Spooky season is right around the corner, which means horror fans are gearing up for their favorite scary movies of the Halloween season. Thankfully there is no shortage of streaming services available to scratch that holiday horror itch. From slasher flicks to zombies to supernatural haunts and everything in between, there’s a streaming service out there for just about every preference imaginable.
However, not all streaming services are created equal. Some require a monthly subscription fee, while others cost nothing but might interrupt your viewing experience via ads, which could jolt a viewer out of their immersive horror movie experience.
Casual viewers of scary movies who only want their horror fix once a year are likely to find what they need on platforms like HBOMax, Peacock, Netflix, and Paramount Plus, which all offer more mainstream, blockbuster horror movies. However, more hardcore horror fans who want to ramp up their regular viewing experience during Halloween will find services like Tubi, Screambox, Shudder, and Crackle more to their liking, given the range of movies and shows on those platforms. At the end of the day, it’s all about personal preference.
Services With Underground and Lesser-Known Preferences
Tubi is a free streaming service that offers many classic slasher flicks and B-movie horror films. There are nearly 500 movies listed under the platforms Horror section, including movies like Creature From the Black Lagoon, Hatchet, The Blob, The Hills Have Eyes, and Frankenstein. Given the number of offerings on Tubi’s platform, it’s a great option to check out for the month of October. There aren’t many mainstream titles available, but there are plenty of lesser-known movies viewers could discover and enjoy while they get their fill of spooks for the season. Plus, free is always a great option.
Crackle is another free streaming platform comparable to Tubi. Much like Tubi, Crackle is made for the B-movie lover. The service offers some mainstream titles but is filled with more cult classics and niche films such as Nosferatu and Dead Snow. The platform’s Horror section consists of about half of the number of movies Tubi offers, but it isn’t lacking in content. Given that it’s free, it's worth checking out for any lover of horror movies.
Screambox is made for more hardcore horror fans and offers around 400 titles for a $4.99 monthly subscription, which seems like a steal considering what the platform provides. Given the service is strictly a horror streaming platform, its genres are broken down into more specific subgenres, which is extremely helpful when trying to figure out the kind of movie a viewer wants to discover. Such subgenres include Found Footage, Brutal & Disturbing, Backwater Butchers, Humorous Horror, and many more. Viewers are likely to find any style of horror movie they’re looking for with Screambox.
Shudder is similar to Screambox in the sense that it’s strictly a streaming service for the horror genre. It’s owned and operated by AMC and offers 500 films for a monthly subscription fee of $5.99. The essential buffet of movies and television shows provided on the platform, including some Shudder originals, makes the monthly fee worth it. The subgenres on the service aren’t as nuanced as Screambox, but the content is there for anyone who wants to dive into horror for the season.
Services With More Mainstream Preferences
HBOMax has a multitude of newer releases sure to satisfy a broader audience, including titles such as Malignant, It, Old, and The Conjuring. There are also well-known franchises available to stream, such as I Know What You Did Last Summer, Underworld, and the Final Destination movies. The platform offers its plans beginning at $9.99 per month with ads. If ads aren’t your thing, then you’ll need to shell out a bit more to enjoy everything the platform has available without interruption during the month of October.
Netflix provides a multitude of original content in the horror genre, including Army of the Dead, Day Shift, Fear Street, and Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. The standard monthly subscription begins at $15.49, which allows for HD streaming, a necessity nowadays. It’s definitely one of the most expensive streaming services out there, but given that it offers original content across an array of genres beyond horror, viewers are unlikely to seek out Netflix specifically for its horror movies. If you already have a Netflix subscription, check out the horror section this season.
Paramount Plus doesn’t immediately come to mind when searching for horror movies, but the platform surprisingly has quite a bit to offer, including the Scream movies, A Quiet Place 1 and 2, and the Paranormal Activity movies, just to name a few. A monthly subscription of $4.99 is required for the service, which is on par with most other smaller streaming services. It provides relatively newer movies and even provides audiences with its theatrical releases sooner than any other platform, which is something the other services can’t necessarily offer.
Peacock offers the cheapest monthly subscription with a current limited-time offer of $1.99 per month but doesn’t have the same kind of content as other streaming services. The Black Phone is currently available, as well as other older movies like Village of the Damned and Army of Darkness, but it’s definitely not a platform with a multitude of scary movies. However, the price point makes it worth checking out this October.
No matter the preference, there’s certainly a plethora of platforms available out there for everyone this Halloween Season.