The exploration of horror through an overcrowded streaming market continues. Since each month brings a plethora of new additions to streaming libraries across all platforms, from Netflix to Tubi, that means an insane selection of all styles and types of horror available at our fingertips. A brand new month means a new Max horror guide.
Max doesn’t just serve as the spot for Warner Bros. titles, but offers hubs to connect you to HBO, Cartoon Network, TCM, and curated selections to find even more pockets of horror. That means a variety of horror from nearly every era, though expect this month’s new additions to be light.
Here are the best Max horror movies you can stream right now.
Aliens
Whereas Ridley Scott’s Alien embraced quiet haunted house-like chills, James Cameron took a drastic detour into action-horror territory for the epic-scaled sequel. Poor Ellen Ripley is forced to return to LV-426 along with space Marines, in search of missing colonizers that were attempting to terraform the exomoon. It goes without saying that the Xenomorphs are back in plural form. Aliens expands the body count and lore in spades, but it’s anchored by two fierce mothers going toe-to-toe in Ripley and the Xenomorph Queen.
Beetlejuice
It’s showtime! Catch up on Tim Burton’s classic ahead of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. After an accident, the spirits of a deceased couple are annoyed by the family that has moved into their home. They seek outside help, removing them from a malevolent spirit. Michael Keaton’s ghost with the most leads the supernatural shenanigans, a perfect blend of comedy, whimsy, and horror. If the distinct production design and ghost designs aren’t enough to win you over, the earworm soundtrack surely will.
The Brood
Frank Carveth (Art Hindle) is in the midst of an embittered separation process from his estranged wife Nola (Samantha Eggar), a disturbed woman currently undergoing experimental therapy. Her psychotherapist, Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed), has developed a unique process that allows his patients to let go of their suppressed emotions via physical manifestations on their body, weird growths, and skin anomalies. That means Nola channels her rage into a brood of psychically manifested children, who then act on her fury through murder. It’s visceral body horror meets genuine family tragedy and drama. With a new David Cronenberg body horror movie on the way, now’s a perfect time to watch this one.
Carnival of Souls
When Mary Henry miraculously survives a harrowing car accident, she finds herself inexplicably drawn to a mysterious, abandoned carnival. Shot at the Saltair Pavilion, one of the first amusement parks in the west, the setting enhances the eerie atmosphere. A slow burn befitting of an episode of the Twilight Zone, this carnival is one you won’t wish to take a trip to anytime soon. Instead of high octane thrills, this trip to the carnival is one of permeating dread.
Carrie
A common thread in coming of age tales is the journey of self-discovery. That’s hard enough for a hormonal teenager, but it’s even more so when that teen is an outcast targeted for bullying. Poor Carrie White grew up extremely sheltered thanks to her fanatically religious mother, so when her first period came in the middle of her post-gym class shower, she thought she was dying. Cue excessive bullying. Her foray into puberty comes with newfound telekinetic power, and with it enough strength to rebel against her mother and find herself. Carrie’s road to self-discovery is paved with a lot of blood and death. While there are multiple adaptations of Stephen King’s novel, it’s tough to beat Brian De Palma’s classic.
Cast a Deadly Spell
This made-for-cable movie is more of a loving send-up, marrying comedic horror-fantasy to noir. Set in an alternate 1940s where magic and magical creatures exist, Detective Harry Philip Lovecraft (Fred Ward) is hired to track and retrieve the stolen Necronomicon. That job leads to a much bigger conspiracy involving femme fatales, assassins, ancient evils, and a bid to bring about Armageddon. It’s a charming creature feature steeped in noir convention, with a stacked cast too.
Cronos
Guillermo del Toro’s feature debut reframed the vampire mythos at nearly every turn. Antique dealer Jesús Gris discovers a strange mechanical scarab hiding within a statue. It stings him, injecting Jesús with a solution that restores his youth, increases his energy levels, and instills a powerful thirst for blood. Throw in a dangerous businessman that’s been after the scarab for years, and Jesús’s newfound vampirism causes a wake of destruction. While vampires are often portrayed as romantic figures of eternal life, del Toro centers his story around an aging grandfather, presenting a different, poignant side to romanticizing vampiric immortality.
Don Monjes (Two Monks)
Dos Monjes tells the nonlinear tale of the rivalry between Javier and Juan. Set in a Gothic monastery, Mexican horror trailblazer Juan Bustillo Oro employs a heavy German Expressionist style for his violent narrative told from two different perspectives. It’s moody and minimalist, biding its time in revealing the truths behind the men’s opposition. This eerie gothic tale is foundational horror, especially when venturing into classic horror from Mexico.
Eraserhead
1977 propelled body horror forward in a major way with David Lynch’s Eraserhead. It centers around poor Henry Spencer. He’s just trying to survive his strange industrial world and his angry girlfriend, Mary X. And also the unbearable cries from his newborn child, a mutant. The fear of becoming a parent has never been as viscerally upsetting, abstract, or as singular than in Lynch’s hands.
Evil Dead (2013)
A practical effects-heavy remake that honors the original in every way while carving up a new generation of fans. Jane Levy stars as Mia, the antagonist turned heroine deserving of her own spinoff franchise. Lou Taylor Pucci’s Eric is also a standout as the bookish teacher responsible for unleashing demonic forces upon his group of friends simply trying to get their friend off drugs. Poor Eric takes a beating here. Alvarez’s film is lean, mean, and oh so freaking gory. It rains down blood in the finale, in a torrential downpour no less.
Eyes Without a Face
Georges Franju’s horror classic follows a brilliant plastic surgeon and his horribly disfigured daughter, and his extreme quest to give her a new face. The surgeon sets about finding the perfect face, which entails gruesome facial transplants involving unwilling participants. While Eyes Without a Face dwells in the psychological, the grotesque imagery involving the surgeries unsettles. It’s a lush, haunting horror film unafraid to test the squeamish.
Fright Night
Jerry Dandridge (Chris Sarandon) might know how to charm the ladies, but underneath that sensual façade is a monstrous killer. Next door neighbor Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale) learns that the hard way when he spies on Jerry, discovering a trail of bodies leaving his house. Charley does what any suspicious teen would do (ha); he enlists horror host TV personality Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall) to help him slay the vampire. Writer/Director Tom Holland brings the horror and the comedy in equal measure. McDowall turns in an iconic performance as the skeptical and terrified horror host, but so does Sarandon as the magnetic head vamp.
House
A Japanese cult classic takes the haunted house concept to wacky extremes in the best way possible. The premise has a group of seven high school girls traveling to a remote home belonging to one of their aunts, and it happens to be haunted. That doesn’t adequately prepare the viewer for the madness. Take the haunted house tropes, like spooky cats, bleeding walls, and vengeful ghosts, and combine them with hallucinogenic visuals and funhouse sensibilities. You have the most bizarre haunted house horror movie you’ll ever see. I mean that as a compliment.
Jaws
Set over the Fourth of July weekend, one massive man-eating shark threatens to ruin tourist season for Amity Island. It’s up to a local sheriff, a marine biologist, and a shark hunter to intervene in this suspenseful feature from Steven Spielberg that makes everyone afraid to go into the water. Stay cool inside with the air conditioner and watch the film that kickstarted shark horror – and the summer blockbuster – instead.
Kwaidan
Director Masaki Kobayashi’s anthology, which roughly translates to “Ghost Stories” from the term Kaidan, draws from Lafcadio Hearn‘s collection of folk tales. Kwaidan presents four vignettes of terror, often revolving around a form of supernatural or violent karma. The haunting tales and stunning cinematography helped earn this rare horror anthology a Best Foreign Language Film nomination at the Academy Awards. As if that’s not reason enough to watch this horror classic, the second segment, “The Woman of the Snow,” serves as inspiration to another memorable segment from 1990’s Tales from the Darkside: The Movie.
The Lure
What if the original Hans Christian Andersen version of The Little Mermaid, in its bloody glory, was set in the 1980s in a Polish cabaret? Oh yeah, and it’s a musical. That’s the concept behind Agnieszka Smoczynska’s stunning film featuring mermaid sisters Golden and Silver, who come ashore and wind up getting adopted by a local nightclub band. A visually resplendent horror fairy tale that’s unafraid to get weird, bloody, and downright tragic.
Night of the Living Dead
Night of the Living Dead is a tense siege movie; a group of strangers barricades themselves in a farmhouse, trying to survive against an endless horde of walking dead. It’s more than the living dead’s insatiable hunger that provides unnerving horror, but that this group of strangers can’t get along long enough to combat a common enemy. George A. Romero set the blueprint for the modern zombie film. That includes the inescapable dread of death’s inevitability.
Pet Sematary
Director Mary Lambert’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel remains a high point in the pantheon of King adaptations. When the Creed family moves into their new home on a rural but deadly stretch of road, their plucky neighbor Jud (Fred Gwynne) introduces them to the neighborhood pet cemetery. But there’s stony, sour ground beyond the deadfall there, and it reawaken things that were better left dead. That the charming cast makes you first root for the Creed family before Lambert layers in absolute nightmare fuel (hello, Zelda) ensures this film holds up well.
Saw
James Wan and Leigh Whannell’s breakout hit saw two strangers awaken in a room with no idea of how they got there. Between them is a corpse holding clues. From there, Saw spins a winding mystery involving a serial killer known as Jigsaw, who tests his victims through deadly games and traps. Lawrence (Carey Elwes) and Adam (Whannell), are tied to the Jigsaw Killer and became his latest targets. The gruesome traps and the gnarly twists caught audiences by surprise and launched a franchise; almost the entire collection is currently available to stream on Max.
Scanners
A futuristic sci-fi thriller that centers around industrial conspiracy and espionage as a scientist sends a man, Revok (Michael Ironside), with extraordinary psychic powers to hunt down others like him. This is the type of sci-fi horror feature where its villain and a now iconic head popping scene somewhat overshadows the film itself, which is far headier than the violent head burst suggests. Scanners marks the first of David Cronenberg’s films that spawned sequels, though he wasn’t involved with subsequent entries in this franchise.
Scream
The cast, their chemistry, Kevin Williamson’s script, and Wes Craven’s complete understanding of its tone culminated in a sleeper hit that never stopped amassing an audience. The whodunnit aspect of this slasher’s plot brings the suspense, the kills hurt, the jokes stick their landing every time, and the commentary on the slasher subgenre brings unexpected layers. Horror-comedies rarely ever tip the scale in favor of horror, and Wes Craven demonstrated that it could be done with effortless style.
The Strangers
From the outset, Bryan Bertino’s debut establishes a somber tone. James Hoyt (Scott Speedman) and Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler) are on a weekend trip for a wedding, but romance isn’t in the air. This isn’t a happy couple in love, but one reaching critical mass. Enter the three masked strangers. The eerie way they lurk in the background sends chills down your spine, but not as much as their motive: “Because you were home.” There’s no glimmer of hope for James and Kristen, and no identities for the killers either. Not much is scarier than knowing they’re still free to slay again. And they will. A reboot on the way serves as the perfect excuse to revisit this bleak gem.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
It should surprise no one that David Lynch‘s prequel movie refused to give in to expectations and polarized upon release. “Twin Peaks” frequently leaned into the supernatural, but it was offset with a sense of quirky humor. Not so in this feature, which is devoid of any levity. The film chronicled Laura Palmer’s final days and embraced experimental horror, capturing Laura’s visceral terror with an oppressive feeling of dread.
The Witch
Robert Eggers’ feature debut centers around a young woman coming of age under the harshest of conditions. After exile from their community, Thomasin’s (Anya Taylor-Joy) family relocates to a rural area near dark woods to rebuild their lives. Thomasin’s adolescence is marred with puritanical oppression and a witch in the woods wreaking havoc on the family. What would self-discovery look like in 1630s New England, when the freedom to do so doesn’t exist? Never have we cheered so hard for a teen to live deliciously and find her place in the world
