If you’re a regular reader of the weekly streaming column Stay Home, Watch Horror, or you listen to the Bloody Disgusting Podcast, you’ve likely noticed how frequently Tubi gets recommended. The completely free streaming service, meaning no subscriptions or hidden fees, offers an insane selection for viewers with currently over 30,000 titles available. That means a robust catalog of horror; Tubi covers just about every level of horror, from the popular, mainstream titles to the obscure little gem awaiting discovery.
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Tubi is an always-free treasure trove for the genre fan, whether you’re in the mood for comfort watches or deep cuts, old and new alike. From horror classics to modern slasher faves across all styles and tastes, here are just ten of the great horror selections you can watch right now, almost all exclusively streaming for free on Tubi.
House of Wax
Creative kills are crucial to the slasher, and House of Wax brings the goods. Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphan, The Shallows) insisted everything be as practical as possible for his directorial feature debut, which pays off dividends. For the teens that take a shortcut to their college football game and instead wind up in a backwoods little town of wax, they pay for their mistakes with their lives in the most brutal fashion. The death scenes are remarkable in this loose remake. House of Wax, with its gruesome deaths and stellar production design, makes for a highly entertaining entry in early aughts horror. It offers slasher fun and fantastic set pieces in spades. Tubi is the only streaming service currently offering this Dark Castle flick for free.
Django the Bastard
If you’re well versed in the Giallo and ready to expand your Italian horror repertoire, Tubi offers a variety that includes horror spaghetti westerns. The plot sees a mysterious gunslinger arrive in town, immediately slaughtering those on his list. He’s out for revenge, but the question quickly becomes whether this vengeance seeker is alive or returned from the grave. Sergio Garrone infuses his western with a Gothic atmosphere, striking up a strange and often creepy blend of the western and horror genres.
When a Stranger Calls Back
One of the earliest examples of a sequel far superior to its predecessor, this under-seen cable movie delivers severe tension starting with one of horror’s best openings of all time. Jill Schoelen (The Stepfather, Cutting Class) stars as this outing’s babysitter, the target of an unseen stranger when left to care for two sleeping kids. While the first film delivered the iconic “The calls are coming from inside the house” trope, this sequel goes to surprising and frightening places, often involving home invasion. When a Stranger Calls Back offers up one of the most eccentric killers of the decade, and that’s saying a lot.
Vamp
This highly entertaining horror-comedy features a vampire that doesn’t get near enough attention as she should; Grace Jones exudes raw power as vamp Katrina. Robert Rusler and Chris Makepeace star as two fraternity pledges that venture into the city to hire a stripper. All to impress their frat brothers. They find themselves in a shady part of town, unaware that the dive bar they’ve entered is full of vampires. Naturally, they find themselves in an all-night battle for survival. The neon haze-soaked urban setting makes for a refreshing change of pace. The bromance between the leads is as sweet as it is funny. If you need another excuse to watch, Vamp just celebrated its 35th anniversary of release.
The Vagrant
This ‘90s horror-comedy doesn’t adhere at all to the conventional home invasion thriller. Bill Paxton stars as a yuppie businessman, Grant, who buys a new home only to find a nearby homeless bum keeps inviting himself in. The vagrant keeps breaking into Grant’s house and playing mind games as the body count starts to pile up. Before long, Grant loses his grip on reality as the mayhem increases. Home invasion thriller tropes get woven into this oddball tale. The Vagrant also starred Michael Ironside and was executive produced by Mel Brooks.
Banshee Chapter
After her friend’s sudden disappearance, journalist Anne Roland discovers the strange and horrifying links between her friend, a government conspiracy involving a research drug, and an eerie radio broadcast of otherworldly origin. Drawing inspiration from actual government hallucinogenic drug experiments and H.P. Lovecraft’s “From Beyond,” Blair Erickson’s feature debut is as creepy as it is mysterious and engaging. Look for The Silence of the Lambs star Ted Levine to steal every scene he’s in, but more than that, be ready for some great scares.
Dark Waters
Director Mariano Baino’s first and only feature-length film, Dark Waters doesn’t always make much sense, but it’s visually stunning and weird. A surreal atmospheric horror film that feels like a throwback to the earlier works of Lucio Fulci and Mario Bava, this strange story follows a woman who travels to an isolated island to find out why her father funded a monastery there before he died. Occult horror with a demonic presence, the setting alone also makes this feel akin to something H.P. Lovecraft would’ve created. This pick is for those that like Lovecraftian weirdness and experiential horror over narrative-driven horror.
Bedevilled
Director Cheol-soo Jang lulls the viewer with Bedevilled‘s slow pace before unleashing vicious savagery in the film’s second half. The first half is a drawn-out excruciating watch of lead Kim Bok-nam subjected to physical, mental, and sexual abuse by her husband, town elders, and so-called friends. It’s the type of uncomfortable watch that elicits a strong emotional response; it’s intentionally unpleasant to see Bok-nam endure terrible torment. Enter the second half, full of violent, unrestrained, tour de force of unleashed revenge. Visceral and cathartic, Cheol-soo Jang’s feature debut is an extreme doozy.
Santa Sangre
Santa Sangre makes for one of the most haunting, visually compelling, and best horror movies of the ‘80s. Alejandro Jodorowsky had already established himself as a creative well versed in dreamlike imagery, but this marked the first time he applied it to horror. The result is a visually insane, avant-garde horror film about a man born and raised in a circus that later escapes from a mental hospital and joins his armless mother to enact brutal murders as her “arms.” If that sounds strange, well, the result is even weirder. It’s visually arresting, bizarre, and gripping in a way that only Jodorowsky could deliver.
SLiTHER
With James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad arriving in theaters and on HBO Max early next month, now seems like the best time to revisit his horror-comedy favorite, Slither. And it’s currently only available for free on Tubi. The story follows a slug-like alien invasion by way of meteorite that crashes into the quaint town of Wheelsy, South Carolina. The parasites turn the town’s residents into zombies and mutated monsters, spreading fast with only a plucky group of survivors to stand in their way. Slither is a treasure trove of horror Easter Eggs and a love letter to the genre. It’s filled with fantastic creature and gore effects, and Gunn grounds it all with humor and heart.
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