Best Horror Movies on Shudder Right Now (February 2024)

Shudder is a gift from the unholy horror gods. Where once upon a time fans of the ghoulish and ghastly had to trade tapes with fellow horror-lovers, Shudder is a well-stocked collection of scary stories that span decades and genres. The classics. Slashers. Haunted houses. Creature features. Demonic possession. You name it, Shudder’s got it, and the only problem with having such a large, genre-specific selection to choose from is the fact that…you do eventually have to make a decision on what to watch. To give you a hand with choosing the right fright for your night, we’re providing a list of the best movies on Shudder right now.

Didn’t find what you’re looking for? Check out our list of best horror movies on Netflix, Hulu, HBO, or Prime Video!

Disclaimer: These titles are available on US Shudder

V/H/S/85

Rotten Tomatoes: 74% | IMDb: 5.6/10

As the sixth installment in the highly-acclaimed found-footage horror franchise, V/H/S/85 takes viewers to the 80s, this time with an anthology of horror stories directed by the likes of David Bruckner, Natasha Kermani, and Scott Derickson. Shot back-to-back with its predecessor, V/H/S/99, V/H/S/85 follows five different tales, all packaged in the style of a made-for-TV documentary. Just like its forerunners before it, V/H/S/85 crawls under the audience’s skin and chills the bone with its infesting narratives and gruesome visuals. Horror filmmaking at its purest, V/H/S/85 is guaranteed to infiltrate the nightmares of its audience. – Jake Hodges

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Bad Things

Rotten Tomatoes: 53% | IMDb: 3.7/10

Bad Things is written and directed by Stewart Thorndike, who puts her own spin on ​​Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. Changing the perspective of the cabin-fever thriller, Thorndike puts a group of women at the center of the supernatural madness as they travel to a remote hotel inherited by Gayle Rankin’s character Ruthie, but their weekend party gets interrupted as they uncover a dark force that drives people to do bad things. In the same way that The Shining was a medium to explore toxic masculinity and fatherhood, this film investigates motherhood and the trauma that can be passed down through generations of parents. – Tauri Miller

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From Black

Rotten Tomatoes: 36% | IMDb: 5.0/10

Anna Camp (Pitch Perfect) absolutely captivates in From Black, a dark, gripping horror film that strikingly merges a missing person mystery with haunting supernatural elements and an addiction storyline. Surprisingly, the woven-together plots create an exploration of grief, guilt, and gore. From Black presents a remarkably unique story built by an incredibly talented cast that includes Jennifer Lafleur (Big Little Lies) and John Ales (Euphoria) in supporting roles. From Black is the first narrative feature for director Thomas Marchese, who infuses the script written by Jessub Flower and Thomas Marchese with unexpected beauty. – Yael Tygiel

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Skinamarink

Rotten Tomatoes: 72% | IMDb: 4.8/10

Skinamarink is a creepy horror film written and directed by Kyle Edward Ball in his feature directorial debut. An experimental Canadian film, Skinamarink is the nightmarish story of two children who wake up to discover their father has disappeared. As they search their eerie home, more things begin to vanish, including windows and doors. Skinamarink is a feature produced on a shoestring budget and shot in the director’s childhood home with two child actors carrying the film. Yet somehow, it achieves the unexpected. Cinematographer Jamie McRae brilliantly captures the terrifying vibe of Skinamarink, providing a truly frightening immersive viewing experience. – Yael Tygiel

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Blood Relatives

Rotten Tomatoes: 97% | IMDb: 5.5/10

Written, directed, and starring Noah Segan, Blood Relatives is a hilarious horror film. Segan stars as Francis, a Yiddish-speaking vampire who enjoys his solitude until a feisty 15-year-old teen girl, Jane, tracks him down, claiming to be his daughter. Jane, played by Victoria Moroles (Plan B), is exactly what the old curmudgeon needs. Together, they attempt to uncover the truth of their relationship while hoping to discover common ground. An unexpectedly cute and surprisingly clever mashup of scary movie tropes and road trip comedies, Blood Relatives explores the meaning of family through hijinks and bloody adventure. – Yael Tygiel

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Flux Gourmet

Rotten Tomatoes: 85% | IMDb: 5.8/10

Flux Gourmet is truly a bizarre, one-of-a-kind movie from acclaimed British writer/director Peter Strickland. Strickland’s canny eye and compilation of unique talents, including Asa Butterfield (Sex Education) and Gwendoline Christie (The Sandman), is nearly overshadowed by the immense sensory overload that is Flux Gourmet. Wrapped around a story of power struggles and bureaucratic politics and intertwined with artistry and egos, Flux Gourmet is set in an institute for the culinary arts and performances. Strickland’s cacophony blends discomfort, hilarity, and horror – as well as a pinch of gastrointestinal disorders – forming a monstrosity of cinematic originality. – Yael Tygiel

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Watcher

Rotten Tomatoes: 88% | IMDb: 6.3/10

More than the traditional suspenseful horror flick, Watcher follows a young woman who suspects their new neighbor is spying on her and her husband, eventually believing he may also be a serial killer. Starring Maika Monroe and Karl Glusman as Julia and Francis, Watcher is a nail-biting thriller that trades twists and turns for pulse-pounding tension. Monroe’s performance is magnetic, having her transition from a quiet strength to a terrified fierceness within the same scene. Director Chloe Okuna’s unique perspective and stylish eye provide a distinct tone to Watcher, producing a positively gripping psychological thriller. – Yael Tygiel

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What Josiah Saw

Rotten Tomatoes: 91% | IMDb: 6.2/10

What Josiah Saw is a modern American Gothic horror film starring Robert Patrick (Peacemaker) and Nick Stahl (Fear The Walking Dead). Robert Alan Dilts’s intriguing script is directed by Vincent Grashaw, and the two make for a compelling combination, as Grashaw’s use of shadows and suspense brings an unsettling story to life. Although the faces in this film are quite familiar, these performances feel uniquely creepy in ways audiences have not seen from these actors before. What Josiah Saw is a haunting experience for any horror fan. – Yael Tygiel

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A Banquet

Rotten Tomatoes: 57% | IMDb: 4.8/10

A Banquet is a feast for fans of slow-burn horror. The film revolves around Holly (Sienna Guillory), a widowed mother caring for her two daughters, Betsey (Jessica Alexander) and Isabelle (Ruby Stokes). Holly finds herself tested when Betsey proclaims that her body is no longer her own and is instead in service to a higher power – one that makes her stop eating. A psychological nightmare, A Banquet thrives due to its intense mother-daughter dynamics and depicting of a grieving family in crisis. – Taylor Gates

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Superhost

Rotten Tomatoes: 85% | IMDb: 5.5/10

When travel bloggers Claire (Sara Canning) and Teddy (Oscric Chau) have the opportunity to stay at a remote five-star Airbnb with incredible reviews, they jump at the chance. They’ve been losing followers and need something big to revitalize their brand. Teddy sees this as the perfect opportunity to propose to Claire for love and extra views. However, Claire, unaware of Teddy’s plan, decides to exploit their eccentric host Rebecca (Gracie Gillam) for content. During their stay, Rebecca’s behavior becomes more and more unhinged. She shows up unannounced and is way too eager to help them out with every little thing. Claire insists that the “crazy superhost” will make them go viral again, but Teddy isn’t so quick to make a potential enemy out of their host. Superhost is an interesting take on influencer culture that has plenty of tension leading up to the final moments. Is Rebecca just incredibly passionate about her rental business, or is something more sinister going on? – Brynna Arens

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La Llorona

Rotten Tomatoes: 96% | IMDb: 6.6/10

Shudder’s first Oscar nominee, La Llorona, probably isn’t the jump-scare fright fest you’re expecting if you’re thinking about its Conjuring-verse cousin, The Curse of La Llorona. What it is, is a heartrending slow-burn horror that’s as much Gothic tragedy as it is a ghost story. Jayro Bustamente painstakingly unfolds the story of former Guatemalan dictator Enrique (Julio Diaz), confined to his home—along with his long-suffering family—while on trial for genocide. As the sickly war criminal starts to hear the sounds of a weeping woman echo through the halls at night, the screams of protestors batter the windows outside during the day. La Llorona is the type of film where you don’t notice you’ve been holding your breath until the credits roll, and while it does build to a devastating crescendo, the justice served is also deeply cathartic.

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Hell House, LLC

Rotten Tomatoes: 75% | IMDb: 6.4/10

Found footage gets a bad wrap, but a well-crafted entry can still leave you shaking more than the camera. Exhibit A: Hell House, LLC a wickedly clever little horrorshow written and directed by Stephen Cognetti. The film works as a faux-documentary covering a horrific event that happened inside of a Halloween haunted house maze in rural Rockland County, New York. The movie then works backward, showing you how a hopeful crew of young haunted house creatives brought their work to the abandoned Abbadon Hotel, where the scares they’re cooking up can’t compare to the odd phenomena that keeps happening after work hours. Hell House, LLC isn’t free of jump scares—the ones it does employ pack one heck of a punch—but it doesn’t rely on them, instead building the kind of dread that can only come when you know these characters are doomed from the start. Don’t look too hard at the clown in the corner. –Vinnie Mancuso

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Elvira: Mistress of the Dark

Rotten Tomatoes: 56% | IMDb: 6.6/10

Hopefully, Elvira: Mistress of the Dark landing on Shudder means a whole new generation is introduced to a B-movie icon. When the TV horror hostess Elvira (Cassandra Peterson) quits her job in LA, she sets out to small-town Massachusetts to claim the house left by her late great-aunt Morgana (Tress MacNeille). Unfortunately, the uptight residents of Fallwell are simply scandalized by the sudden appearance of a woman who loves horror flicks, deep necklines, and double entendres in equal measure, a situation that devolves into a full-on witch hunt. Gloriously campy, purposely schlocky, and punk rock at its core, Elvira: Mistress of the Dark is about as required viewing as its gets. –Vinnie Mancuso

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Host

Rotten Tomatoes: 99% | IMDb: 6.5/10

Host is the best piece of entertainment filmed during quarantine and it’s not even close. Coming in at a breezy 60 minutes, Rob Savage‘s screen-share spookshow follows a group of friends—played by Haley Bishop, Jemma Moore, Emma Louise Webb, Radina Drandova, Caroline Ward, and Edward Linard—who conduct a seance with medium (Seylan Baxter) over Zoom. Host easily could have come off like a cheap gimmick, but Savage mines incredibly clever scares from the most unexpected places, from weak internet connection to personalized backgrounds to the filters that change a user’s face. It’s a study in the way limitations can help, not hinder filmmaking, as fascinating to watch as it is scary. But, uh, it’s also really, really scary. Doublecheck your WiFi and log on for a chill-filled catch-up sesh with friends. –Vinnie Mancuso

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Ginger Snaps

Rotten Tomatoes: 90% | IMDb: 6.8/10

John Fawcett‘s spin on the werewolf mythos should be considered among the ranks of the modern monster classics, and easily one of the best werewolf movies, but outside horror circles it’s too often forgotten. A coming-of-age tale via lycanthropy, Ginger Snaps tells an intimate story about two death-obsessed, co-dependent sisters who are slowly torn apart when the older girl starts to change after a werewolf attack. Ginger Snaps was one of the early adopters of the 21st-century trend to address female puberty by way of monstrous transformation (see also: Teeth, Wildling, Revenge, among many others), and it does so with great effect, but it’s also a downright well-made horror film. The effects are on point, the characters are relatable and sympathetic (even those like the high school mean girl, the local drug peddler, and the horny teenage boy are treated with a dose of empathy), and the actors all committed in their pulpy roles. Ginger Snaps puts a clever spin on a lot of themes — sexuality, sisterhood, loneliness, outsider pride and the desire to belong — and in doing so, it puts a fresh spin on one of horror’s most long-standing genres. —Haleigh Foutch

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One Cut of the Dead

Rotten Tomatoes: 100% | IMDb: 7.6/10

The crazy thing about One Cut of the Dead is that you will be wondering why everyone keeps telling you to watch this movie for, say, 25 minutes or so. Writer/director Shin’ichirô Ueda‘s horror-comedy starts off as a zombie flick with an interesting premise—a crew filming a zombie movie gets trapped in what appears to be an actual zombie outbreak—with the added twist of being one unbroken shot. It’s fun, it’s gory, and it’s perfectly fine…and then One Cut of the Dead turns completely on a dime and becomes the best zombie-comedy since Shaun of the Dead. The pay-off of this movie is absurdly, gut-bustlingly worth the wait and builds to one of the satisfying final stretches you could imagine. Don’t search for spoilers or a synopsis, just hit play. — Vinnie Mancuso

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Mandy

Rotten Tomatoes: 91% | IMDb: 6.5/10

Some movies are hard to sell, and sometimes I can just tell you that Nicolas Cage snorts a mountain of cocaine and gets into an ax battle with biker demons. Panos Cosmatos‘ dreamy, delirious revenge tale Mandy is one hell of a trip, filmed with a sense of color and sound that feels like H.P. Lovecraft went to Burning Man. Cage plays Red, a logger who lives in idyllic bliss with his artist girlfriend, Mandy (Andrea Riseborough, wide-eyed and fantastic). Unfortunately, Mandy catches the eye of Jeremiah Sand, a far-out cult leader who then commits an act so atrocious that Red has to battle hell itself to get payback. A lot can be said for the weirder bits of Mandy—and Mandy does get weird—but the first half of this film is a surprisingly powerful mediation on love and loss, featuring a much-memed bathroom freakout that is the most primal-scram performance of Cage’s career. –Vinnie Mancuso

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Tigers Are Not Afraid

Rotten Tomatoes: 97% | IMDb: 6.9/10

Issa López‘s dazzling dark fairy tale Tigers Are Not Afraid wowed festival audiences for years before landing on Shudder, and I’m stoked to report that the hype is very, very real. Set on the streets of a Mexico ravaged by the human trafficking ring known as the Huascas, Tigers revolves around two orphans, Estrella (Paola Lara) and Shine (Juan Ramón López), on the run from the Cartel that murdered their parents. Luckily, Estrella appears to possess three magic wishes, which usually arrive in this dark reality with bloody results. As beautiful as it is terrifying, López’s haunting story floats with the same kind of black magic you’ll find in Guillermo del Toro‘s early films like The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth. But don’t just take my word for it. Del Toro himself called Tigers Are Not Afraid an « unsparing blend of fantasy and brutality, innocence and evil. Innovative, compassionate, and mesmerizing. »

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Color Out of Space

Rotten Tomatoes: 86% | IMDb: 6.2/10

Looking for a chill, slow-burn watch? Search elsewhere, my friend. Looking to lose your entire goddamn mind? Let me introduce you to Color Out of Space. An adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story from madman director Richard Stanley, Color Out of Space follows a completely normal Garnder family living on their completely normal alpaca farm—father Nathan (Nicolas Cage), mother Theresa (Joely Richardson), daughter Lavinia (Madeleine Arthur), son Benny (Brendan Mayer), and youngest Jack (Julian Hilliard)—when a glowing orb crash-lands on their lawn from the cosmos. What follows is a technicolored descent into madness, as the ball of light transforms the Gardners both in mind and (grotesquely) in body. Come for a classic late-era Nicolas Cage freakout that echoes Vampire’s Kiss, stay for the truly disturbing body horror with shades of The Thing and Society. High praise indeed in the nausea genre. –Vinnie Mancuso

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Blood Quantum

Rotten Tomatoes: 90% | IMDb: 5.6/10

We’ve reached the point where it’s almost impossible to find a fresh take on zombies, quite literally the least fresh monster in horror history. Whelp, director Jeff Barnaby has pulled off quite the feat with Blood Quantum, a brain-chomping ripper set within the indigenous Mi’gmaq tribe of Northern Quebec. Barnaby is clearly having a blast here—this movie starts with zombie fish. Zombie fish!—but as established by the GOAT George Romero, zombies are also an unexpectedly perfect avenue to discuss social issues. Blood Quantum really balances the gore with a symbolic undertone that hits on several levels; it’s hard not to feel that heat when you’re watching indigenous people fight off hordes of white invaders hungry for their flesh. A striking film that breathes new life into the undead. –Vinnie Mancuso

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