If you dig deep into Hulu’s Huluween section, you will find some specific collections. They are titled “Scary,” “Very Scary,” and “Very Very Scary,” and we have already offered some recommendations from the Very Very Scary Collection.
Next up is the Very Scary Collection, and I have five films that are my top picks. If you haven’t seen them yet, give one (or more) of them a shot this Halloween season.!
Immaculate – Religious horror hit big over the past year. With The Exorcist: Believer, The Pope’s Exorcist, The First Omen and several other religious based scary movies, there were plenty to choose from. But Immaculate was one of my favorites.
Sydney Sweeney stars as Sister Cecilia, a novice nun who has been hand-picked to join a convent in Italy that provides care for dying nuns. We know from her back story that she survived after becoming submerged in a frozen lake, and she believes God saved her for a purpose. As we soon discover, the leaders of the convent believe the same.
The convent is a bit odd; it houses a nail believed to have been used in the crucifixion of Christ, and Cecilia notices that one of the elderly nuns has cross-shaped scars on the bottoms of her feet. Cecilia also begins to have horrible nightmares and is shocked when she discovers that she is pregnant.
Everything escalates to the point that Cecilia is held captive by the priest and the other nuns, who believe that she is carrying the child of Christ. There’s a great story about how this may actually be true, but I don’t want to give spoilers. There is a particularly grueling and bloody birth scene towards the end of Immaculate, and I was left thinking that Sweeney must have been completely exhausted after filming it.
Piggy – This tense, bloody Spanish film is driven by a spectacular acting performance by Laura Galan, who plays the title role of Sara. She is tormented by a group of three teenage girls, who frequently make fun of her weight by calling her “Piggy.” The leader of the group is Maca, and she is the meanest of the bullies.
The girls steal Sara’s backpack and clothing when she is swimming in the local pool, forcing her to walk home. While taking a side road, she comes across a van parked at the side of the road and soon realizes it belongs to a man who has abducted Sara’s bullies. Though she clearly sees what has happened, she returns home and does not tell anyone about the kidnapped girls.
When she is questioned, she doesn’t give up the info, but her guilt gets the better of her, and she tracks her phone (which is in the backpack the bullies stole) to find the kidnapper and his prisoners.
Will Sara free the girls, or allow them to meet their fate? Piggy keeps us guessing until the very end, and Laura Galan pulls at our heartstrings and makes us root for her throughout the entirety of the film.
Ready or Not – If you are in the mood for a bloody, action-packed, fun horror movie, look no further. Samara Weaving is Grace, who is marrying Alex, a member of the wealthy Le Domas family who runs Le Domas Family Games. With no family of her own, Grace agrees to have the wedding at the Le Domas mansion.
After the ceremony, Alex’s father explains to Grace that his ancestor made a deal with “le Bail” in order to grow the family’s fortune. In exchange, they must observe an odd tradition: after each wedding, the new family member (in this case, Grace) must draw a card from a puzzle box and play the game listed on the card. Grace draws the Hide and Seek card.
It’s immediately clear from the expressions on the family members’ faces that there is something special about that card, and Grace, still clad in her wedding dress, is told she must hide. As she runs off, everyone begins to pull out very real weapons, and we learn that the stakes are high. If and when they find Grace, she will be killed. If she lasts until dawn, she lives, but the rest of the family believes they will die, thanks to the deal with le Bail.
Our plucky bride catches on to this twist pretty quickly and goes totally bad a**, doing everything she can to survive the night. We get to hear Weaving’s unique warbly scream multiple times and are treated to plenty of bloody kills. By the end of the film, everyone is quite literally covered in blood.
It was recently teased that there may be a sequel in the works for Ready or Not, and I am completely ready for that!
Stephen King fans may want to check out The Mist on Hulu
The Mist – Based on a Stephen King novella,The Mist features Thomas Jane as David, a husband and father in a small Maine town. After a serious thunderstorm comes through, David and his little boy Billy head into town for supplies, leaving his wife and mom, Stephanie, at home.
David and Billy are stuck inside a grocery store with several other residents as a thick mist rolls in, but this isn’t just an ordinary fog. In it are numerous kinds of monsters, including some that fly, and the people inside are forced to board up and strategize. It's not really a spoiler to say that not everyone survives.
Eventually, small groups begin to form, the most dangerous of which is led by religious fanatic Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden). As her madness grows, she insists that the only way to defeat the creatures is to sacrifice little Billy, and David isn’t having it.
The Mist sports a real gut punch of an ending. As a big fan of King’s story, I wasn’t expecting the totally changed ending, and I still haven’t recovered.
When Evil Lurks – If you saw 2018’s Terrified, you know how writer/director Demian Rugna rolls. He’s not afraid to go dark and gory, and he knows how to shock and surprise viewers. When brothers Pedro and Jaime hear gunshots in the woods, they find an old woman and her two sons hiding in an old shack. The brothers are told that one of the sons, Uriel, has been possessed by a demon.
When Uriel manages to escape, it causes a snowball effect in which other people and even animals become possessed and commit multiple brutal murders. This is another film that I don’t want to say too much about because everyone deserves to experience the trauma that comes from a blind first viewing.
Rugna’s films are filled with shocking violence and disturbing imagery, so know that going in – particularly if you haven’t already seen his stuff. And for those who can’t handle movie violence against animals, you may want to skip When Evil Lurks.