One of the coolest streaming services out there is Tubi, because it happens to be free (it’s ad-supported) and packed with classic horror movies. This week, we here at Arrow in the Head decided to browse through Tubi’s horror section and compile a list of ten of the Best Horror Movies on Tubi Right Now. Check it out!
BONE TOMAHAWK (2015)
Director S. Craig Zahler made his feature debut with this excellent blend of the horror and Western genres, which pits a group of men – played by Kurt Russell, Richard Jenkins, Matthew Fox, and Patrick Wilson – against a group of cave-dwelling cannibals who have taken the wife of Wilson’s character captive. With a running time of 132 minutes, Bone Tomahawk takes its time showing the men’s journey to the tribe’s cave… but when the violence breaks out, it’s worth the wait. If you can stomach the gore. As I wrote for the video embedded above, Bone Tomahawk feels like it’s the nightmare of someone who watched Tombstone and Cannibal Holocaust back-to-back while running a fever. And it’s awesome. We need more horror Westerns that are as cool as this one.
THE HILLS HAVE EYES (1977)
Wes Craven’s 1977 film The Hills Have Eyes gets overshadowed by his bigger movies (A Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, etc.) and even by its own 2006 remake, but it’s still one of the best entries in Craven’s filmography. When a family has car trouble in the middle of the desert, they find that they’re being stalked by another family, a clan of cannibals that live in the hills. To survive, the civilized family will have to become just as savage as their attackers. The Hills Have Eyes features some unforgettable characters and performances, with Dee Wallace among the potential victims and Lance Gordon and Michael Berryman as villains Mars and Pluto. Berryman’s role in this film (and his image on the poster) rightfully made him a genre icon.
THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (1985)
Director Dan O’Bannon’s creepy and amusing The Return of the Living Dead may be the zombie movie that had the greatest pop cultural impact outside of the Dead films made by George A. Romero, because this one is the reason for the common misconception that all zombies are out to eat brains. Resurrected by a chemical created by the military, O’Bannon’s zombies are indeed brain-munchers. They also speak and run, because O’Bannon wanted to make sure his Living Dead were as different from Romero’s as possible. He delivered an extremely entertaining film in the process, setting his nearly unstoppable zombies loose on a group of punks and overwhelmed middle-aged men, and putting an awesome soundtrack on top of the hysterical mayhem.
SPIDER BABY (1967)
Director Jack Hill’s Spider Baby deserves to be a lot more popular, as it’s packed with incredible performances from the likes of Lon Chaney Jr., Sid Haig, Carol Ohmart, Beverly Washburn, and Jill Banner, among others. The story is about a bunch of outsiders coming to the home of the Merrye family, whose members mentally regress as they age. Strange things happen in that house, including murder, cannibalism, and unexpected sexual situations, but as risque as things get the film somehow still manages to feel kind of wholesome. Fans of Sid Haig who were introduced to him through the Rob Zombie movies are highly encouraged to seek out this earlier work, which may have been a source of inspiration for House of 1000 Corpses.
JASON X (2001)
This film may be the least popular entry in the Friday the 13th franchise, but it also happens to be the only movie featuring iconic slasher Jason Voorhees that can be found on Tubi at this time. So we can’t be picky, we just have to kick back and take in another viewing of Jason X. Directed by James Isaac, this one is set in 2455 and sees a cryogenically frozen Jason getting thawed out on a space ship, where he proceeds to hack and slash his way through the youthful passengers and the Marines assigned to protect them. By the end, our backwoods slasher has received a cybernetic upgrade and become what is known as Uber Jason. This isn’t a sequel a lot of fans are into, but it’s always fun to watch Jason do his thing, even when he’s in space.
INTRUDER (1989)
Directed by Evil Dead II co-writer Scott Spiegel, Intruder is one of the most entertaining slasher movies ever made, and not enough people have seen it. Problem is, for a long time this movie about supermarket employees getting knocked off one-by-one after business hours was only available in a heavily censored cut. Thankfully, the unrated cut is now widely available, including on Tubi. That’s the one to watch, as it delivers some of the best slasher kills of all time. The movie also features Spiegel’s Evil Dead II cohorts Danny Hicks, Sam Raimi, and Ted Raimi in acting roles, plus Bruce Campbell makes a quick cameo.
PHANTASM (1979)
Don Coscarelli was only in his early twenties when he gifted the horror genre with the amazing Phantasm, the result of two years of filming on a budget around $300,000. The story of a young boy who discovers that the “Tall Man” (Angus Scrimm) who runs the local mortuary is an alien being who turns corpses into his shrunken-down, cloaked lackeys, Phantasm plays like a nightmare caught on film. Viewers were so captivated by the wacky ideas Coscarelli presented here, along with Scrimm’s performance and the visual of the Tall Man’s deadly flying spheres, the filmmaker and his collaborators were able to draw them back for four sequels. All of which are also available to watch on Tubi.
SLEEPAWAY CAMP (1983)
This is another instance where Tubi offers viewers the chance to have their own “franchise fest”; not only is writer/director Robert Hiltzik’s 1983 slasher Sleepaway Camp on the streaming service, the more comedic sequels by Michael A. Simpson are on there as well. Some fans prefer the tone of Sleepaway Camp II and III over the original, but for me the first one can’t be beat. Soon after introverted Angela (Felissa Rose) and her protective cousin Ricky (Jonathan Tiersten) arrive at Camp Arawak, terrible things start happening to some of the other people at the camp. And the victims all have one thing in common: they all messed with Angela in some way. Sleepaway Camp is a great, twisted slasher with an ending that really gets viewers talking.
CREEPSHOW 2 (1987)
Creepshow 2 has a couple less stories than its predecessor and director Michael Gornick didn’t have the budget to do as many comic book style effects as George A. Romero was able to do on the first Creepshow, but this film is still highly entertaining. Scripted by Romero, Creepshow 2 uses an animated wrap-around story to introduce three Stephen King tales: Old Chief Wood’nhead, about a wooden Native American statue that comes to life to avenge its murdered owners; The Raft, about a flesh-eating creature that resembles an oil slick terrorizing swimmers in a lake; and The Hitchhiker, about a woman who pays the price for a late night hit-and-run.
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974)
This isn’t just one of the best horror movies on Tubi right now, Tobe Hooper’s 1974 classic about a group of youths crossing paths with a family of cannibalistic maniacs – including one of the genre’s most famous icons, the chainsaw-wielding Leatherface (played by Gunnar Hansen) – is one of the best horror movies of all time, as well as one of the most incredible independent films ever made. It’s mesmerizing, intense, terrifying, occasionally amusing, and endlessly quotable. I will never get tired of watching this one. If you want, you could have a Texas Chainsaw Massacre marathon on Tubi, as the streaming service also has the documentaries A Family Portrait and The Shocking Truth.