Best Horror Movies on Hulu (May 2023)

Collected here are the best horror movies on Hulu. This list is designed to keep you informed about the best horror the streaming platform has to offer in 2023.

Identity (2003), a twisty take on an Agatha Christie murder mystery, is now streaming on Hulu.

Hulu is one of the world’s leading streaming platforms. Like all platforms, Hulu’s collection of thousands of TV shows and movies rotates from month to month. With that in mind, this list is maintained to always guide you to the best horror movies Hulu has to offer.

Table of Contents

In 2019, Hulu began streaming its own original movies, starting with the horror comedy Little Monsters (2019). Since then, Hulu has shown a strong dedication to horror and thriller. Additionally, Hulu worked with Blumhouse between 2018 and 2021 to produce 24 television movies under the collective title of Into the Dark. The first section of this article lists the best ten of these Hulu-exclusive films.

Hulu also licenses movies from other providers. The second section in this article collects the best licensed films. The list is updated regularly to ensure each movie is still available to watch.

Top Ten Hulu Original Horror Movies

Flesh & Blood (2018)

Flesh & Blood (2018).
Flesh & Blood is the second installment of the first season of Hulu’s Into the Dark series.

Flesh & Blood is a tense thriller about a teenage girl, Kimberly (Diana Silver), who becomes increasingly scared of her own father. Kimberly’s mother (Meredith Salinger) was murdered, and since then Kimberly has developed a severe case of agoraphobia. Kimberly has trouble leaving her house, even when she becomes suspicious that her father, Henry (Dermot Mulroney), may be involved in a series of local murders. The mystery of Flesh & Blood is built well and provides great tension for the movie’s big finale.

Pooka! (2018)

Pooka (2018).
Before Pooka!, director Nacho Vigalondo wrote and directed Colossal (2016) starring Anne Hathaway.

Released just in time for Christmas 2018, Pooka! is about Wilson Clowes (Nyasha Hatendi), an unemployed actor who finds a holiday job working as a mascot for the year’s hottest toy, Pooka. Pooka is a weird, animal-like doll that repeats words spoken to it in a nice voice or a naughty voice. Wilson’s job is to don a Pooka suit and help create excitement for the creepy toy, but the nice/naughty duality of the Pooka costume is beginning to cause Wilson to think about doing some very horrible things.

Little Monsters (2019)

Lupita Nyong'o in Little Monsters (2019).
Little Monsters had a limited theatrical run before streaming exclusively on Hulu.

Lupita Nyong’o stars in the horror comedy Little Monsters as a kindergarten teacher trying to keep a group of children safe from a horde of zombies. The majority of the movie takes place on a farm where Miss Caroline’s (Nyong’o) class is taking a field trip, a farm which just so happens to be next to a US Army training facility where testing on the undead is taking place. Little Monsters is a fun zombie comedy with good gore, plenty of music, and a lot of heart.

Down (2019)

Down (2019).
The director of Down, Daniel Stamm, also directed the found-footage gem The Last Exorcism (2010).

As the Valentine’s Day 2019 episode of the Into the Dark series, Down tells a story of creepy obsession and a fight for survival. Jennifer (Natalie Martinez) is headed home after working late the night before Valentine’s Day, but she gets stuck in an elevator in her office building. Stuck with her is Guy (Matt Lauria), a seemingly nice guy who works on another floor of the building. With everyone else gone for the weekend and no help coming, Jennifer and Guy are forced to make the best of the situation. Something isn’t as it seems though, and the inconvenience of being stuck in an elevator becomes a life-altering ordeal for both of the elevator’s occupants.

Good Boy (2020)

Good Boy (2020).
Reuben the Dog’s real name is Chico. Good Boy was Chico’s third feature film, and his first horror movie.

Inspired by Pet Appreciation Week, Good Boy is possibly the cutest installment of Hulu’s Into the Dark series. The great Judy Greer plays Maggie, a journalist struggling mightily with her professional and personal lives. At the suggestion of her boss Don (Steve Guttenberg), Maggie adopts a dog as an emotional support animal. Maggie adopts Reuben, and her life starts to turn around. Not coincidentally, people who are mean to Maggie start winding up dead after Reuben enters her life.

Run (2020)

Sarah Paulson in Run (2020).
Run director and cowriter Aneesh Chaganty and cowriter Sev Ohanian also made the stellar screenlife movie Searching (2018).

Sarah Paulson leads the gripping psychological thriller Run as a mother who has some serious trouble letting go. Seventeen-year-old Chloe (Kiera Allen) is confined to a wheelchair and has been homeschooled her whole life, but she is now at the age when she’s looking forward to moving away to college. As Chloe awaits an acceptance letter, her mother Diane (Paulson) begins to act even more strange than usual. Chloe feels that something is wrong, and her investigation leads to some harsh truths.

Blood Moon (2021)

Blood Moon (2021).
Blood Moon is the final episode of the second season of Into the Dark.

Blood Moon takes a werewolf format and turns it into a dramatic and tense story about a mother and her son. Esme (Megalyn Echikunwoke) moves to a small town with her young son Luna (Yonas Kibreab), and it’s clear from the start that they are on the run. Esme is protecting her son from something, but at the same time she is also protecting other people from her son. As the movie plays out, viewers witness the impossible situation Esme is forced to navigate as the local townsfolk begin to get closer to revealing Luna’s dangerous secret.

Fresh (2022)

Fresh (2022).
Fresh costars Daisy Edgar-Jones and Sebastian Stan.

Fresh is a new and, yes, fresh take on cannibal horror movies. Noa is fed up with dating, but when she meets Steve in a random encounter in a supermarket, his charm wins her over. Noa and Steve begin a relationship that escalates quickly, but on a their first trip out of town together, Noa finds out too late that Steve isn’t who he says he is. Fresh is dark and charming in equal amounts, and it is one of the best horror movies of 2022.

Prey (2022)

Prey (2022)
Amber Midthunder stars as Naru, a Comanche woman who faces off against a Predator in the year 1719.

Directed by Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane, 2016), Prey is the fifth installment of the long-running Predator series. Set hundreds of years before any other film in the franchise, the movie is about a young, female Comanche healer, Naru, who wishes to prove herself as a warrior. When a Predator arrives from space, Naru becomes her people’s best hope for defeating the alien hunter.

Hellraiser (2022)

Hellraiser (2022)
This reimagining of Clive Barker’s novella The Hellbound Heart (1986) stars Jamie Clayton as a new, androgynous incarnation of the Hell Priest (aka Pinhead).

Filled with creepy new Cenobite designs and some grand cosmic-horror visuals, director David Bruckner’s Hellraiser is a good modern version of Clive Barker’s original idea. The movie stars Odessa A’zion as Riley McKendry, a recovering drug addict who comes into possession of a strange and beautiful puzzle box. Riley is then thrust into a terrifying struggle not just for her own soul, but for the souls of her friends and family as the mysteries of the puzzle box reveal themselves.

Best Licensed Horror Movies on Hulu

The Exorcist III (1990)

The Exorcist 3 (1990)
The Exorcist III is the scariest movie currently on Hulu.

Set fifteen years after the original movie, The Exorcist III follows Lt. Kinderman (George C. Scott) as he investigates a series of killings tied to the Gemini Killer (Brad Dourif), a murderer who was executed years earlier. The killer may be in possession of one of Kinderman’s old friends, Damien Karras (Jason Miller), one of the priests who took part in the possession of Regan MacNeil and who is currently incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital.

Identity (2003)

Identity (2003)
John Cusack (center) leads an ensemble cast that also includes Amanda Peet, Alfred Molina, Clea DuVall, John C. McGinley, Jake Busey, Rebecca De Mornay, John Hawkes, and Ray Liotta.

Identity is a fantastic murder mystery with a psychological-thriller twist. A group of strangers are stranded at a rundown motel during a rainstorm. As the night progresses, the group’s number dwindles as more and more people are found dead. Secrets are slowly uncovered as they try to determine who the killer is among them, but the truth is something that none of them were prepared for.

I Saw the Devil (2010)

I Saw the Devil (2010)
I Saw the Devil stars Lee Byung-hun (pictured left) and Choi Min-sik (who also starred in the hit revenge film Oldboy, 2003).

I Saw the Devil is one of South Korea‘s most intense and scary crime thrillers. Directed by Kim Jee-woon (A Tale of Two Sisters), the movie follows a government agent who seeks revenge on the serial killer who murdered his fiancée. As the agent gets closer to his target, it becomes clear that he doesn’t just want to stop the killer, he wants to make him suffer. Bloody, violent, and filled with uncomfortable themes, I Saw the Devil is a movie that can’t easily be forgotten once you’ve seen it.

Black Swan (2010)

Natalie Portman as the title character in Black Swan (2010).
Writer and director Darren Aronofsky considers The Wrestler (2008) to be a companion piece to Black Swan (2010).

One of the very best horror/thrillers of the 2010s, Black Swan is a masterpiece. Natalie Portman stars as a young ballerina named Nina who wants nothing more than to be the lead performer in a production of Swan Lake. She pushes herself, but she is also pushed even harder by the production’s director, played by Vincent Cassel, and by her mother, played by Barbara Hershey. Pushing herself to the brink of exhaustion and madness, the arrival of a rival for her role (Mila Kunis) may finally push Nina over the edge.

The Last Exorcism (2010)

The Last Exorcism (2010)
The director of The Last Exorcism, Daniel Stamm, also directed Prey for the Devil (2022).

The Last Exorcism takes a well-worn format and subgenre of horror, found footage and possession, and turns them into something entirely entertaining. Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian) is a reverend who has lost his faith. In an effort to expose what he sees as the fraudulent practice of church-sanctioned exorcism, Marcus documents his theatrical tricks during an exorcism performed on a young woman. But this is no ordinary exorcism, and it might cause Marcus to be a God-fearing man once again. The Last Exorcism is one of the best found footage movies of its era.

Annabelle (2014)

Annabelle (2014)
Annabelle was the second movie released in The Conjuring universe, but chronologically it takes place before The Conjuring (2013).

Annabelle (2014) might not be the best movie featuring the titular haunted doll, but it is still a fun horror flick that is essential viewing for fans of The Conjuring films. The creepy doll called Annabelle was first seen in The Conjuring, and the movie Annabelle tells a prequel story of the doll when it was involved in a demonic plot to steal a soul from a married couple with a newborn baby. Don’t worry if you can’t remember all the details about Annabelle’s origins though, Annabelle works well as a standalone experience.

The Night House (2020)

Rebecca Hall in The Night House (2020)
Rebecca Hall stars as a grieving widow tryin to figure out the mystery of her husband’s death in The Night House.

From director David Bruckner, the director of the 2022 Hellraiser reboot, The Night House is a chilling movie that combines mystery, the supernatural, psychological horror, and architecture. After Beth’s husband commits suicide, Beth is left alone to pick up the pieces of her life. Beth begins to feel a presence in the house she and her husband shared, and her investigation into what might have caused him to leave her leads Beth to some startling discoveries.

Possessor (2020)

Possessor (2020).
Possessor is directed by David Cronenberg’s son, Brandon Cronenberg.

Possessor is a hitman movie as told through the lens of science fiction and psychological horror. Andrea Riseborough stars as Tasya Vos, an assassin her performs her jobs by transferring her mind into the bodies of unwilling hosts. After completing her missions, she returns to her own body by having her host commit suicide. One day, a hit goes wrong and Tasya finds herself stuck vying for control of a host (played by Christopher Abbot) whose mind won’t be suppressed. Sean Bean and Jennifer Jason Leigh also star in this wonderfully inventive film, the second feature from Brandon Cronenberg.

Underwater (2020)

Underwater (2020)
Underwater features a superb cast including Kristen Stewart (pictured), Vincent Cassel, Jessica Henwick, John Gallagher Jr., Mamoudou Athie, and TJ Miller.

Reminiscent of the underwater horror movies of the late 1980s and early 1990s, Underwater is a fantastic monster movie set on the ocean floor. Kristen Stewart is Norah Price, a survivor of an ongoing disaster in an underwater mining facility. The structures are collapsing in on themselves, and Norah, along with a small group of fellow survivors, must venture out into the inky blackness of the sea to try to reach the only workable escape pods. Unfortunately for them, something monstrous is lurking in the water.

Censor (2021)

Censor (2021).
Censor is the first feature film from director Prano Bailey-Bond.

Set in 1985, Censor is a great psychological horror movies set during the “Video Nasty” controversy in the United Kingdom. Enid Baines (Niamh Algar) works for the British Board of Film Classification, and she is one of the most strict censors when it comes to making recommendation for cuts and bans for the violent horror movies she screens every day. One day, Enid thinks she sees her sister in one of the videos she watches for work, but her sister has been missing and declared dead since Enid was young. Enid is prompted to investigate, but did she really see her sister, or is all of the on-screen violence she’s been subjected to beginning to mess with her mind?

Titane (2021)

Agathe Rousselle and Vincent Lindon in Titane (2021).
Writer/Director Julia Ducournau says she was inspired by Greek mythology when making Titane, specifically the complex family dynamics of the creation of the Titans and Titanides.

With body horror, mass murder, psychological horror, and family drama, Titane is a difficult movie to categorize. Regardless of genre, it is an amazing movie that goes to places most people won’t expect. The best way to watch Titane for the first time is to go into with very little knowledge of the movie’s major plot points. Without giving anything away, the movie begins by showing viewers a terrible car accident that causes a young girl to have a titanium plate inserted into her skull. She also seems to love cars. The story then follows the girl, Alexia (Agathe Rousselle), as an adult as she finds her place in life.

Hatching (2022)

Hatching (2022)
Hatching is the first feature film from director Hannah Bergholm.

This Finnish horror movie is about a young girl, Tinja (Siiri Solalinna), and her struggles to deal with her overbearing, selfish mother. The mother (Sophia Heikkila) tries to create the image of a perfect family for her followers online, but the pressure she puts on her family causes them each to act out in their own ways. When Tinja finds an egg in the woods, she decides to take it home and raise it as her own, even when the creature that emerges turns out to be some sort of mysterious beast. Beautifully shot and littered with metaphors, Hatching is one of the standout horror films from 2022.

Dashcam (2021)

Annie Hardy in Dashcam (2022)
Dashcam was directed by Rob Savage, director of the supernatural screenlife horror film Host (2020).

Dashcam is a computer screen/found footage film that follows Annie Hardy, a streamer who performs impromptu raps and likes to cause as much chaos as possible. While visiting a friend in London, Annie decides to take a delivery job which has her escorting an old woman to a mysterious location. The woman isn’t as she seems though, and Annie is in for a chaotic night of survival amidst supernatural forces.

New & Upcoming Horror Movies on Hulu

Clock

Added to Hulu April 28, 2023.
Dianna Agron stars in this psychological horror movie as a woman who undergoes a drastic procedure after being pressured by her friends and family to have a child.

Boston Strangler

Added to Hulu March 17, 2023.
Keira Knightley, Chris Cooper, and Carrie Coon star in this true-crime thriller from writer/director Matt Ruskin and producer Ridley Scott.

More Hulu Horror Coming Soon

  • The Boogeyman (Hulu release date TBD, 2023) – Rob Savage (Host, Dashcam) directs this adaptation of the Stephen King story of the same name in this Hulu Original. Now set to open in theaters on June 2, 2023.
  • Dust (Release date TBD) – Sarah Paulson stars in this psychological horror Hulu Original about a mother who must protect her family from a mysterious presence in a dust storm.
  • Nightbitch (Release date TBD) – Based on the novel of the same name by Rachel Yoder, Nightbitch is a Hulu Original starring Amy Adams as a mother who believes she periodically turns into a dog.

More Streaming/Watch Guides

  • New Horror Movies – An up-to-date collection of newly released and upcoming horror movies (and the best trailers), complete with links of where to watch.
  • Best Horror Movies on Netflix – An updated list of the best horror movies currently streaming on Netflix, as well as a list of what is coming soon to the platform.
  • Best Horror TV Shows on Netflix – Ranking the best horror shows on Netflix, along with a list of upcoming titles.
  • The Best Movies on Shudder – The most must-see movies on the horror-centric streaming service Shudder.

Meet The Author

Chris has a degree in film studies at Temple University’s campus in Tokyo, Japan. He is a renowned expert on horror cinema.