Max is home to many popular horror titles like The Conjuring films, Evil Dead Rise, and It, but the streamer's catalog also features an abundance of underrated titles that might get overlooked when seeking out more recent releases.
Below we've highlighted five underrated horror movies currently available to stream on Max.
We're All Going to the World's Fair (2021)
- Writer/Director: Jane Schoenbrun
- Cast: Anna Cobb & Michael J. Rogers
Jane Schoenbrun helmed this eerie and beguiling coming-of-age horror film that works perfectly as a companion to their follow-up film I Saw the TV Glow. Schoenbrun considers them both part of their "Screen Trilogy."
Actress Anna Cobb is a force in this role, her film debut, playing a lonely teen who gets caught up in a psychological internet game known as the "World's Fair Challenge," which involves each participant recording the changes they experience while playing. Like Schoenbrun's 2024 film, We're All Going to the World's Fair also grapples with themes of gender identity and dysphoria.
Caddo Lake (2024)
- Writers/Directors: Celine Held & Logan George
- Cast: Dylan O'Brien, Eliza Scanlen, Diana Hopper, Caroline Falk, Sam Hennings, Eric Lange, & Lauren Ambrose
When a young girl vanishes in a flooded cypress forest, connections form between her disappearance and a string of other mysterious incidents that have occurred in the same place. This taut psychological thriller produced by M. Night Shyamalan focuses on two characters, Ellie (Eliza Scanlen) and Paris (Dylan O'Brien), as they attempt to solve two separate mysteries that converge in a surprising way.
Beautifully filmed with care taken toward authenticity, Caddo Lake is a slow-burning thriller inviting viewers to solve its central puzzle and its many layers. Considering this movie went straight to streaming on Max, there's a good chance many folks missed out.
Pulse (2001)
- Writer/Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
- Cast: Kumiko Asō, Haruhiko Kato, Koyuki, & Kurume Arisaka
Not to be confused with the poor 2006 American remake starring Kristen Bell and Ian Somerhalder, Pulse is a brilliant and unnerving techno-thriller from Japanese horror mastermind Kiyoshi Kurosawa.
Actually, Pulse would make a decent companion to We're All Going to the World's Fair, as it also heavily features the mortal perils of the internet, except instead of an online challenge, the internet has become a breeding ground for evil spirits seeking to cross over into the physical world. Anyone who witnesses or experiences these visions has terrible things happen to them in real life.
House (1977)
- Director: Nobuhiko Obayashi
- Writer: Chiho Katsura
- Cast: Kimiko Ikegami, Miki Jinbo, Ai Matubara, Kumiko Oba, Mieko Sato, Eriko Tanaka, Masayo Miyako, & Yōko Minamida
Another fantastic Japanese horror film, House, is a comedy-horror that has garnered a significant cult following over the years. When her father starts dating someone new that she deems annoying, Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami) chooses to get away for a while and visit her aunt's mansion. Gorgeous, along with several close friends, arrive at the estate and discover that the place is riddled with supernatural phenomena, including an evil cat portrait and a vicious piano.
Splice (2009)
- Director: Vincenzo Natali
- Writers: Vincenzo Natali, Antoinette Terry Bryant, & Doug Taylor
- Cast: Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley, & Delphine Chanéac
If you're looking for something more disturbing with a science-fiction twist, then I suggest checking out Splice. As you might have guessed based on the title, this sci-fi horror film follows genetic engineers experimenting with splicing together human and animal DNA to create the first hybrid creature.