Shivers! The Best Shudder Original Movies

Stop-motion animator Phil Tippett’s labor of love was almost kicked to the curb with the advent of CGI. But fan interest kept the project alive, and, between gigs as a visual effects supervisor on films like Jurassic Park and Starship Troopers, Tippett managed to complete his feature-length magnum opus set in an underground hellscape complete with mad scientists, reanimated monstrosities, and enough intestines to stretch from here to Albuquerque. It’s not so much a story as a gore-soaked nightmare that challenges the limits of what stop-motion animation can achieve.

A buzzy festival feature that garnered A24-levels of advance press, this experimental horror film from writer-director Kyle Edward Ball is about as outside of the oversized VHS box as you can get. A mumblecore home movie about two young children abandoned by their parents in a house constructed of bad ’80s décor and nightmare logic, Skinamarink will be insufferable for some, genius to others. Either way, the approach is undeniably analog in its originality, with imagery that might even make David Lynch drop a “WTF?” By inviting these sorts of avant-garde filmmakers to the party, Shudder proved they were more than a one-trick pony.

High-concept horror with ingeniously low-budget execution, In A Violent Nature became the slasher of the season in 2024, filling a void for dead teenagers and masked killers that the Conjuring universe can’t. Shot entirely from the perspective of its supernatural stalker, Johnny—complete with fire survival suit and lumber hooks—the film plays like a relaxed game of Dead by Daylight as the camera floats through scenic forests, lakes, and rental cabins. But the kills themselves are disturbingly staged, including a cliffside yoga mutilation that might even make Tom Savini throw up in his mouth a little.

If there’s one area Shudder has excelled, it’s in cherry-picking the best foreign horror. And Oddity ticks all the boxes. A home-invasion, angry spirit, witchcraft-infused monster movie, Irish writer-director Damian McCarthy’s film is uncomfortably tense from the opening scene and never lets up. Mourning the death of her twin sister, a blind medium sends a homemade “present” to her widowed brother-in-law: a wooden golem from her curiosity shoppe. Her follow-up pop-in visit sends the story into a spiral of supernatural vengeance that’s far and away one of the best movies the streamer has to offer.

If, like me, you were taught to mind your manners, always be polite, and give everyone the benefit of the doubt, this movie will fuck you up. After striking up a friendship on holiday, a Danish couple and their young daughter accept an invitation to stay at the rural home of their new acquaintances, whose odd behavior makes them regret the decision almost immediately. But courtesy prevails even as the lies begin to accumulate. With the same chilling Nordic vibe as The Vanishing, this one also earned an American remake that couldn’t quite reach the same levels of dread as the original.

Horror doesn’t always have to be depressing. In fact, One Cut of the Dead is downright inspiring as a Japanese family pitches in to pull off a one-take zombie movie and save their dad’s career. Behind-the-scenes chaos ensues when a real zombie outbreak occurs, as the cameras are rolling, a fact that the cast and crew are blissfully unaware of. Hilarious, uplifting, and full of the ragtag energy every filmmaker can identify with, this is one zombie movie whose heart is very much still beating.

A disgraced YouTuber’s attempt to revitalize his career by spending the night in Death Manor accidentally unleashes a real demon that demands a sacrifice. At the same time, subscribers ridicule his efforts to stay alive as nothing but phony special effects. A found footage comedy that cleverly thumbs its nose at our numbed social media culture, Deadstream is a one-person show for writer-director-star Joseph Winter, who skewers the current clickbait mentality so well you almost wish he had his own channel. Don’t forget to like and subscribe!

Before she hit it big with The Substance, director Coralie Fargeat staged this stunning, blood-soaked anthem to female empowerment born from the rape-revenge thrillers of the ’70s. Shoved off a cliff and left for dead, our heroine pulls a Rambo and proceeds to extract her pound of flesh from each of the overconfident alpha males who underestimated her. Masterfully shot, with echoes of French Extremism and Mad Max in equal measure, Revenge is a survival horror that rips off the #MeToo label like a Band-Aid, so you can see the scars underneath.

Exorcism movies don’t offer up much variety. Someone strapped to the furniture, speaking in tongues and spitting up pea soup has essentially been on repeat since 1973. That’s what makes When Evil Lurks so unique, reimagining possession as a plague that must be contained rather than spiritually vanquished. Set in an alternate-universe Argentina where demonic possession is governmentally regulated, one family’s attempt to rid themselves of a “rotten” winds up spreading the contagion from human to animal and back again in a circle of tragedies. Almost apocalyptic in approach, one of the film’s jump scares has already become the stuff of legends. Be prepared.

Not to be confused with the James Wan–produced film set within the Conjuring universe, this 2019 Guatemalan film was submitted by its home country for Oscar consideration. Which should tell you it’s got more than supernatural vengeance on its mind. A war criminal hiding from protestors in his palatial estate becomes convinced he’s being haunted by the spirit of a woman seeking to punish him for the genocide of her people. And as he’s slowly isolated from staff, servants, and family, the justice he escaped in one world looks to be enforced in the next. A rare breed of political horror that crosses all boundaries, La Llorona is the perfect example of horror’s ability to supersede the genre while giving you goosebumps at the same time.