughter and a younger son, but bad news, kids: when every radio and TV screen in the world suddenly begins broadcasting a strange static, it causes anyone who’s a parent to want to kill their children.

CAST: Nicolas Cage, Selma Blair, Anne Winters, Zackary Arthur

RATED: R

Stream MOM AND DAD on Hulu

DESCRIPTION: You know the urban legend about kids flushing baby alligators down the toilet, only for them to grow absurdly large in the sewers? Well, this has nothing to do with that. We’re looking at a case of a Category 5 Hurricane so badly flooding a Florida town that Dave (Barry Pepper) gets caught in the crawl space of his family home with some nasty alligators who came in through the storm drain, leaving his daughter Haley (Kaya Scoledario) to have to work out a way to save her father both from alligators and from drowning. It’s action-packed and scary, too.

CAST: Kaya Scodelario, Barry Pepper, Morfydd Clark, Ross Anderson

RATED: R

Stream CRAWL on Hulu

DESCRIPTION: When you’re a kid and your dad gets a new girlfriend, it’s always going to be a little traumatic. But Aidan and Mia have it really bad: they’re on a trip with their father and his new girlfriend, Grace, when he has to run back to work, leaving the kids and Grace in the lodge, where they’re soon trapped by a blizzard. Before the power goes out, the kids discover that Grace was the only survivor of a suicide cult, and when someone steals all of their stuff, leaving Grace without any of her anti-anxiety medication, it’s…not good. For anyone.

CAST: Riley Keough, Jaeden Martell, Richard Armitage, Alicia Silverstone

RATED: R

Stream THE LODGE on Hulu

DESCRIPTION: Cleanse your palate of all the guts and dread with the antics of a loveable li’l monkey who stalks and slays his innocent prey with exquisitely honed cuteness. This sweet, hourlong special — spun off the Curious George PBS TV series — puts us right inside the jack o’lantern as George crouches, cursing the light, waiting for the perfect moment to spring upon his unsuspecting victims and send them spiraling, down, down into the inky blackness, which turns deep crimson before everything goes blank. Fun for the whole family!

CAST: Frank Welker, Jeff Bennett

RATED: Not rated

Will Harris (@NonStopPop) has a longstanding history of doing long-form interviews with random pop culture figures for the A.V. Club, Vulture, and a variety of other outlets, including Variety. He’s currently working on a book with David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker. (And don’t call him Shirley.)

Stream CURIOUS GEORGE: A HALLOWEEN BOO FEST on Hulu