Get your Tubi on with eight great horror selections
By Carla Davis
Horror fans know the joy of Tubi, right? I mean, what’s not to love about a FREE streaming platform that includes tons of horror films? Tubi offers everything from cheesy B-movies to highly-regarded films, so there is definitely something for every taste.
If you find yourself overwhelmed by the number of horror films on Tubi, 1428 Elm has taken the hard work out of the equation, and compiled a list of eight great horror films, ranging from a cartoon to a French extreme flick. And, you get two bonus selections as well, because two of our picks have a sequel that’s also available on Tubi.
Here are our picks, in alphabetical order:
Butterfly Kisses – I absolutely adore this little independent masterpiece created by writer/director Erik Kristopher Myers. It’s a nice twist on the average found footage movie, about an aspiring filmmaker named Gavin, who finds some pretty interesting tapes in a basement.
The tapes are of a film student named Sophia, and through them, she documents her experience with a local legend known as Peeping Tom (or Blink Man). The legend goes like this: If you stand at the entrance of the Ilchester Tunnel for an hour without blinking, Peeping Tom will appear to you. The problem is, once you see him, he gets closer to you each time you blink, at which point he basically causes you to die of fright.
Are these tapes real? Is the obsessed Gavin losing his mind, or even making all of this up? These are a couple of the many questions that come up throughout the run time of Butterfly Kisses.
Butterfly Kisses is pretty widely regarded by horror fans, and Myers was in the process of writing a sequel before his untimely death in September of last year.
The Collector -To give you an idea of how dark the script for this film is, it was originally written as a prequel for Saw. After the producers decided that was not the direction they wanted to go in, the script was reworked.
Josh Stewart (Criminal Minds) is always likeable, and the role of Arkin is no exception. Arkin is an ex-convict who really wants to go straight, but his wife owes some cash to a loan shark, and the deadline to pay up is midnight. In order to protect his wife and daughter, he agrees to steal a ruby from the wealthy Chase family, for whom he works as a handyman.
It isn’t as easy as it sounds, however, and the appearance of a masked man in the house that night proves to be deadly for members of the Chase family. Arkin must use his wits to save himself and young Hannah Chase in a house rigged with deadly traps by “The Collector.”
Bonus: Three years after The Collector was released, an action-packed and very bloody sequel called The Collection hit theaters. The dance club sequence alone is worth watching this one, and The Collection is also available on Tubi.
Hell House LLC – Most found footage horror fans have at least heard of this one, so if you haven’t watched it yet, here is your chance! A group of friends put together a popular Halloween haunt each year, under the name of their company, you guessed it, Hell House LLC. 2009’s haunt is taking place outside of New York City for the first time, in the abandoned Abaddon Hotel.
We are told the story through film footage taken by the Hell House crew, and through the lens of a documentary crew investigating the events that led to the disastrous opening night on October 8. Something – no one knows quite what – happened on that night that ended up costing 15 crew members and guests their very lives.
Hell House LLC features the scariest clown I have ever seen in a film, and I found the whole thing to be entertaining and frightening. Bonus – Tubi also has the first sequel available. Titled Hell House LLC II: The Abaddon Hotel, it is just as enjoyable as the first film.
Last Shift – I consider myself a pretty experienced watcher of horror, so I don’t think I am terribly easy to scare. But whenever I read one of those “No movies scare me anymore, I need a movie that will scare me” posts on social media, my response is always to recommendLast Shift and The Autopsy of Jane Doe.
A young rookie police officer is assigned to take the last shift at a station before it closes for good. It’s a solo shift, and she is instructed to wait at the station until the HAZMAT team shows up to pick up some evidence.
Things start out quietly, but they don’t stay that way for long. First, a weird homeless guy shows up inside the station, then a woman named Monica calls repeatedly, insisting she has been kidnapped by a cult.
As the night goes on, the activity amps up into even more frightening territory, including phone calls from Loren’s dead father, a police officer, who was killed on duty. I highly recommend watching this one with the lights out for added thrills.
Martyrs – This French Extreme Horror film has gained quite a reputation for being, well, extreme. I admit that I put off watching it for years because I thought it was just going to be another super-disturbing torture porn flick. However, when I finally watched it about a month ago, I found that it actually affected me emotionally, and had a lot to say about trauma.
A young girl named Lucie manages to escape her captors, who tortured her for over a year. Afterwards, she is placed in an orphanage, where she makes friends with another girl named Anna. The two remain friends into adulthood, when Lucie becomes convinced that she has found the people who kidnapped her.
Anna is horrified by Lucie’s brutal attack on the family, and by Lucie insisting that a demonic woman keeps appearing to her and injuring her. Does the woman exist, or is Lucie losing her mind?
Monster House – Yes, it’s an animated film, and its main characters are kids. But, this one is rated PG for a reason…it’s pretty scary for a kid’s film. 12-year-old DJ tries to rescue his pal’s ball from grumpy Mr. Nebbercracker, who has a heart attack when he catches DJ in the act. Thinking he has killed the old man, DJ is heartsick.
Then a teenaged boy named Bones tells DJ that Nebbercracker stole his kite when he was younger, and furthermore, it’s rumored that Nebbercracker actually cannibalized his own wife, Constance.
When DJ and his friends try to investigate the house, it tries to eat them, and it starts to become clear that a ghost with a grudge is controlling the place. This would be the perfect movie for kids who are starting to express an interest in horror movies (or, as I referred to them when I myself was a kid: “scary movies”).
Stir of Echoes – This is a criminally underappreciated dark little horror film, and it’s one of my favorites. In this adaptation of the novel by Richard Matheson, Kevin Bacon stars as Tom Witzky, a Chicago lineman with a pregnant wife and a sweet little boy named Jake who frequently talks to dead people.
When Tom scoffs at the idea of hypnotism at a party, his sister-in-law hypnotizes him, giving him the suggestion to “be more open-minded.” After that, Tom starts to see visions of a young woman who disappeared a few months back (and just happens to be one of the ghosts his son talks to quite often).
Tom becomes dangerously obsessed with finding out who the girl is, and what happened to her. His wife is frightened with his intensity, and he escalates to digging holes in the yard when the girl tells him to “dig.”
It’s a frightening puzzle of a film, and I highly recommend it.
Train to Busan – I don’t care if you don’t like subtitles, I don’t care if you don’t like horror movies that make you cry – I must insist that you watch this if you love zombie movies.
Workaholic Seok-woo is doing his best to raise his little girl Su-an, but he is just spends too much time on his job to do it properly. After he gets her a Wii for her birthday, it turns out he got her the same gift last year, so to make it up to her, he agrees to take her to see Mom in Busan.
While the two are on their ill-fated train ride, the dreaded apocalyptic zombie infection takes hold, and they team up with other passengers to fight off the raging hordes.
Train to Busan is bloody and action-packed, but its super strength is its heart. Viewers are made to really care about the survivors, even though we know they aren’t all going to make it, and the father-daughter story at the center of everything is just heart wrenching.
Obviously, this small handful of films are just a very, very few of the hundreds available to watch on Tubi, so what are you waiting for? Log on now and start exploring their vast library of horror movies.
Are you a Tubi fan? If we left your favorite film off this list, drop the title in the comments section.