New Shudder Movies in December 2024: The Best Horror Movies to Watch Right Now

Is anything good on Shudder?

Shudder is the best streaming service for horror fans. Its lovingly curated library contains hundreds of classic and new horror movies (and shows), including many originals and exclusives. The horror streaming service is so dense with worthwhile watches that choice paralysis will getcha—so we’re gonna help you find new movies on Shudder in December 2024.

For December 2024, we have premiere dates for 23 new movies and a new The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs special, which is also one of two new live watch parties.

On December 1, Shudder adds nine films from the BBC Ghost Stories for Christmas (aka A Ghost Story for Christmas) series, Jalmari Helander’s action-comedy-fantasy-horror flick Rare Exports, and Damien LeVeck’s monster movie A Creature Was Stirring.

Two weeks later on December 15, we’ll get two slashers from Alice Maio Mackay: Satranic Panic and Carnage for Christmas. Our hunch is that the latter Mackay film will debut on December 13 as part of the new The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs special, Joe Bob’s Christmas Carnage—which is one of two Shudder live watch parties in December:

Based on Alberto Corredor’s 2017 short, Baghead finds an organizationally and financially challenged young woman, Iris (Freya Allan), inheriting a pub from her absentee father (Peter Mullan).

The joint comes with a basement tenant, a wraith-like, shapeshifting creature that wears a burlap bag over its head. The pub owner is inextricably linked to the beast and can control it—to a point. Iris learns that such power can be lucrative since the creature can channel dead loved ones. There’s a catch, though: You get two minutes. Stay connected longer than that and, uh, we’ll let you see what happens.

Horror fans who grew up in the 1980s—when VHS was new—were truly blessed. We saw many great horror films, including legendary unicorn tapes like the 1978 shockumentary Faces of Death.

Alas, with Satanic panic at full tilt, we were lucky if our parents let us rent The Thing, much less this purported collection of actual death scenes. That parental rule made us even more determined to watch Faces of Death—and we found ways.

When we finally acquired this contraband, and watched it, we were thrilled and traumatized.

Barry’s a douchebag. He stalks through life looking for his next fix while his girlfriend and son live in near-poverty. One day, weary of her nagging, Barry leaves—and gets yoinked from Earth by a UFO. He’s probed, then possessed, and sent home. Except Barry’s no longer in control. Instead, an alien pilots him and gets a crash course in life on Earth. Have you ever wished that E.T. the Extraterrestrial had (a lot) more sex, drugs, and violence than warm fuzzies, Drew Barrymore, and Reese’s Pieces? If so, Ryan Kruger’s Fried Barry is just what your demented inner child ordered—with a side of John Carpenter’s Starman.

Do you like slashers? Final girls? Okay, consider this: Instead of pitting one against the other—again—Tony D’Aquino’s The Furies gamifies things.

Multiple masked maniacs and kidnapped high-school girls awaken in boxes in the Australian Outback, and you can figure out most of what happens.

The killers kill the kidnapped—but not all of ‘em. Each hulking mutant has one girl to protect from harm, so there’s some hot, gooey, slasher-on-slasher action, too. It’s a cool concept with some clever kills and a smash-the-patriarchy message.

With 31 movies in its “Giallo!” collection, Shudder is probably the best horror streaming service for the subgenre.

For the unfamiliar, giallo means “yellow” and refers to the pages of old Italian pulp novels. Giallo movies are beautifully shot, highly stylized, extra violent, kinda (totally) pervy mystery-slasher films (again, usually from Italy).

On Shudder, you can watch the best giallo ever, Dario Argento’s Deep Red (1975), and three other Argento gialli: Tenebrae (1982), Phenomena (1985), and Opera (1987). Moreover, Shudder always has a good selection of films by giallo’s other maestro, Mario Bava. There are six Bava flicks on the service, including the first giallo, 1963’s The Evil Eye (aka The Girl Who Knew Too Much), and A Bay of Blood (1971).

Do you ever wonder what Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and other slashers get up to between kills? Like do they take water or pee breaks? Pick up supplies at Home Depot? Writer/director Chris Nash’s audacious POV slasher pulls back the curtain on the mystery, revealing what we expected: Slashers are single-minded killing machines, but some—like resurrected killer Johnny (Ry Barrett)—have the soul of an artiste. Johnny, seeking to retrieve a stolen locket (with, it seems, huge sentimental value) just kinda stroll-stalks from victim to victim, taking them out in surprising ways. There’s not much more to In A Violent Nature, which is why some audiences find it slow, even boring. They’re not 100% wrong. But if you accept that you’re just a li’l birdie on Johnny’s shoulder, along for the gruesome ride, you’ll have fun.

Shudder (and AMC+, which includes Shudder) used to have all of David A. Weiner’s acclaimed ’80s horror docu-trilogy.  Then you can watch the others like prequels. Alas, at the time of writing, only the third film remains on the horror streaming service. You can rent the first part on Amazon Prime Video, but Part II is not currently streaming.

Although we’d personally prefer to watch the docs in order, it’s absolutely worth screening only Part III now.Weiner achieved something remarkable: A comprehensive horror documentary that captures the essence of ’80s horror fandom through interviews with filmmakers, cast, and crew responsible for the decade’s myriad classics (and not-so-classics).

You can’t put a condom on your soul, so what do you do when STI’s go supernatural? In David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows, you have to pass it on or die horribly by the hand of a stalker only you can see. Jay (Maika Monroe, also of God Is A Bullet and Longlegs) is a young woman who awakens after a casual hookup to learn it’s her turn—and how to play the game if she wants to live. Monroe gives an excellent performance as Jay, who tries to stay alive long enough to decide if she can live with going from victim to predator.

We’re looking forward to this fake documentary (read: found footage film) set in 1977, when Johnny Carson was still the king of late-night television. Late Night with the Devil finds host Jack Delroy looking for better ratings. To that end, he trots out a “possessed” young girl on Halloween night—and, we can safely assume, super-freaky horror hijinks ensue. This buzzy creepshow premiered a year ago at the South by Southwest Film Festival and hit U.S. theaters last weekend, supposedly grossing $666,666 on Sunday. Woooooo-oooooo. Scary. While we hope this is real news, it feels too good to be true. Let us all pray to tonight’s guest that it’s for real (because, uh . . . reasons).

Belgian filmmaker Karim Ouelhaj blends arthouse style with extreme horror and a twist of true crime in Megalomaniac. Loosely based on the Mons Butcher, who tormented Belgium in the late ‘90s and was never captured, the film follows mousy Martha (Eline Schumacher) and her psychopathic brother Felix. They’re the now-grown children of the Butcher, who we see only in flashbacks. Felix carries on their father’s brutal work; Martha provides a facade, living a normal, boring existence as a factory janitor—but she’s not entirely innocent herself—especially after she’s viciously assaulted several times at work. Here, we have the film’s big idea: violence begets violence begets violence. It’s not Pascal Laugier’s masterful Martyrs, but Megalomaniac hits some of the same markers.

If you don’t think Preacher is horror, consider what Arseface (you’ll meet him soon) thinks. But aside from that character’s tragic countenance (earned through a tragically botched suicide attempt), the series is pretty freaky.

In this series based on Garth Ennis’ kickass comic books, God abandons the world and Jesse Custer, a Texas preacher, somehow ends up with His mighty voice. Armed with his new superpower, Custer teams up with his vampire bestie and tough-as-nails girlfriend to face some genuinely vile enemies—including people from Jesse’s past and even Jesus Himself.

Early in Christian Tafdrup’s psychological horror-thriller, you sense Danish couple Bjørn and Louise should decline an invitation from the new friends they met on their Italian vacation. Soon after the couple and their daughter arrive at Patrick and Karin’s remote home in the Netherlands, you’re sure the Danes should GTFO ASAP. Yet, they balk, trying to navigate the sticky social situation where Patrick and Karin behave increasingly passive-aggressively. Each new event makes you want to scream at the screen, hoping the couple comes to their senses. Do they? Discover for yourself in this tense, unsettling film that sticks with you for some time.

Watch Speak No Evil (2022) now, then check out the American remake currently in theaters.

This Argentine film (original title: Cuando acheca la maldad) by Demián Rugna (2017’s Terrified) is the best-reviewed horror film of 2023, certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with a 98% critics’ score—and 81% audience approval.

Why is a tale of demonic possession so scary in the increasingly godless 21st century? Because it treats possession as an infectious disease. We’re all scared of death—but we’re also scared because so many of us disagreed over how to protect ourselves from infection.

Don’t sleep on this one—but you might not be able to sleep after you watch it.

• A Bay of Blood (1971)
• A Wounder Fawn (2022)
• All You Need Is Death (2024)
• The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster (2023)
• Arcadian (2024)
• Arrebato (1979)
• At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (1964)
• Attachment (2022)
• Audition (1999)
• Azrael (2024)†
• The Babadook (2014)
• Bad Moon (1994)
• Basket Case (1982)
• The Beach House (2020) 
• Black Sunday (1960)
• Blood & Black Lace (1963)
• Body Melt (1993)
• The Boys from County Hell (2020)
• Brooklyn 45 (2023)
• Candyman (1992)
• Calvaire (2004)
• Caveat (2020)
• Cemetery Man (1994)
• Chopping Mall (1986)
• The Church (1989)
• Daddy’s Head (2024)†
• Dark Glasses (2022)
• Day of the Dead (1985)
• Deadstream (2022)
• Destroy All Neighbors (2023)
• The Devil’s Bath (2024)
• Divinity (2023)
• Dog Soldiers (2002)
• Donnie Darko (2001)
• Dr. Caligari (1989)
• Evil Dead Trap (1986)
• Eight Eyes (2023)
• Exhuma (2024)
• The Exorcist III (1990)
• The Funhouse (1981)
• Ginger Snaps (2000)

• Habit (1997)
• Halloween (1978)
• Hell Hole (2024)
• Hellbender (2022)
• Hellraiser (1987) 
• Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1989)
• Horror Noire (2021)
• Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror (2019)
• The House of the Devil (2010) 
• Huesera: The Bone Woman (2023)
• Humane (2024)
• Inferno (1980)
• Infested (2024)
• Influencer (2022)
• The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs
• Kill List (2011)
• Kuso (2017)
• Loop Track (2023)
• Lux Aeterna (2019)
• Mad God (2021)
• MadS (2024)
• Mandy (2018)
• Maniac (1980)
• Mayhem (2017)
• Messiah of Evil (1973)
• The Mortuary Collection (2020)
• Mute Witness (1995)
• Nekromantik (1987)
• Night of the Bastard (2023)
• Night of the Demons (1988)
• Nightbreed (1990)
• Nightwatch (1994)
• Oddity (2024)
• One Cut of the Dead (2019)
• Opera (1987)
• The Passenger (2023, aka La Pasajera)
• The People Under the Stairs (1991)
• Perdita Durango (1997)
• Perfect Blue (1997)
• Perpetrator (2023)
• Phenomena (1985)

• Possession (1981)
• Possum (2018)
• Prom Night (1980)
• The Prowler (1981)
• Psycho Goreman (2021)
• The Queen of Black Magic (2020)
• Ringu (1998)
• The Sacrifice Game (2023)
• The Sadness (2021)
• Saloum (2022)
• Santa Sangre (1989)
• Satan’s Slaves (2017)
• Satanic Hispanics (2023)
• Scare Me (2020) 
• Scare Package (2020)
• Scare Package II: Rad Chad’s Revenge (2022)
• Skinamarink (2023)
• Skull: The Mask (2020)
• The Slumber Party Massacre (1985)
• Sorry About the Demon (2023)
• Spookies (1988)
• Starry Eyes (2014)
• Stopmotion (2024)
• The Strange World of Coffin Joe (1968)
  
• Suitable Flesh (2023)
• Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It (2022)
• The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014)
• Tenebrae (1982)
• This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse (1967)
• The Toxic Avenger series
• V/H/S/85 (2023)
• V/H/S/94 (2021)
• V/H/S/99 (2022)
• V/H/S/Beyond (2024)
• Villains (2019)
• Virus: 32 (2022)
• We Are Still Here (2015)
• Wendigo (2001) 
• Werewolves Within (2021)
• You’ll Never Find Me (2023)
• Zombie (1979)