The Best Horror Movies To Stream During A Global Pandemic For Free

If you are like most of the world, your vacation plans, work plans, school plans, and in general, life plans have been drastically altered. The best thing to do is stock up on toilet paper(seriously, only buy what you need people), grab some drinks, and hunker down while we all wait this out. Luckily for horror fans, there are a ton of streaming services with an almost endless supply of good genre entertainment. Everything on this list is available to stream on some service or app. It is either free or free with your monthly fee. Here are the Best Horror Movies To Stream During A Global Pandemic and where to find them.

Slashers and Killers

Incident In A Ghostland

Sixteen years after a traumatic event, a mother and two daughters reunite at the house where it happened. But soon their reunion starts to take a bizarre turn.

Get it on Shudder and read our explained post after.

Get Out

Now that Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) and his girlfriend, Rose (Allison Williams), have reached the meet-the-parents milestone of dating, she invites him for a weekend getaway upstate with Missy and Dean. At first, Chris reads the family’s overly accommodating behavior as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter’s interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he never could have imagined.

Get it on Hulu.

Halloween

Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.

Get it on Shudder

Friday The Thirteenth

Crystal Lake’s history of murder doesn’t deter counselors from setting up a summer camp in the woodsy area. Superstitious locals warn against it, but the fresh-faced young people — Jack (Kevin Bacon), Alice (Adrienne King), Bill (Harry Crosby), Marcie (Jeannine Taylor) and Ned (Mark Nelson) — pay little heed to the old-timers. Then they find themselves stalked by a brutal killer. As they’re slashed, shot and stabbed, the counselors struggle to stay alive against a merciless opponent.

Get it on Shudder.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

When Sally (Marilyn Burns) hears that her grandfather’s grave may have been vandalized, she and her paraplegic brother, Franklin (Paul A. Partain), set out with their friends to investigate. After a detour to their family’s old farmhouse, they discover a group of crazed, murderous outcasts living next door. As the group is attacked one by one by the chainsaw-wielding Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen), who wears a mask of human skin, the survivors must do everything they can to escape.

Get it on Shudder and Tubi.

The Weird Stuff

In The Mouth Of Madness

When horror novelist Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow) goes missing, insurance investigator John Trent (Sam Neill) scrutinizes the claim made by his publisher, Jackson Harglow (Charlton Heston), and endeavors to retrieve a yet-to-be-released manuscript and ascertain the writer’s whereabouts. Accompanied by the novelist’s editor, Linda Styles (Julie Carmen), and disturbed by nightmares from reading Cane’s other novels, Trent makes an eerie nighttime trek to a supernatural town in New Hampshire.

Get it on Shudder.

Mandy

In the Pacific Northwest in 1983, outsiders Red Miller and Mandy Bloom lead a loving and peaceful existence. When their pine-scented haven is savagely destroyed by a cult led by the sadistic Jeremiah Sand, Red is catapulted into a phantasmagoric journey filled with bloody vengeance and laced with deadly fire.

Get it on Shudder.

The Movie Mandy, Abraxus, And All The Weirdness Explained

Yellowbrickroad

An expedition sets out to explore a mysterious forest where the residents of a New Hampshire town all died in 1940.

Get it on Amazon Prime for free.

The Invitation

While attending a dinner party at his former house, a man (Logan Marshall-Green) starts to believe that his ex-wife (Tammy Blanchard) and her new husband (Michiel Huisman) have sinister plans for the guests.

Get it on Netflix

Coherence

Eight friends at a dinner party experience a troubling chain of events due to the malevolent influence of a passing comet.

Get it on Crackle and Vudu for free.

The Hard Stuff

Audition

This disturbing Japanese thriller follows Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi), a widower who decides to start dating again. Aided by a film-producer friend (Jun Kunimura), Aoyama uses auditions for a fake production to function as a dating service. When Aoyama becomes intrigued by the withdrawn, gorgeous Asami (Eihi Shiina), they begin a relationship. However, he begins to realize that Asami isn’t as reserved as she appears to be, leading to gradually increased tension and a harrowing climax.

Get it on Shudder.

The Perfection

A troubled musical prodigy and a new star pupil embark down a sinister path.

Get It On Netflix.

Poughkeepsie Tapes

Hundreds of videotapes of torture, murder, and dismemberment show a killer’s decade-long reign of terror.

Get it on Amazon Prime for free.

Monsters, Witches, And Beasts

Ginger Snaps

The story of two outcast sisters, Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) and Brigitte (Emily Perkins), in the mindless suburban town of Bailey Downs. On the night of Ginger’s first period, she is savagely attacked by a wild creature. Ginger’s wounds miraculously heal but something is not quite right. Now Brigitte must save her sister and save herself.

Get it on Tubi, Shudder, and Vudu for free.

The Witch

In 1630 New England, panic and despair envelop a farmer, his wife, and their children when the youngest son Samuel suddenly vanishes. The family blames Thomasin, the oldest daughter who was watching the boy at the time of his disappearance. With suspicion and paranoia mounting, twin siblings Mercy and Jonas suspect Thomasin of witchcraft, testing the clan’s faith, loyalty, and love to one another.

Get it on Netflix.

The Blair Witch Project

Found video footage tells the tale of three film students (Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, Michael C. Williams) who’ve traveled to a small town to collect documentary footage about the Blair Witch, a legendary local murderer. Over the course of several days, the students interview townspeople and gather clues to support the tale’s veracity. But the project takes a frightening turn when the students lose their way in the woods and begin hearing horrific noises.

Get it on Hulu.

Bird Box

When a mysterious force decimates the population, only one thing is certain — if you see it, you die. The survivors must now avoid coming face to face with an entity that takes the form of their worst fears. Searching for hope and a new beginning, a woman and her children embark on a dangerous journey through the woods and down a river to find the one place that may offer sanctuary. To make it, they’ll have to cover their eyes from the evil that chases them — and complete the trip blindfolded.

Get it on Netflix.

What’s With The Monsters And Birds On Bird Box?

Ghosts And Demons

Terrified

Paranormal researchers investigate strange events in a neighborhood in Buenos Aires.

Get it on Shudder.

Hellraiser

Sexual deviant Frank (Sean Chapman) inadvertently opens a portal to hell when he tinkers with a box he bought while abroad. The act unleashes gruesome beings called Cenobites, who tear Frank’s body apart. When Frank’s brother (Andrew Robinson) and his wife, Julia (Clare Higgins), move into Frank’s old house, they accidentally bring what is left of Frank back to life. Frank then convinces Julia, his one-time lover, to lure men back to the house so he can use their blood to reconstruct himself.

Get it on Tubi and Shudder.

Grave Encounters

The crew of ghost hunting TV show hole up in an abandoned psychiatric hospital hoping to catch some spooks on camera – a scenario that can only ever end badly, and it does.

Get it on Tubi and Vudu for free.

The Others

Grace (Nicole Kidman), the devoutly religious mother of Anne (Alakina Mann) and Nicholas (James Bentley), moves her family to the English coast during World War II. She awaits word on her missing husband while protecting her children from a rare photosensitivity disease that causes the sun to harm them. Anne claims she sees ghosts, Grace initially thinks the new servants are playing tricks but chilling events and visions make her believe something supernatural has occurred.

Get it on Hulu.

The Funny Stuff

One Cut Of The Dead

Things go badly for a hack director and film crew shooting a low budget zombie film in an abandoned WWII Japanese facility when they are attacked by real zombies.

Get it on Shudder.

Shaun Of The Dead

Shaun (Simon Pegg) is a 30-something loser with a dull, easy existence. When he’s not working at the electronics store, he lives with his slovenly best friend, Ed (Nick Frost), in a small flat on the outskirts of London. The only unpredictable element in his life is his girlfriend, Liz (Kate Ashfield), who wishes desperately for Shaun to grow up and be a man. When the town is inexplicably overrun with zombies, Shaun must rise to the occasion and protect both Liz and his mother (Penelope Wilton).

Get it on Hulu.

Lake Placid

When a mysterious creature violently kills a man in a Maine lake, Jack Wells (Bill Pullman), the local game warden, looks into the bizarre case, along with Sheriff Hank Keough (Brendan Gleeson) and visiting paleontologist Kelly Scott (Bridget Fonda). Looking for clues in a tooth that the beast left behind, Kelly and the others eventually locate the monster, a massive and vicious reptile eager to devour anything in its path. Can the crocodile-like creature be stopped?

Get it on Crackle.

The Top 10 Killer Crocodile Movies Of All Time

Tucker and Dale Vs Evil

Two scruffy pals’ (Tyler Labine, Alan Tudyk) backwoods vacation takes a bloody turn when ignorant college students mistake them for a pair of murderous hillbillies.

Get it on Netflix.

Army Of Darkness

Ash is transported back to medieval days, where he is captured by the dreaded Lord Arthur. Aided by the deadly chainsaw that has become his only friend, Ash is sent on a perilous mission to recover the Book of the Dead, a powerful tome that gives its owner the power to summon an army of ghouls.

Get it on Hulu.

Zombieland

After a virus turns most people into zombies, the world’s surviving humans remain locked in an ongoing battle against the hungry undead. Four survivors — Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) and his cohorts Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) — abide by a list of survival rules and zombie-killing strategies as they make their way toward a rumored safe haven in Los Angeles.

Get it on Hulu.

Zombies and Apocolypse

Train To Busan

A man (Gong Yoo), his estranged daughter and other passengers become trapped on a speeding train during a zombie outbreak in South Korea.

Get it on Shudder.

28 Days Later

A group of misguided animal rights activists free a caged chimp infected with the “Rage” virus from a medical research lab. When London bike courier Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up from a coma a month after, he finds his city all but deserted. On the run from the zombie-like victims of the Rage, Jim stumbles upon a group of survivors, including Selena (Naomie Harris) and cab driver Frank (Brendan Gleeson), and joins them on a perilous journey to what he hopes will be safety.

Get it on Hulu.

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers

In Santa Mira, California, Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) is baffled when all his patients come to him with the same complaint: their loved ones seem to have been replaced by emotionless impostors. Despite others’ dismissive denials, Dr. Bennell, his former girlfriend Becky (Dana Wynter) and his friend Jack (King Donovan) soon discover that the patients’ suspicions are true: an alien species of human duplicates, grown from plant-like pods, is taking over the small town.

Get it on Crackle.

Prince Of Darkness

Poking around in a church cellar, a priest (Donald Pleasence) finds an otherworldly vial filled with slime. Frightened, he brings his discovery to a circle of top scholars and scientists, who eventually learn that the strange liquid is the essence of Satan. The slime then begins to seep out, turning some of the academics into zombified killers. As the possessed battle the survivors, student Kelly (Susan Blanchard) is infected by a large quantity of the liquid and becomes Satan personified.

Get it on Hulu and Shudder.

Science Fiction/Horror

Event Horizon

When the Event Horizon, a spacecraft that vanished years earlier, suddenly reappears, a team is dispatched to investigate the ship. Accompanied by the Event Horizon’s creator, William Weir (Sam Neill), the crew of the Lewis and Clark, led by Capt. Miller (Laurence Fishburne), begins to explore the seemingly abandoned vessel. However, it soon becomes evident that something sinister resides in its corridors, and that the horrors that befell the Event Horizon’s previous journey are still present.

Get it on Netflix.

Annihilation

Lena, a biologist, and former soldier joins a mission to uncover what happened to her husband inside Area X — a sinister and mysterious phenomenon that is expanding across the American coastline. Once inside, the expedition discovers a world of mutated landscapes and creatures, as dangerous as it is beautiful, that threatens both their lives and their sanity.

Get it on Hulu and watch Alex Garland’s series Devs on Hulu.

Let’s Talk Annihilation: A Movie Review With Theories

Cloverfield

As a group of New Yorkers (Michael Stahl-David, Mike Vogel, Odette Yustman) enjoy a going-away party, little do they know that they will soon face the most terrifying night of their lives. A creature the size of a skyscraper descends upon the city, leaving death and destruction in its wake. Using a handheld video camera, the friends record their struggle to survive as New York crumbles around them.

Get it on Netflix.

Pitch Black

A deep space transporter crash-lands on a desolate planet circled by three suns. Among the survivors are pilot Carolyn Fry, mystic Abu `Imam’ al-Walid, cop William J Johns and convicted criminal Richard B Riddick, and their first thoughts are of survival and escape. Then Fry finds out that the planet suffers a total eclipse every 22 years, which is when the hibernating, flesh-eating inhabitants awake and hunt.

Get it on Hulu.

Pandorum

Astronauts Payton (Dennis Quaid) and Bower (Ben Foster) awake in a hypersleep chamber with no memory of who they are or what their mission might be. While Payton stays behind to monitor the radio transmitter, Bower ventures out of the chamber into the seemingly abandoned spaceship. The men quickly realize that they are not alone and that the fate of mankind hinges on what they do next.

Get it on Hulu.

Body Horror

Society

A Beverly Hills teen (Billy Warlock) discovers his parents are part of a gruesome orgy cult for the social elite.

Get it on Tubi and Shudder.

American Mary

Mary Mason (Katharine Isabelle) is lured into a world of freakish surgeries for easy money.

Get it on Tubi.

The Fly

When scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) completes his teleportation device, he decides to test its abilities on himself. Unbeknownst to him, a housefly slips in during the process, leading to a merger of man and insect. Initially, Brundle appears to have undergone a successful teleportation, but the fly’s cells begin to take over his body. As he becomes increasingly fly-like, Brundle’s girlfriend (Geena Davis) is horrified as the person she once loved deteriorates into a monster.

Get it on Hulu.

Tetsuo The Iron Man

A “metal fetishist” (Shin’ya Tsukamoto), driven mad by the maggots wriggling in the wound he’s made to embed metal into his flesh, runs out into the night and is accidentally run down by a Japanese businessman (Tomorowo Taguchi) and his girlfriend (Kei Fujiwara). The pair dispose of the corpse in hopes of quietly moving on with their lives. However, the businessman soon finds that he is now plagued by a vicious curse that transforms his flesh into iron.

Get it on Shudder.

If you are looking for something more specific check out all our Best of Lists here. There is something for every taste, sub-genre, and streaming platform. Looking for a free trial of Shudder, click here for an entire month’s free courtesy of Signal Horizon. Just be sure and use code SIGNAL. If you are looking to save some dough and get things on the cheap, you can’t do wrong with any of these classics. Just because it’s the end of the world as we know it, doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of Best Horror Movies To Stream For Free.