We’ve put together a guide to some of the best films the service has to offer. The Shudder catalogue is always growing and changing so we’ll keep this updated – head back for the latest additions and new suggestions. (All entries are available in both UK and US unless stated otherwise!)
Absentia (2011)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE US
Antiviral (2012)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE UK Brandon Cronenberg’s directorial debut is good-looking but icky body horror that delves into the world of celebrity obsession. Caleb Landry-Jones stars as a man who works at a clinic specializing in selling celebrity viruses. In this world super-fans can pay to be infected by their idols’ pathogens, making them feel more connected. But warring big businesses want to control the rights to the hottest celeb diseases and a virulent black market has blossomed. Following in his father’s footsteps, Cronenberg’s smart sci-fi horror hybrid is not for the squeamish.
Audition (1999)
Takashi Miike’s horror classic is a weird mix of melodrama, mystery, and excruciating torture as a widowed man fakes a casting call for a made-up movie in an attempt to meet the perfect woman and gets more than he bargained for. Frequently making it to best horror of all time lists, Audition is a beautiful nightmare of needles and piano wire that’s impossible to forget.
The Bay (2012)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE UK Oscar winner Barry Levinson directs this found footage eco-horror charting the spread of a deadly parasite in a small town on the Chesapeake Bay. Constructed from snippets of news reports, police footage, and personal videos it’s a nightmarish portrait of what might really happen to a town during an outbreak, which was praised for its realism. Plot light, FX heavy body horror that’s slickly executed and well worth a look.
Better Watch Out (2016)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE US Another Christmas horror movie, this one much more recent. Olivia DeJonge plays the young babysitter trying to protect her 12-year-old charge Levi Miller when intruders threaten the house. Or at least you’ll think that’s what the film is about for the first 20 minutes at which point the rug gets well and truly pulled. Violent, funny, fresh and with excellent central turns this is a fun horror at any time of the year.
The Beyond (1981)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE US Italian workhorse director Lucio Fulci dabbled in many genres, but was clearly most in his element with horror. His “Gates of Hell” trilogy may be the highwater mark of his career, and the second film, The Beyond, is a gruesome, surreal, Lovecraftian treat about a Louisiana hotel that may be a portal to said nether regions. It doesn’t always make sense, but the movie is a must-see and a Fulci favorite. The second feature from Israeli directors Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado is a black-as-sin super-violent crime horror about a child killer, the cop who wants to bring him down, and the father of the latest victim. Released the same year as Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners, it plays almost like a brutal and occasionally darkly funny companion piece.
Black Christmas (1974)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE US Stone cold classic slasher film where a group of Sorority girls are hassled by a stalker making obscene phone calls during the holiday season. Black Christmas is that rare beast, a stalk n’ slash which turns out to be actually scary, thanks in part to classy central performances from Olivia Hussey and Margot Kidder, and the masterful direction of Bob Clark, who went on to make Porky’s.
Black Rock (2012)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE UK Directed by Katie Aselton from a screenplay written by her husband, mumblecore darling Mark Duplass, Black Rock is a taut tale of former friends on a girls weekend who are hunted by a group of men after a horrible accident. It’s a somewhat generic story elevated by the performances of Aselton herself, Kate Bosworth, and especially Lake Bell who goes full feral in the fight for survival. The Borderlands is a British found footage movie with shades of The Wicker Man and Kill List which focuses on a small church in Devon which appears to be experiencing miracles. Men are sent by the Vatican to investigate and discover strange phenomena which could be related to former pagan worship in the area. The Borderlands is a cut above your average horror movie for it’s great chemistry between the lead, dry sense of humour and an absolutely terrifying ending. Released as Final Prayer in the US.
Buried (2010)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE UK Ryan Reynolds stars in this incredibly tense horror thriller from Rodrigo Cortes. Based entirely around a man (Reynolds) in a coffin with a phone and a lighter trying to work out what’s happened to him and why, it’s almost unbearably claustrophobic at times. Will he be rescued in time to save his life? What the devil is going on? And why are there snakes down his trousers? All is revealed over the course of 95 stressful minutes.
The Changeling (1980)
A classic haunted house ghost story that frequently makes horror best of lists The Changeling sees a bereaved composer move into a creepy mansion that’s been vacant for 12 years. Vacant that is, except for the spirit of a little boy who met an untimely death…
Color Out of Space (2019)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE US The works of legendary horror author H.P. Lovecraft have always been difficult to translate to the screen, since much of his prose is told from inside the crumbling minds of unnamed protagonists who sense — but often never actually see — the evil cosmic presences closing in around them. Director Richard Stanley (Hardware) has an innate sense of what makes Lovecraft work, however, and Color Out of Space — about a family whose farm is infected by a nameless entity that crashes to Earth inside a meteorite — captures much of the otherworldly eeriness of one of the author’s most famous stories. But the movie also stars Nicolas Cage, who does his Nicolas Cage thing and occasionally ends up fighting the material. Read our full review here.
Countess Dracula (1971)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE US Like other Hammer films of the time, Countess Dracula ramps up the blood and sex in an effort to keep up with the changing film marketplace of its era. It’s not one of the studio’s better efforts, but director Peter Sasdy (Taste the Blood of Dracula) lets the period details and Pitt’s unabashed charms do most of the heavy lifting.
Dark Water (2002)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE UK Remember when J-horror was all the rage and you couldn’t move for long-haired, jangly pasty-face ghosts? Dark Water was one of the best of them. Based on a story by Koji Suzuki and directed by Hideo Nakata – the team behind apex J-horror Ringu – it sees a mother and daughter move to an apartment which seems to have haunted water. Creepy but not gimmicky, there’s a family drama at the center of this chiller.
The Exorcist III (1990)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE US We wrote more about how great this movie is right here.
Fade to Black (1980)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE US This 1980 psychological thriller stars Dennis Christopher as a lonely, troubled young man who is obsessed with movies — and begins to kill those he feels have wronged him while dressed as famous cinematic characters. It’s kind of surprising that no one has remade this over the years — the references to other horror movies and self-aware sensibility predate the Scream franchise by 16 years, making this an early example of the kind of post-modern horror that dominated the genre for several years. On top of everything, it’s a witty, crackling yarn with a terrific performance by Christopher (watch also for an early performance by Mickey Rourke as a bullying co-worker).
The Fall of the House of Usher (1960)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE US
From Beyond (1986)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE US The late, great Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator) takes his inspiration from H.P. Lovecraft with this underrated 80s body horror classic. Based on the short story of the same name by iconic author HPL, if you like your movies just super, super gross, this is likely to be a slam dunk. The legendary Re-Animator team are all back together here as Jeffrey Combs and scream queen Barbara Crampton open a gateway to a really unpleasant reality. Expect goo, neon and all that good stuff — plus Dawn of the Dead‘s iconic Ken Foree!
Ginger Snaps (2000)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE US Ahead of its time in many ways, this cult Canadian favorite from director John Fawcett and screenwriter Karen Walton stars Katharine Isabelle and Emily Perkins as death-obsessed teen sisters whose relationship is put to the test when one (Isabelle) turns into a werewolf. Sharply funny and deeply insightful about the bonds of sisterhood, the fearsome power of female sexuality, and the loss of innocence, Ginger Snaps is a film well worth rediscovering.
The Hallow (2015)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE UK
Hellraiser (1987)
Directed by Clive Barker based on his novella The Hellbound Heart, Hellraiser is an infernal body horror featuring S&M demons who’ve found a way out of a dark dimension and want to take you back there. This is the movie which introduced chief Cenobite Pinhead (played by Doug Bradley) – who would return for seven more Hellraiser sequels. But the first is of course, remains the edgiest and the best. Hellbound: Hellraiser II is also available.
The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
Wes Craven’s 1977 cult classic sees an extended family become stranded in the desert when their trailer breaks down and they start to get picked off by cannibals living in the hills. It’s brutally violent but it also has things to say about the nature of violence, as the seemingly civilized Carter family turn feral. The film was remade in 2006 but the original is still the best.
Host (2020)
You thought there were no new movies being made during lockdown? Turns out you were wrong. This utterly ingenious horror was conceived, shot and completely in just 12 weeks during lockdown.
The House Of The Devil (2009)
Ti West’s authentically ‘80s looking homage to ‘Satanic Panic’-era movie making is a very successful slow-burn indie, which sees a young woman take a babysitting job and find herself in grave danger at the hands of her mysterious employers. Comes with a slightly bonkers ending but the attention to detail and great central performance should please genre nuts no end.
It Follows (2014)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE UK A different kind of infection movie. David Robert Mitchell’s breakout horror hit is a terrifying tale of a sexually transmitted ghost – a shape-shifting ghoul that will relentlessly tail its victim at a walking pace until the curse is passed on. Maika Monroe stars as the latest to be tagged, trying to find a way to either pass the curse on or destroy it forever. Deeply spooky, It Follows will stick with you long after the film has ended. Let the Right One In is a beautiful Swedish supernatural romance between a lonely bullied 12-year-old boy and a little girl (in the film) called Eli who looks 12 too, but most definitely isn’t. It’s a tale of companionship and loyalty but also murder and revenge. Delicate and nuanced, this is one of the most interesting vampire movies of recent years.
The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE US The seventh and perhaps most ambitious in Roger Corman’s eight-film Edgar Allan Poe series, The Masque of the Red Death is a surreal, stylized and often stunning amalgam of Bergman-esque arthouse cinema and Gothic horror fever dream. Working again in stark, vibrant colors, Corman gets one of Vincent Price’s most sadistic performances as Prince Prospero, whose vast palace hosts a depraved celebration while a supernatural plague rages outside its walls. Metaphors and macabre imagery are everywhere, and the ending is as bleak as they come. Often considered Corman’s greatest film.
One Cut Of The Dead (2017)
Very much a film of three parts, it starts as what looks like a low budget Japanese zombie film gone wrong, morphs into an interesting meta movie, and ends with a final third that’s more joyful than you could possibly imagine. The fun is in the discovery so try to avoid reading about this, instead hang around until the end for a clever, funny, and uplifting love letter to indie film-making.
The Pact (2012)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE UK Caity Lotz plays a young woman who returns to her childhood home after the death of her mother and disappearance of her sister who starts to experience strange phenomena in the house. Is it something supernatural, or could it be something scarier still? Not entirely consistent but when it works it really works.
Patrick (1978)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE US This 1978 Australian shocker tells the story of a woman named Kathy (Susan Penhaligon), who works as a nurse and begins taking care of a comatose patient named Patrick (Robert Thompson). She soon discovers that not only is Patrick responsive to her, but he has unforeseen psychic powers that he can turn to murderous use against anyone who upsets him. Patrick was a cult hit in its native land, spawning both a 1980 sequel and a 2013 remake, and it allowed its director, Richard Franklin, to get to Hollywood and direct the actually pretty good Psycho II. There is quite a large repository of horror and other genre efforts from the land down under, but Patrick remains one of its most entertaining examples.
Ring (1998)
Hideo Nakata’s adaptation of Koji Suzuki’s novel is one seriously scary film which marked the height of the J-horror explosion into the West. It features a haunted video tape, which, seven days after you’ve watched it causes the viewer to die with a look of contorted agony on their face.
Society (1989)
This outrageous body horror satire was the directorial debut of Brian Yuzna. It stars Billy Warlock as a young man who suspects his family are into some weird stuff when his sister’s ex gives him a video tape showing seriously sinister activity. Part Stepford Wives-esque mystery part utterly bonkers gross out comedy Society is a cult classic which demands at least one watch.
Spiral (2020)
Marketed as a gay-themed response to Get Out (and not to be confused with next year’s Saw spin-off using the same title), this Shudder original finds same-sex couple Aaron (Ari Cohen) and Malik (Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman) moving from the big city to rural Illinois along with Aaron’s teen daughter (Jennifer LaPorte) from his previous marriage. Once there, the family encounters not just plain old homophobia (the film is set in the mid-1990s) but other secrets hidden beneath the peaceful small-town veneer. Bowyer-Chapman gives a strong central performance as Malik, a struggling writer who is the first to sense that all is not right, but your mileage may vary regarding the fairly obvious set-up and whether the social commentary is woven as successfully here as it was in Jordan Peele’s groundbreaking thriller.
Starry Eyes (2014)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE US This satanic horror takes a swipe at Hollywood as a nervous young starlet, Alex Essoe, sacrifices her body and soul in exchange for fame and fortune. Starry Eyes is a #metoo movie ahead of its time, and a gross out body horror to boot. It’s directed by Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer who went on to make the not-that-great remake of Pet Sematary from last year, but don’t hold that against them.
A Tale Of Two Sisters (2003)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE US Kim Jee-woon’s chiller sees sisters return to the family home after a spell in hospital to be tormented by their new stepmother, and troubled by ghosts in the house. Released at the peak of the J-horror/K-horror boom, this is a highly sophisticated and deeply scary addition sub-genre. It was remade in 2009 as The Uninvited but skip that, the original is infinitely superior.
Terrified (2017)
A weird Argentinian horror with some extremely effective scares, Terrified is probably best avoided by anyone shut in alone prone to hearing strange noises in the house. Terrified begins with a couple who hear sounds coming from the sink and rapidly escalates into a story of multiple ‘hauntings’ by otherworldly creatures, and the paranormal investigators who are trying to crack the case. Non-linear and not exactly packed with logic or explanations, what Terrified does have is scares in spades.
Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)
A cyberpunk hybrid of Eraserhead, Blade Runner, Scanners, and your worst nightmares about machines run amok, Tetsuo: The Iron Man was the first feature by iconoclastic Japanese filmmaker Shinya Tsukamoto (who also stars in the picture). Surreal, shockingly violent, and unforgettably relentless, Tetsuo is a fever dream of orgasmic human/metal mating and murder that is almost indescribable and utterly strange. You can’t unsee this perverse triumph of twisted imagination.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE US One of the true landmarks of ’70s horror cinema, Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre remains one of the most relentless and terrifying films of all time — even as it barely spills a drop of the blood that its title seems to promise. Its simple tale of a small group of hippie kids running smack into a houseful of rural cannibals spoke to the cultural divide roiling the country at the time, and its low-budget aesthetic gave the whole thing an air of documentary realism. A delirious masterpiece.
Theater of Blood (1973)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE US Vincent Price reportedly considered this a favorite of his many movies. The legendary horror icon plays Edward Lionheart, a Shakespearean actor who begins knocking off the members of a critics circle because they never gave him good reviews. Each of the deaths is taken from one of Shakespeare’s plays, proving that the Bard was as much of a gorehound as the rest of us. Price relishes every hammy moment onscreen and is ably supported by the great Diana Rigg as his daughter and a roundtable of British character actors as the critics. Hopefully no real actor has ever gotten any ideas from this gruesome romp.
Them (2006)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE US Them (also known as Ils) is a French-Romanian film in which a couple living in a remote country house are attacked by a band of mysterious assailants, only to discover the surprising truth about their attackers (we won’t spoil it here even though the movie is 14 years old). Allegedly based on true events, this effort from directors David Moreau and Xavier Palud is tight, suspenseful and almost unbearably tense from start to finish. Them is often considered as part of the wave of brutal French horror films that emerged in the mid-2000s, which included High Tension (2003), Inside (2007) and Martyrs (2008).
Tigers Are Not Afraid (2017)
Issa Lopez’s horror fairytale is also set against a background of violence, this time in the Mexican drug cartels. We follow Estrella, a recently orphaned ten year old, who joins up with a group of orphaned kids. Estrella believes she has three wishes, but in her world wishes don’t often come true as planned. Similar in tone to Pan’s Labyrinth, Tigers Are Not Afraid is a beautiful, lyrical fantasy, rich in imagination, juxtaposed against horrific real world events
Train to Busan (2016)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE US Just when you thought the zombie genre was running out of gas, Train to Busan comes barreling down the track at full speed to give it a jolt again. Director Yeon Sang-ho wisely puts an endearing relationship between a father and his little girl at the heart of the movie, keeping audiences invested as the pair fight to stave off an undead invasion on their bullet train. The zombie action is familiar if also freshly orchestrated, but the movie is gripping to the genuinely moving finish.
The Transfiguration (2016)
Loved Let the Right One In? Check out this similarly arthouse slow-burn vampire-adjacent tale about a troubled teenage boy obsessed with vampires who finds love and redemption through his relationship with an equally damaged girl. It’s set against a backdrop of violent crime in New York and plays like a social realist drama with genre tropes built in.
The Vampire Lovers (1970)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE US After literally decades in which the classic Hammer Films library of horror titles was often difficult to see (especially in uncut, properly framed prints), the legendary studio’s catalog has been gradually trickling out in recent years via specialty home video companies and the streaming space. The Vampire Lovers — based on a story by Sheridan Le Fanu — was one of the films that marked Hammer’s turn from the somewhat staid films of the 1960s toward the more lurid material of the ‘70s, spiced up with more sex (especially of the woman-on-woman kind) and larger quantities of blood. Polish actress Ingrid Pitt gives a breakout performance as the vampire Carmilla and the movie is entertaining, but one can’t help but cringe at the leering approach to sexuality, no matter how beautiful the subjects.
Wake in Fright (1971)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE US Ted Kotcheff’s nightmarish story of a school teacher who becomes trapped in an outback town after drinking too much and running up a gambling debt is highly unusual horror. This is a nihilistic and bleak view of outback life as the locals coerce the broke John (Gary Bond) into increasing destructive behavior and a full on descent into hell. Wake In Fright is grubby, brilliant and highly disturbing.
We Are What We Are (2013)
ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE US This US remake of the Mexican horror of the same name is a slightly different beast to its counterpart, and perhaps better for it (you can watch and enjoy both for different reasons). Cold In July’s Jim Mickle directs this suspenseful, bloody tale of a secluded family who indulge in violent traditions who become more visible to the world than they’d like after the matriarch of the family dies. Ambyr Childers and Julia Garner (Ozark) star in this nuanced cannibal tale.
Wendigo (2001)
Maverick independent producer/director/actor Larry Fessenden – who runs his own low-budget genre film factory called Glass Eye Pix – had perhaps his finest moment behind the camera on his third directorial effort, an eerie, low-key tale of a family from the city running into menaces both human and supernatural during a trip to the country. Fessenden is adept at blurring the line between what is real and not, creating a hallucinatory experience that is uniquely his own.
The Witch in the Window (2018)
A creepy ghost story which sees a father and his estranged son attempt to fix up an old farmhouse which is haunted by its previous occupant, a malevolent spirit who only grows stronger as the house gets repaired. A family story with successful scares, The Witch in the Window could be a good pick for anyone craving an old fashioned chiller.
