Another month, another round of the best horror movies available on streaming. We may be staring at the course of summer, but there are still tons of spooky and seasonal movies to watch to chill you to the bone as the weather starts to warm up. If you don’t feel like going to theaters to see The boogeyman this month (and who could blame you – that dude is creepy as fuck), here’s what to choose in terms of horror on streaming.
This month we’ve chosen a large number of horror titles that complement the season perfectly. From the Polish mermaid horror musical The temptation to Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the dead and more, we’ve got enough scares to keep you on your toes for the rest of the month.
Let’s dive in.
The temptation
Image: The Criterion Collection
Year: 2015
Duration: 1h 32m
Director: Agnieszka Smoczynska
Form: Kinga Preis, Michalina Olszanska, Marta Mazurek
The 1989 live action remake The little Mermaid starring Halle Bailey premieres in theaters this weekend, so what better time than now to check out the Polish musical horror film inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s original fairy tale? The temptation stars Michalina Olszanska (1983) and Marta Mazurek (The innocents) as Golden and Silver, two mermaid sirens who are discovered and taken in at a cabaret by a friendly nightclub singer (Kinga Preis).
When Silver falls in love with a young bassist, it not only threatens to drive a wedge between her and Golden, but potentially puts her very existence in jeopardy. The film is an extravagant and surreal horror drama, complete with infectious musical numbers, gruesome gore and a story that is as whimsical as it is tragic and macabre. The temptation is the perfect choice for anyone looking for an alternative to the two saccharine styles of Disney’s live-action output. —Toussaint Egan
The temptation is streamed on The Criterion Channel.
Dawn of the dead
Photo: Universal Pictures
Year: 2004
Duration: 1h 40m
Director: Zak Snyder
Form: Sarah Polley, Ty Burrell, Ving Rhames
Before leading Warner’s first big move into a DC movie universe or building an original sci-fi epic for Netflix, Zack Snyder took on a surprisingly challenging remake assignment with 2004’s Dawn of the dead. Based on the movie of the same name by zombie godfather George Romero, the film situates a group of strangers in the center of an emerging zombie apocalypse where the only safe haven in their town is a shopping mall. Romero’s original is an all-time zombie classic and a downright metaphor for the dangers of a culture obsessed with consumer capitalism; the people may be dead, but that doesn’t stop them from flocking to the mall.
Snyder’s update is meaner than Romero’s original, with terrifying sprinting zombies and even echoes of Romero’s later (more cynical) movie The madmen. Snyder’s version is scarier and more poignant, introducing a certain kind of numbness to the survivors that feels like a natural extension of Romero’s themes brought into the then-modern world of 2004.Austen Goslin
Dawn of the dead streams on Netflix.
Paranormal activity
Image: Paramount Pictures
Year: 2007
Duration: 1h 26m
Director: Oren Peli
Form: Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Mark Fredrichs
While memes and a few lackluster sequels have tarnished his reputation a bit, Paranormal activity remains a strikingly original and interesting little haunted house film. The premise is brilliantly simple and follows a young couple who have recently moved into a new home. The guy happens to have a fun obsession with video cameras and recording parts of his life, which means all the weird happenings that happened to them happen on camera too.
Paranormal activity never really branches into anything truly terrifying, but the eerie hush and stillness that leans into your screen gives the film room for plenty of eerie moments and little hiccups, even if it never gets to an outright scare. But even without too many scares, it’s still a fascinating horror flick and a great reminder of where some of the genre’s most used tricks come from today. —AG
Paranormal activity streams on Netflix.
Domestic Empire
Image: StudioCanal/The Criterion Channel
Year: 2006
Duration: 3 hours
Director: David Lynch
Form: Laura Dern, Jeremy Irons, Justin Theroux
Somewhere between horror and another world, David Lynch’s often hard-to-find film Domestic Empire has appeared on The Criterion Channel with a newly completed restoration. The film follows an actress played by Laura Dern who takes on a new role in a seemingly ill-fated movie and slowly begins to lose the lines between her real life and her role. Of course, being David Lynch, things only get weirder from there, as Dern’s character encounters increasingly weird side characters, eventually seeming to intersect with an entirely different world.
The fact that Domestic Empire available is a bit of a miracle in itself. The original version of the film was shot in an early digital video format that became functionally extinct in the years since, which meant that it was very difficult to transfer the film to a new format and make it available at a higher resolution. Last year, however, Lynch personally oversaw a restoration of the film that retains the eccentricities that were only possible on the film’s original format, meaning a proper version of the film is now back to watch. —AG
Domestic Empire is streamed on The Criterion Channel.
Heir apparent
Image: A24
Year: 2018
Duration: 2 hours 7 minutes
Director: Ari Aster
Form: Toni Collette, Milly Shapiro, Gabriel Byrne
Already emerging as a modern classic, director Ari Aster’s first major motion picture, Heir apparent, follows a mother (Toni Collette) who slowly falls apart as her family encounters one tragedy after another. The film is anchored by an incredible performance from Collette, as well as supporting performances from Alex Wolff and Ann Dowd that help elevate the film’s slow and carefully considered creepiness into the realm of genuine terror.
While the film may feel like a slow burn at first, it quickly ramps up and eventually turns into a full-blown horror show fueled by the terrible will of the demon Paimon – or maybe it’s not a demon behind the tragedies at all. . Whatever the cause, Heir apparent spends its game time filling every moment with creeping dread before unleashing an excellent ending that really solidified our idea of what the current era of horror movies is aiming for. —AG
Heir apparent streams on Max.